In 2017, VR has never been more mainstream – even if it’s not quite at the smartphone-style critical mass its proponents hunger for. The once-experimental technology is quickly calcifying into a new pillar of the wider entertainment industry.
It’s become more and more common for major film, TV and other entertainment properties to launch alongside a ‘VR experience’ rather than a video game or mobile tie-in. Especially if we’re talking about genre films. Spider-Man: Homecoming did it. Ghost in the Shell did it. Over in The States, even Star Wars is doing it.
Now, in Australia, you’ve got venues like Sydney’s newly-opened Virtual Reality Rooms offering up a new, easy-access avenue for VR experiences.
Despite smartphones like the Google Pixel and the Samsung Galaxy range helping get Mobile VR into the hands of consumers, the best way to experience VR continues to be using a high-performance PC and a dedicated headset. However, the investment of time and money involved with that setup likely remains a turnoff for almost just as many.
That’s where businesses like Virtual Reality Rooms come in. It puts high-spec, clean and comfortable VR equipment and experiences into the hands of those who for whom it is often out of reach.
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Virtual Reality Rooms co-founder Christal Ho says that “virtual reality is an exciting new space and is the future, allowing you to experience and do things you never could in the real world. Most people have heard of VR and are intrigued by it, but haven’t experienced VR themselves, or it’s been very limited to basic VR equipment or experiences.”
It helps that the two experiences offered by the business – Cosmos and Mind Horror – are so multiplayer centric. Solo VR definitely has its charms – and it can make for a great starting point for learning and exploring what the technology is capable of. However, sharing the experience with friends makes for a much more memorable experiences.
Working together, you don’t just learn how to interact with the virtual world – you develop an ever-evolving and collective vocabulary for your relationship with it. The first experience (Cosmos) sees players travel into space and work together to save the earth from destruction. The second (Mind Horror) sees players travel into the subconscious of a serial killer in order to discover the location of his next would-be victim.
Source: PC World