iMyth

Month: July 2017

  • Variety’s Location Based State of the Industry

    Variety’s Location Based State of the Industry

    Here is a quick synopsis of the the Variety article, Location Based VR.

    • The folks at Variety are very excited about the Void’s new Immersive Experience called “Curse of the Serpent’s Eye”, an immersive take on the Indiana Jones theme. It will premier next month and be the second installment after the Ghost Buster’s experience. Interesting enough The Void’s Co-Founder, James Jensen, identifies that the best immersive experiences are the ones with real, physical props. CEO, Cliff Plummer is very bullish on Immersive Experience being a draw back to Malls and Movie Theaters. He says, “The studios are looking for new revenue streams. We (the Void) have one, and it’s easy for them to relate to.” The Void has also been admitted to Disney’s Accelerator Start-ups.
    • 20th Century Fox President of innovation, Salil Mehta, agrees, “We believe that location-based VR will be the way that many people experience virtual reality for the first time. It’s an incredible opportunity for us to create industry-defining immersive experiences that can’t be replicated in your living room.”
    • FoxNext is developing an “Alien” immersive experience and has invested in on of The Void’s competitors, “Dreamscape Immersive“.
    • Lionsgate Interactive Ventures and Games president Peter Levin endorsed location-based VR wholeheartedly at the recent VRTL industry conference: “We are extremely bullish on it.”
    • Paramount unveiled an immersive experience supporting “Transformers: The Last Knight”.
    • Doug Griffin, from Nomadic, says, “We’ve heard over and over from film studios that location-based is becoming part of their strategy moving forward.”
    • It seems everyone is disappointed at the rate which VR has been accepted by the public. They see location based installment, similar to those in China, as being avenues which the average person can try out the newest VR experiences without having to plop down the money to get started in VR.
    • The Imax VR experience Center is taking a little bit of a different approach as it focuses more on individual pods for participants to experience instead of the complicated setups such as the Void. They have locations in Los Angeles and  New York will be opening soon in Toronto, Manchester and Shanghai. Imax is using these installments as a soft launch before embarking on a flood over 1000s of movie theaters.
    • Problems identified are throughput and the inevitability that home VR system will get better. Similarly there is the issue of price tag. Many of the experiences vary from $30 to $15 for a 15 minute experience. Nomadic’s Griffin thinks lower prices are key to taking location-based VR mainstream. “We want to bring this medium of entertainment to neighborhoods everywhere,” he says. “We don’t charge a price that is out of reach for those smaller neighborhoods and communities.”
    • Griffon also believes by creating Modular set pieces each location will need to go through very small down time shifting experiences.Nomadic’s Griffin thinks lower prices are key to taking location-based VR mainstream. “We want to bring this medium of entertainment to neighborhoods everywhere,” he says. “We don’t charge a price that is out of reach for those smaller neighborhoods and communities.”
    • Wisely, companies such as the Void realize that content is king and are creating pipelines for producing new experiences every 3 to six months. We’ll have to see how well that pans out 🙂 Smartly they are investigating the concept of creating persistent avatars and monetizing their product tie-ins with the avatars.

  • ILMX Autonomous Interactors

    We don’t necessarily hear much from ILMX. Much like their cousin company, Imagineering, they sort of wait for a groovy time to spring a really pleasant surprise on an unsuspecting audience. I’m not at all surprised by this as ILMX shows off how it’s autonomous interactors can collaborate with participants to create to create dynamic, interactive stories. Check out this video from Fortune Magazine.

    https://www.facebook.com/FortuneMagazine/videos/10155203389867949/

    I love how the robot goes through its protocol but still responds to the participants’ inputs. That is what a true interactors should be doing. There are of course glitches such as character inter-penetration and a certain amount of latency, but that does not matter. All the participant knows is that they are dealing with another “being” in the experience and they are in the driver’s seat for creating their own immersive story experience.

     

  • Dragon Ball Z Coming to a VR Arcade Near You

    Dragon Ball Z Coming to a VR Arcade Near You

    Whether you are a fan of the Dragon Ball Z theme world or not you had better watch out because it is coming to a VR Arcade near you. While there may not be a VR arcade near at this moment in time, fear not! That issue will be remedied within the near future. But, alas, this article is about Dragon Ball Z world becoming a familiar theme in the VR world.

    The HADO Company in Japan is already well on top of things. Even as early as last IAAPA, HADO was offering a room scale MR experience where participanst could fight against monsters or against each other using a Dragon Ball Z like game motion mechanic. While not sticking strictly the the Dragon Ball Z theme world, this company has taken its own artistic licenses and created a commercially viable product of their own.

    The San Francisco based entertainment company “SCRAP Entertainment” has installed this Dragon Ball Z like experience in their San Francisco location. I am currently unaware of the details except the installation will only be available through August 31. Their location is 1746 Post Street.

    If instead of a cheap rip-off you want the real deal with officially licensed Dragon Ball Z characters then you will have to go to Japan to the Bandai Namco VR Arcade Zone in Shinjuku, Tokyo. An earlier review of this VR Arcade has already been provided in this post, Bandai Namco VR Arcade. This place is really cool. they are a 40,000 square foot, 2-floor VR arcade featuring games operating on the HTC Vive. Many of these games are integrated with motion controlled apparatus such as motion chairs and stationary bicycles. Much of their special content seems to be IP related, custom built experiences. Check out this main atrium in the facility.

    I’m sure there will be future articles describing their Mario Kart and Doreomon VR experiences but this article is devoted to the Dragon Ball Z Theme world.

    The experience is available for 2-4 players simultaneously. The crew starts off a group of new recruits in a typical martial arts training ground led by series protagonist, Goku. AFter mastering the basic the crew is teleported to an iconic, barren field where he executes a Kamehameha, made more immersive by an open-hand custom device using Vive Trackers. That’s when the battle begins, and you’re positioned at different intervals, using your training mates as target practice.

    What I think is really cool about this experience is that each participant is isolated into their own VR play space. But in the battle field their relatives positions change dynamically. The field of play has been transformed from a 40’x10′ strip to an entire battle field. This demonstrates some of the true potential VR Arcades and and immersive experiences have. I look forward seeing new additions to this already groovy attraction.

  • Follow the Money!

    Follow the Money!

    The Disney Accelerator class of 2017 was just announced and two of its newest partners are The Void and Epic Games. The details of these new partnerships have yet to be understood. Two things for sure are these relationships will include a three month mentorship in the Disney creative campus in LA and a financial investment.

    The Void has already established itself as a leader in immersive experience games. They have four operating installations open around the world. Epic Games is already a leader in the gaming world with its Unreal 4 Game editor. They have been an integral contributor to the ILMxLab Star Wars immersive experience demo.

    What Disney expects to gain from these strategic partners is anyone’s guess. They typically enroll much smaller fish for their yearly cohort. One thing that can be for sure is that Disney is very bullish on immersive experiences and is investing on two of the industries heavy weights. To me is sounds like a slam dunk for Disney and an indication that immersive/location-based experienced is where a large portion of future industry is headed.

  • Starbreeze Confirms Future of VR in Location Based Entertainment

    Starbreeze Confirms Future of VR in Location Based Entertainment

    In a a recent interview with Starbreeze Games Chief of Technology, Emmanual Marquez, Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat asks the gaming executive his thoughts on VR and where VR is headed in the near future. Starbreez overall is still very bullish with VR but not necessarily with the home enthusiasts:

    We’re doing Star VR. Since day one I knew it would be difficult to install VR in the home. We all know why. It’s expensive. You need space. It’s difficult to set up. It’s for geeks. When I created Star VR as a piece of hardware at Starbreeze—first of all, I did it because we believe in content, and I knew we could develop at the same time. We always planned to go for the arcades. I envisioned the console model. Console games grew out of the arcades. People played Pac-Man in cafes for years before consoles ever became successful as something everyone had at home. I think VR will follow the same path.

    Admittedly, many people are disappointed with the lack of progress VR has made of the last two years. iMyth has been very bullish on the Location based, Mall driven market. In fact, iMyth has never presented itself as a Game company but rather an Immersive Experience company. Here is what Marquez had to say on the subject:

    People that are disappointed by VR right now are the same people who were enthusiastic two years ago. It’s hobbyists and researchers. There are a lot of other markets, as we all know, and we work with them too, all the verticals outside of games. We know it works. We’re monitoring IMAX VR centers and stuff like that. It’s successful.

    My conclusion is that the audience isn’t necessarily gamers. It’s not the normal gaming audience. It’s anyone. It’s families out on a Sunday trying this out the same way they’d go and see a movie. It’s every age, so you need to provide an experience that works for everyone.

    When you get in the John Wick experience, you’re holding a real gun. Or not real, but it’s an exact replica. You don’t need an explanation of the game mechanics. You get in, you pick up the gun, and you shoot. It’s like going to the fair, the same principle. You play, win, lose, have fun, and come back. You rack up a leaderboard score and your friends try to beat you. Then you have an experience that people play together. The immersion becomes very social. VR is fun to play, but it’s also fun to watch and share.

    Indeed, Immersive Experiences are meant to be social experiences. However, where Starbreeze will focus more on the Esports, game driven community, iMyth will focus on the narrative seeking community. We both have different perspectives how social collaboration will happen. Regardless, that social collaboration will be one of the keep components of VR’s success.