I just encountered an interesting article written last week while I was at GDC. The article was written by Sunny Dhillon of Tech Crunch who wrote, “Mixed Realty Arcades are the next big market Opportunity – but not for VCs”. The author is still ultimately bullish for VR Technology but is concerned about the lack of content and investment opportunities for non-megacompany investment opportunities.
What really excites me about this article is he is very bullish on a new media he calls, “Mixed Reality Arcades.” This is exactly what iMyth is trying to capitalize on. He describes a little about the Void in Utah which is , at the moment, one of the leaders in the Mixed Reality front. Interesting enough he compares these ventures to the old Disney-Quest in Orlando. While he loved the idea and concept of Disney-Quest, he believes that lack of variety hurt the operation. There were not enough new, fresh experiences. This is one of the major issues which iMyth addresses. So far the major players are The Void, Zero Latency, Nomadic Labs and Dreamscape Immersive. I have not yet gone through any of The Voids experiences. My review of the Zero Latency can be found here, “Zero Latency Review.” I do not know anything aboiut Nomadic Labs or Dreamscape Immersive yet.
The writer identifies three factors which would make Mixed Reality ventures unattractive to VCs but very interested the Mega-Corporations.
The first of these factors is Intellectual Property. Only the largest of Mega-Corporations will be able to pay the hefty licensing fees associated with today’s most popular IP. While I believe this to be a valid point, we are taking iMyth in a different Direction. Just as iMyth’s name implies, we create immersive theme worlds. This means we create world which already have somewhat of a proven following. Of course this implies the most recent and popular theme worlds. However, which is more interesting, especially at iMyth’s beginning, is the myriad of pre-existing theme worlds which have already proven themselves and have demonstrated timeless shelf life. iMyth has already established theme worlds based on Lovecraft and the mythology of Santa Clause. Just as Disney built an empire on the shoulders of classic IP, so will iMyth.
The next factor is Real Estate. This is a very important as the price of real estate can make or break an opperation. The only factor of any real importance is being located in areas of high traffic and exposure. However, I feel accessable locations will be just as important. Quite often areas of high traffic are challenging to access forcing visitors to participate only on special occasions. Imyth wishes to make the immersive experience a regular activity. iMyth’s theme worlds will be broken into multiple episodes. The average time of an iMyth experience is around twenty minutes. In order to experience a full length experience, participants will be invited to participate multiple times.
The final factor is maintenance. This is a very real factor that has to be considered. Having multiple participant consistently moving through the experience will cause great wear and tear on the physical components. Not much can be done immediately in this area. However, as the medium develops, iMyth can work with manufactures to design its own take on the equipment which will be simple but sturdy variations of existing hardware. It is not iMyth’s intention to be in the component manufacturing business. However, if necessity demands that more sturdy, crowd proof solutions are required then that is an avenue that must be explored.
I am very encouraged by the author’s optimistic view of the potential of Mixed Reality Arcades, or Immersive Experiences. However, with enough out of the box and practical thinking, I believe this can be turned into a very successful market.
