Learn by Experiencing Animals and Dinosaurs with AI Friends
Rewards Provided for Completing Quizzes and Missions
[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] LG Uplus announced on the 23rd that it will launch the open beta version of 'KidsTopia,' a metaverse service specialized for the Alpha generation, by the end of this month. The Alpha generation refers to those born between the early 2010s and the mid-2020s.
KidsTopia is a new type of metaverse service tailored for the Alpha generation. The service name is a compound of ‘Kids’ and ‘Utopia,’ meaning ‘a wider ideal world where children can safely and freely play.’
The goal of KidsTopia is to create a metaverse world where users can express their individuality by creating their own avatars, enjoy vivid themed experience spaces with online friends, and naturally learn by interacting with AI friends and solving quizzes.
First, avatars are sub-characters representing users active in KidsTopia. Users can customize their avatars with over 10 options each for skin color, face shape, eyes, nose, mouth, hair, and hair color, resulting in more than 10,000 possible combinations to express their unique personality. Over 200 customization items such as clothes, socks, shoes, accessories, and emotions are also provided, with new items released monthly.
The virtual space consists of two experience zones: the ‘Central Plaza,’ which users automatically enter upon logging into the metaverse, the ‘Zoo,’ featuring 30 rare animals rendered with lifelike forms and motions, and the ‘Dinosaur World,’ which recreates the Mesozoic natural environment and 11 species of dinosaurs.
The Central Plaza is a space where friends can meet and explore together, supporting up to 100 simultaneous users. Users can communicate through avatars, enjoy various activities such as camping, snowball fights, a Ferris wheel, and dance stages, and shop for various customization items.
Connected to the Central Plaza, the Zoo and Dinosaur World are spaces for learning about animals and dinosaurs. Users can ask AI friends questions about animals or dinosaurs via voice, and the AI friends provide answers. After the experience, users can review related knowledge by solving approximately 1,200 quizzes.
The AI friends include LG Uplus’s characters ‘Yuppi and Friends’ and ‘Holman.’ There are four types: ‘AI Yuppi,’ who guides various activities and experience spaces in the Central Plaza and is available for free conversation; ‘AI Pinky,’ which provides customized quizzes for each experience space; ‘AI Connie,’ which helps improve vocabulary through word chain games; and ‘AI Holman,’ which answers questions about unknown English words and sentences.
To motivate its main users, children, KidsTopia offers rewards for solving quizzes and completing missions, and sets the next goals. Rewards include gems that can be used to purchase avatar customization items in the shop, avatar items, a pictorial book filled by solving quizzes, and challenges that grant badges and titles upon mission success in each experience space.
As parents’ values regarding education shift toward play and learning using digital technology, digital content is rapidly emerging as a tool to cultivate new learning habits in children. According to the Korea Edutech Industry Association, the domestic edutech market revenue in 2021 was approximately 7.325 trillion KRW, with an average annual growth rate of 8.5%, expected to expand to 9.9833 trillion KRW by 2025.
Considering that the Alpha generation is regarded as the fastest adopter of changes in the digital content industry, LG Uplus plans to combine metaverse and AI technologies to provide new customer values such as ‘learning about a new world,’ ‘curiosity through active experiences,’ and ‘play in a free manner.’ To this end, the company will continuously expand various experiential content and popular characters that children enjoy, reflect customer feedback, and review official commercialization in the third quarter of this year.
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