Seoul gets new VR theme park

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South Korean telecommunications company KT Corp and GS Retail have jointly launched their second virtual reality (VR) theme park VRIGHT, near the main gate of Konkuk University in eastern Seoul today.

The new park features some 30 new games, rides and immersive experiences in partnership with leading Korean game developers, including Smilegate and Appnori. Each activity or room will be priced from 5,000 won (US$4.50) to 49,000 won per use or hour.

This new VR park is KT Corp’s second venture

Koh Yoon-Jeon, chief of KT’s future business development unit, shared: “We will strengthen partnerships with content creators, simulator manufacturers and other small and medium-sized enterprises at home and abroad.”

VRIGHT combines KT’s latest information and communication technologies (ICT) – including fifth-generation (5G) networks, VR and augmented reality (AR) – with GS Retail’s expertise in operating offline retail spaces and its distribution business.

KT targets an annual revenue of 100 billion won for its VR business by 2020, when the country’s immersive media market is expected to hit one trillion won.

In March, KT and GS Retail opened their first joint venture VRIGHT in Sinchon, near Yonsei University in western Seoul. The two-floor theme park has attracted more than 18,000 visitors since it opened. The Sinchon park has offers VR room activities and attractions including “Special Force VR: Universal War,” a first-person shooting game, and HADO, a multi-player AR dodge ball game.

The telecommunications company is set to open more VRIGHT parks this year under its direct management. The company also plans to franchise its VR entertainment business next year, after developing a business model to sell its VR content and platforms to individual operators in both South Korea and overseas.

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