The 18th Floor, a room-escape game, features different immersive scenes created by the virtual reality technology. (Photo provided to China Daily)
In the second half of the year, many venture capitalists stopped funding unprofitable virtual reality projects.
"We have witnessed the in and out of the capital, but we think it is not the winter for VR industry itself. The technology has been advancing steadily in the past year," says Zhang.
The government has also pushed to popularize virtual reality games.
The National Electronic Sports Tournament held by General Administration of Sport of China included seven virtual reality games in its e-sports competition last year. After three months of preliminary contests in 14 cities, 42 contestants made it into the final in Xiamen, Fujian province.
But the virtual reality gaming industry is still waiting for its killer apps - ones with the appeal of Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies - that could make virtual reality a must for every household.
One possible candidate is Raw Data, a sci-fi action combat game, which became the first virtual reality game to gross $1 million in a month after being released in July.
Its creator, California-based virtual reality company Survios, disclosed in December that it raised $50 million in funding last year.
James Iliff, co-founder of Survios, thinks the release of many hardware options with various features in the last year has created a lot of confusion for content producers.
"Many people are asking: What is the key to make VR successful?" said Iliff at a conference in Beijing last month.
"What we realize is that this is the wrong question to ask - VR itself is the key. The question we should be asking is: What are we unlocking? What doors are we opening?"
The three-day conference Iliff attended was held by a Chinese technology forum, Geek Park, and half of the second day was devoted to virtual reality.
"VR is the next step in a very long history of art and entertainment," he says, "from the scribblings of pictures on the wall of a cave to theater and photography, radio, television .... And now, we are creating our own simulations."
"What does VR unlock? It unlocks human experience - it gives us the opportunity to expand ourselves," Iliff tells an audience of around 500 people.
"If you had a thousand lives to live, what would you do? Would you be an astronaut, a knight with shining armor, or a speed racer? What character would you be? What goal would you want to achieve?"
"In a way, a virtual reality experience is like a miniature reincarnation - a small life that you get to live. It allows us to learn, to grow, and to evolve ourselves."
