iMyth

Tag: Nomadic

  • 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.
  • State of VR Arcades

    State of VR Arcades

    I just bumped into an interesting article today written by Ian Sherr for CNET talking about his experiences with VR Arcades. VR Arcades are very similar to what iMyth is trying to create. The big difference is that the VR Arcade are positioning for smaller term, fast experiences where as iMyth is striving for longer episodic experiences. VR Arcades such as the IMAX VR Arcade have already made a presence in Los Angeles and are opening another facility in New York in the near future.  Companies such as Dreamscape Interactive will be joining in the competition in the very near future.

    The author goes on to describe his experience with Nomadic VR. I documented  Nomadic a couple of months ago. Nomadic is positioning itself to create Turn-key systems based on theatrical props and sets borrowed from the movie industry. They are looking for industry partners but only if your are big enough to register a blip on their screen :). Sherr believes that location based experiences such as IMAX, Dreamscape and Nomadic will be the big winners with the advent of the VR Arcade. SO far VR has failed to capture the dollars of the mass public. Could VR Arcades be the answer? I believe so!

    There are some cynics to be sure. Sean Kelley, an associate at investment and advisory company The Rain Group, said while his firm has made bets on entertainment and live events, it’s not yet convinced VR arcades are going to be a big draw. “The biggest issue with these VR arcades is not demand or content or whether the experience is cool, it’s throughput,” he said. There are already signs some arcade chains are failing, and part of that is because they just don’t make enough money, he added. “You have to put enough people through.” Throughput is very much a problem. I believe the answer to this is creating a higher end product with a far greater production value than be achieved in the home. In my opinion, “High-End” VR is better than no VR and people will be will to pay for experiences outside of the box.

  • Nomadic

    Nomadic

    This is starting to get a bit comical. It seems everywhere you look there is new immersive experience company sprouting. Not more than two days ago I blogged about Knott’s Berry Farm entering the immersive experience game. Now I am reporting the emergence of yet another company called Nomadic. This time, instead of a location based experience, the Nomadic folks are focusing on the physical environment itself. This is a very cool concept. I will have to reach out to them to explore opportunities for partnership.

    Tech-wise, it looks like they are employing the typical Optitrack setup as a turn key VR experience station. This will be very interesting to see how they pull of objects such as doors, walls and windows which may occlude the line of sight of the optical cameras. Also what should be explored is the possibility of partnering with piecemeal items instead of an entire “turnkey” system, similar to the one offered by Zero Latency.

    Nomadic isn’t the first company to add physical cues to virtual reality experiences. But the company does have a novel concept of getting these kinds of experiences out in the marketplace. Instead of building and operating its own VR locations, Nomadic wants to partner with bigger players that already have a lot of real estate at their disposal and are now looking for the next big thing to retain and monetize audiences. Think mall operators, theater chains and the likes.

    The Nomadic website gives a good indication of the makeup of the company. I recognize many of the names from days at Electronic Arts. It seems like they have a very solid team in the works. I hope some kind of partnership can be reached.