Market Snapshot: Games and VR Installations

Market Snapshot: Games and VR Installations

VR Form Factors, Market Demand and Opportunities

Over at Replay Mag Bob Cooney did a wonderful look at current market offerings in the VR space. Some shortcomings of these products detail exactly why we developed Sektor: to deliver unteathered VR while avoiding repetitive shooting galleries, all in an enclosure form factor. Let’s look at a bit of his article and compare:

“Multiple virtual reality products on the market that seem to be earning for operators. Hologate, distributed in North America by Creative Works, launched to unprecedented success for a new company at IAAPA this past year. The 4-player tethered VR system debuted with two games: a competitive game that looks a bit like Tower Tag (learn more about this further down), but I feel isn’t quite as polished or fun and lacks an appropriate first-time user experience, and a co-op wave shooter called Simurai, which I have panned in my reviews. It is chaotic, lacks any sense of peril, and after a few minutes feels like a shooting gallery.”

Hologate VR (marketed in the States by Creative Works) in operation at Adventure Park USA.

We couldn’t agree more. The Hologate experience is too repetitive for high replay traffic. And if you play with less than 4 players the experience is just more flimsy. The gameplay is linear so it lacks replay value because of the design approach. To combat this we cater to titles with dynamic gameplay on Sektor. The variables are limitless since the game mechanics rely on either your real life opponent, or on game mechanics that aren’t “on rails”. Speaking of being “on rails” another trend we’re seeing is the “VR Ride”. Let’s see Bob’s take on the newest VR offering from LAI/Ubisoft to outline the issues there:

“Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride is a 2-player motion simulator from LAI Games and Ubisoft, where riders strap on an HTC Vive headset and get bounced around on a DBox motion base, as they careen down a virtual roller coaster-like experience. The product is positioned as not requiring an attendant, but your mileage may vary. Several operators I’ve spoken to have been happy with the product and its earnings. It doesn’t come with much replay value in my opinion, as it’s more of a ride-along experience lacking interactive game play, but that seems to be the story for most of the early VR products: they feel more like virtual reality technology demos than true immersive games. But at this time, there’s a place for that in the market.”

Operators seem pleased with the earnings of the attendant-less VIrtual Rabbids: The Big Ride from LAI. It’s not interactive VR, but shows how interested consumers are in the technology.

These linear experiences are a nice intro to VR, but the most successful arcade games of all time have one thing in common: dynamic gameplay. Weather you’re going for a new method to achieve a high score or smashing an opponent in a fighter, replay value is key to lasting games in your arcade. If your VR game is stuck on a loop you can bet that your customers will try it once and only once. We’re here to smash those limitations and be the attraction that keeps customers coming back for more.

Challenges

Let’s talk about one of our key advantages on the market - attract mode. The spectacle of your game is paramount to drawing in new players and our competitors do very little to telegraph the VR experience to the spectators. Let’s get Bob’s take on this problem:

“One of the biggest challenges facing location-based VR is creating a better spectator experience. Most locations tap into the video feed and show on a TV or projector what the player is seeing, but that first-person view doesn’t really give much context of what’s happening.

Some locations have installed green screens in the VR booths, and using cameras and old-school chromakey effects, can pull the player’s full body image out of the booth and project them into the virtual environment. This allows viewers to see the player in the game, and it creates a really wonderful spectator experience. But greenscreens are garishly ugly, and most FEC operators aren’t going to want them in their beautiful facilities.”

Mixcast VR, a product of Blueprint Reality, uses an Intel RealSense depth-sensing camera (not a green screen) to put the player’s body into the virtual environment of the game. (That’s a player encountering the “Plank Experience” below.) It’s not on… — Mixcast VR, a product of Blueprint Reality, uses an Intel RealSense depth-sensing camera (not a green screen) to put the player’s body into the virtual environment of the game. (That’s a player encountering the “Plank Experience” below.) It’s not only a sharable experience for the participant (via social media and streaming), it’s also fun for spectators, something that’s lacking in most VR attractions today.

We offer a large, eye-level monitor array and use 3rd person cameras to help telegraph the experience. We also offer a Mixed Reality solution to place the player into the video feed. With games like Hologate and Chaos Jump they utilize only a few small monitors for spectators to observe the action. They’re mounted very high off the ground so there’s no real sense of what the players are actually doing or what the experience is like. So you’re craning your neck up to screens ten feet of the ground to get a view of the gameplay (it’s even more difficult for kids to view), and that’s not ideal despite several VR companies offering this solution.

Doing it Right

There are a handful of location-based VR experiences on the market (LBE) such as The Void. These LBEs are fully wireless experiences, and that’s the key word - experiences. They’re sold as an experience, not as just VR. They’re more immersive, longer, and deeper games than you’ll get with an enclosure system, but those things come with a lot of considerations. LBEs are in very large dedicated spaces, and require the player to wear a heavy backpack PC. Also these experiences cost more for the player and aren’t designed for replay value. Plus they’re typically made for strictly 4 player groups which is a limiting factor for smaller parties or casual players.

Sektor utilizes wireless technology for high fidelity VR that offers the freedom you usually only get with an LBE along with the flexible gameplay of enclosure systems. That means your players will have dynamic free-movement experiences without the need for a dedicated warehouse space. All while you enjoy the price point of an enclosure system that has unmatched attract features.