Secrets of Universal Studio's success

Universal Studio in Los Angeles has become a popular tourist area after turning into a theme park in 1984 from a filming site. Its competitive edge comes from providing unique experience to visitors by applying various information and communication technologies to popular contents. For example, there are amusement facilities with motif taken from blockbuster movies, such as "The Transformers" and animation movie "The Simpsons," where people can feel as if they are in the very scene of the movie. This is attributable to the convergence of 3D and virtual reality technologies with content.

Global competition is intensifying for the development of culture content and IT converged products, with the U.S. demonstrating the most cutting-edge technology. This is due to the U.S. having many Hollywood produced popular movies and high technological capabilities.

Since the release of the 3D movie "Avatar" in 2009 that alarmed the world, TV programs in Korea that used 3D glasses to show off 3D effects have gained popularity. However, the boom quickly subdued. "Popularity faded as Korean companies lacked production capability for 3D movies," an official at the Science, ICT and Future Planning Ministry said. "People can manage to enjoy movies in a theater by wearing 3D glasses for about two hours, but it's not easy to wear them for a long time when watching TV."

Nevertheless, the government believes Korea can yield good results in this field on the back of many Korean Wave contents that are already very popular in Southeast Asia and other places. Taking lessons from the past, the government is planning to spearhead developing content and IT-converged infrastructure. The Future Ministry and the Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry also joined hands to nurture future growth engines in next-generation games using virtual reality technologies, screen X that displays films on three screens, and IT-applied theme parks. The Future Ministry will offer related technologies and the Culture Ministry will develop contents, as part of a convergence strategy.

The virtual reality and augmented reality market will grow into around 150 billion dollars by 2020, and private-led investments into this field are also increasing in Korea. The Korea VR Industry Association was established in September last year, while Samsung Electronics is developing headmount displays that can enable people enjoy virtual reality contents.