Unique Good Company, which provides a metaverse 'Real World' service that allows users to see and enjoy tourist destinations at home and abroad, is rapidly emerging as a new leading player in the Korean tourism industry.
Unique Good Company, co-founded by CEOs InHyuk Song and Eun Young Lee, is a hot topic, having been designated as the Tourism Venture of the Year by the Korea Tourism Organization for the past three years.
Today, we met with co-CEO InHyuk Song to learn about Real World serviced by Unique Good Company, and to hear about the direction of the tourism industry.
Q. Why are people passionate about Real World?
- If you want to bring people together, if you want to fill the empty offline space with content and make it a playground for people, I would suggest trying Real World. It is easy to expose messages through social media and induce likes. But getting people to look inside and get involved in person is really hard. What if you could get people to flock, if you could hold people back for a long time, if you could make their experience as fun as a game? What if we could turn ordinary everyday spaces such as shopping malls, downtown areas, museums, and schools into theme parks where exciting adventures await? The answer is Real World, and I think that's the reason why users are drawn to it.
Q. I heard that Real World has various contents that users can enjoy.
- Real World provides more than 4,000 pieces of leisure content that allows you to enjoy stories that you can enjoy by yourself, as well as more enjoyable and immersive experiences the more you play together. Even if you go outdoors, you can enjoy adventurous tourism in over 250 locations across the country as if you were the protagonist in a movie. Thanks to this, Real World is enjoyed by more than 1 million cumulative people and was also selected as the MZ generation trend in 2022.
Q. What was the background for establishing the company?
- We all want to be the protagonists in the world. From a young age, watching exciting adventure films like Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code, I grew up dreaming that one day I could be the main character in such a wonderful world. I developed software since elementary school and continued to develop these thoughts as I built my career as a developer until my first job. It was with this dream that I started a business.
Q. What kind of services does Unique Good Company provide?
- I am working on 'making imagination a reality and making it experience'. Our service 'Real World' is an interactive storytelling platform where you play the main character and tell interesting stories. Also, with an authoring tool called Real World Studio, you can easily create immersive experiences and publish them on your channel without any programming knowledge.
Q. Did you say that the company atmosphere is unique as it leads the emerging technology market?
- There is a saying that the best welfare is the best colleague, but the members of Unique Good Company are truly unique and good. Many members are sincere in their worldview, so they often mistake the cities, people, and events they created for them as they exist in real life.
Q. What is the most difficult part of starting a company?
- It was even more frustrating when the metaverse craze blew up recently. The key is not the means of the 'meta', but the story of the 'universe'. Although I worked hard to make a virtual reality map, people didn't actually find it, and it seems that most people are approaching it from the wrong point of view so it is an abandoned space now.
Q. What is the goal of Unique Good Company?
- I want to provide a means to bring my imagination into reality and to invite people there to act. I want to create a means that can be developed not only for leisure and games, but also as a means for people to take an interest in and directly participate in various social problems in the world and realize a collective impact.
To this end, we aim to achieve 1 million global creators within three years.
<Unique Good Company Career Details>
2022 Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Commendation (Minister's Award)
2021 Selected as the Tourism Venture of the Year by the Korea Tourism Organization for 3 consecutive years (‘19 Minister’s Award, ‘20 President’s Award,’ ‘21 President’s Award)
2021 Shinhan Square Bridge Hero IR Grand Prize
2021 Selected as a KOTRA Global 300 Company
2019 Selected as a companion company for the Nordic Economic Delegation on the Presidential Tour
2020 Social Venture Innovation Competition Grand Prize
2019 Korea-Osaka Innovation Forum OIH Award
2019 Seoul Tourism Startup Grand Prize
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