Former NetEase vice president Shao Yun and former Muti CEO Yuan Jing invested in a UGC world simulator.

Today, according to an exclusive report by Anyong Waves, the AI interactive entertainment platform "Mujian" has recently completed two consecutive rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount reaching tens of millions of dollars. These two rounds of financing were led by Jinqiu Fund and Yunjiu Capital respectively. In the impressive list of follow - on investors, two names with significant influence in the gaming industry emerged: Shao Yun, the former vice - president of NetEase, and Yuan Jing, the former CEO of Moonton Technology.

The "Mujian" they invested in is not a traditional game development company, but an AI interactive entertainment platform targeting the "UGC world simulator".

It's not uncommon for industry veterans with big - company backgrounds to invest in small teams. This has been a major trend in the gaming industry in the past two years. For example, Coreesports participated in the GDC event in recent days and saw many representatives from Tencent, NetEase, and Mihoyo having in - depth exchanges with small - team developers on - site, hoping to achieve deeper cooperation in the future. We also mentioned this point in our article "Crayfish Won't Replace Gamers, but the AI Shockwave Is More Powerful Than Expected" published yesterday.

Shao Yun and Yuan Jing's decision to heavily invest in the UGC track at this time is based on a clear industry judgment: UGC is evolving from an "optional feature" in games to a "must - have", and may even become the content infrastructure for the next generation of interactive entertainment.

Looking back at the past two years, the UGC ecosystem in the domestic gaming industry has shown astonishing explosive power. According to industry observations, the DAU of Tencent's "Oasis Origin" in "Peacekeeper Elite" has exceeded 33 million. The monthly revenue of a single UGC gameplay like "Cultivating Immortality by Taking Pills" can reach over 20 million yuan. The number of creators of NetEase's "Egg Party" has exceeded 50 million. Mihoyo's "Thousand Star Realm" mode in "Genshin Impact" attracted tens of thousands of creators soon after its launch, with the cumulative number of playtimes exceeding 100 million. The overseas UGC market has been developing for many years, and just Roblox alone has a DAU of over 141 million.

This drastic change in consumer habits has forced the game content supply model to be innovated. The traditional DLC update model can never keep up with the consumption speed of players.

Therefore, UGC has become the only solution - it means returning the right of creation to the community, allowing those "unsatisfied" players to become content producers while consuming content. The financing of "Mujian" by these two industry veterans coincides with the critical point of the transformation of the UGC market positioning.

Since leaving NetEase at the end of 2024, Shao Yun's movements have been the focus of the industry. He is the person who trained many division heads at NetEase and was in charge of ace products such as "Egg Party", "Rules of Survival", and "After Tomorrow". After half a year of silence, on December 12, 2025, Shao Yun founded Solaris (Shanghai) Management Consulting Co., Ltd., aiming to participate in the industry in a more open and in - depth way.

Shao Yun once keenly observed in the podcast "405 Gaming Bureau" he participated in: Contemporary players are becoming extremely "atomized" and "polarized", and their content consumption speed is astonishing. In the past, players needed to spend dozens of hours experiencing game content in person, but now, with the help of streamer edits and short - videos, they can finish watching 10 - minute content in just 2 minutes.

This concept coincides with the positioning of "Mujian" as an "AI interactive entertainment" and "UGC world simulator". Shao Yun is not simply making an investment; it's more like he is looking for a practical ground for his concept of "native AI gameplay". He believes that if every player's terminal can support AI models, the game experience will change dramatically.

Yuan Jing has also kept a low profile since leaving Moonton. Yuan Jing is good at building globally influential products from scratch and has a deep understanding of user communities. The strong investment background of "Mujian" may indicate that the project has a potential global vision from the very beginning - after all, both UGC and world simulators have been proven by Roblox and "Minecraft" in the overseas market to be huge ecosystems that can cross cultural barriers.

The current UGC community is in a period of "intense collision between ideals and reality", which may also be an excellent time to invest.

On the one hand, creators are highly enthusiastic. UGC creation is shifting from "professional" to "popular", and AI is empowering "one - person companies" (or "super individuals"). Many UGC platforms have integrated the latest AI tools. Under the cultivation of the platform environment, old UGC players have now grown into a new generation of developers. In the future, for small - scale and low - precision games, the gap between developers and players may become increasingly blurred.

On the other hand, the dilemmas faced by creators are also prominent. The domestic UGC ecosystem is facing the test of "instant gratification". The traffic distribution mechanism favors "short, flat, and fast" skit - level content, which means that teams willing to spend months polishing long - form plot - based works often have to create out of passion. At the same time, players' payment habits still need to be cultivated. Most of the revenue is concentrated in the hands of a very small number of top creators, and most mid - level and lower - level creators are still exploring ways to survive.

"Mujian" is targeting this pain point by entering the market at this time. Its labels of "AI +" and "world simulator" indicate that it may try to further lower the creation threshold through AI technology - not only allowing players to use materials, but also enabling AI - assisted generation of plot scripts, terrain designs, and even interaction logic.

The participation of Shao Yun and Yuan Jing brings not only capital but also a wealth of experience in product refinement, community operation, and large - scale commercialization verification.

For "Mujian", this is the most crucial external support for its development from scratch.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Coreesports" (ID: Coreesports), written by Xiong Dongdong, and published by 36Kr with authorization.