(Yicai Global) Sept. 7 -- ZQGame’s shares soared 20 percent after the Chinese video games developer set out plans to create a simulation based on the metaverse concept.

ZQGame [SHE:300052] ended at CNY9.84 (USD1.52) today after having fallen in recent months following government efforts to tackle gaming addiction among minors. At the close of trading, the Shenzhen-based company was worth CNY2.13 billion (USD329 million).

The metaverse, a 3D world that players explore as avatars, is becoming a new buzzword among internet firms. ZQGame plans to use it with the new game to take players back to China 100 years ago and make them winery operators. What is different from previous games is that ZQGame will cooperate with a real winery, so players can actually get the wine they make in the game world, it said via WeChat yesterday.

The concept of the metaverse was first created by American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, describing a future in which people communicate with each other in the form of virtual avatars in an immersive digital world.

In an earnings call on July 29, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced that he wanted the social media giant to become a metaverse company in the next five years, boosting the popularity of the concept among internet companies and investors.

Editor: Tom Litting