iQIYI Continues to Deliver Immersive Viewing Experience with Drama "The Lord of Losers"

Hitting High Participation Rate

iQIYI, an innovative market-leading online entertainment service in China, announced on Jul. 5 the latest released interactive drama series The Lord of Losers had achieved high audience participation rate. From interactive dramas to participatory variety shows and XR concerts, iQIYI continues to push the boundary of participation with rich choices of plots and immersive settings.

It further demonstrates iQIYI's commitment to employing ever-evolving technology to enhance user experience and forge greater connection between the audience and the content.

Wider choices and more immersive experience

Released on Jun. 18 under iQIYI's LAUGN ON Theatre, The Lord of Losers is a sitcom featuring the office life of young professionals. In the interactive fifth episode "Virtual Partner," audience are invited to help make choices for the leading character as he experiences the company of the virtual character during the epidemic.

Viewers can choose the clothes for the virtual character as well as decide a major storyline. The episode has 15 optional settings with 22 achievements for the audience to accomplish in total. In addition to a wider variety of choices than existing interactive dramas, the episode has equipped each different possible ending with a unique theme song in an attempt to present more complete and immersive storytelling.

The innovative features resulted in 93% audience participation rate and an average user viewing time of over 30 minutes.

The Lord of Losers marks iQIYI's latest interactive drama series with ever-evolving features, after the likes of the first interactive drama series in the industry titled His Smile in 2019, and the widely anticipated title iPartment Season 5 in 2020.

Laying the foundation with technology

In May 2019, iQIYI introduced the Interactive Video Guideline (IVG), the world's first such framework, and Interactive Video Platform (IVP), to help content creators develop high-quality interactive entertainment experiences more conveniently and efficiently, from concept development to plot-setting.

"The guideline not only lays a good foundation for the industry, but also reduces iQIYI's cost of configuring interactive content across its ever-expanding array of content," said a representative of Interactive Content at IQIYI.

"With growing cases and experience, the content team will be able to transplant existing settings to emerging content and employ IVP with less support from technical teams," said the representative, adding some of the interactive capabilities from The Lord of Losers have been reused in the trailer for The Detectives' Adventures 2.

In addition to dramas, iQIYI has applied interactive functions to different areas, including variety shows and XR concerts. The variety show Game of Shark introduced the Shark Mode, allowing users to directly take on the identity of a character and join their favorite celebrities in collecting hidden clues and identifying the murderer. Meanwhile, iQIYI launched in March 2021 its THE9 "X-City" extended reality (XR) concert. Backed by its cutting-edge XR technologies and interactive video technology, the concert brought to life the high level of immersion and real-time interaction between THE9 and their fans.

ZHENG Xiaoyi, Vice President of iQIYI, emphasized the vital role interactive features play in offering enhanced user experience and building a well-connected community. "iQIYI will continue to develop IP content as a core business strategy, to create a fully immersive interactive experience with technology, to build stronger bond with audience with digital assets, and to build a new social universe based on users' interests."