2017 was a VR-heavy year, and the last few months have been more highly-saturated than ever before. Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One (a movie based on the novel of the same name, which takes place in a future where humans spend most of their time in VR) was unveiled. Fallout 4 VR (arguably the most-hyped and most ambitious VR game to date in terms of graphical-fidelity-at-scale and sheer breadth of experience offered) and a slew of other Triple-A VR titles like LA Noire: The VR Case Files were released. HTC, Oculusand newcomers like Pimax announced new, more advanced hardware peripherals. And the Holidays brought VR access to a brand new wave of consumers thanks to a wide array of holiday deals proffered by hardware makers.
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Perhaps the best current example of branded VR content, Google Earth VR
All this is not to say that amazing VR brand engagement isn’t already happening, though. Indeed, some of it is happening right now without the awareness of brands at all. On VR social applications like VRChat, a massively multiplayer online social platform home to thousands of unique virtual worlds, users can create their own environments to play around in, and their own avatars to represent themselves. You can be whoever or whatever you want, wherever you want.
Many of VRChat’s users push this ideal to amazing, absurdist and often hysterical extremes- you need only check YouTube for proof, or better yet download the game for yourself. Sometimes, these environments and avatars are based on content from brands, most often things like video games and anime shows. Talking about Pokémon with fellow fans on a text-based internet forum is one thing. Talking about Pokémon in a massively multiplayer online Pokémon environment, with other people represented by Pokémon avatars, in virtual reality, is something else entirely.
It’s not a coincidence that a solid chunk of the aforementioned trailer for Ready Player One is stuffed with references to existing media and content brands & franchises- the movie’s hypothetical online metaverse looks a lot like VRChat (and this isn’t a coincidence; the latter is filled with references to the former). The burgeoning VR social platform had a fantastic year in 2017, as evidenced by Google Trends and, recently, Twitch’s most-streamed games page.
VRChat’s growth in popularity through the holiday season has been nothing short of exponential, arguably thanks to features by huge internet figures like JonTron and VideoGameDunkey, and an increase in new VR hardware ownership thanks to the holidays. Interest in VR as a whole seems to have skyrocketed in the last two months if Google Trends is to be believed.
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What some might refer to as a “tipping point”
Last month, AdWeek published an article discussing how big brands are already gearing up for this brave new world. From high-end automakers like Cadillac using VR for virtual car showrooms, to Walmart investigating the technology to “enhance ‘the contextual shopping experience,’” many marketers have their eyes on the new tech.
On top of this, the article makes a valuable contention that most people aren’t thinking about yet- the biggest piece of the VR puzzle that no one has truly implemented yet is artificial intelligence. From procedurally-generated environments that are tailored to a user’s preferences, to AI-driven characters in said environments that can hold conversations with users, the best and most immersive content in VR is truly yet to come.
VR content has already been shown to offer stronger emotional connections than content on traditional screens. In many ways, our current era of VR is not unlike the dawn of film. The medium is still so new that many users are still as thoroughly immersed as the mythical early moviegoers running out of the theater as the train neared the screen during the first showings of Auguste and Louis Lumière’s 1896 short L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat. There are countless reaction videos online that attest to this phenomenon, and as the technology gets more sophisticated and immersive, this level of engagement may only increase.
Especially in our current era of 2d screen over-saturation, where the average American spends over 12 hours a day consuming content, VR offers something entirely new. In some ways it’s a step deeper into digital dependency, but in other, arguably more meaningful ways it’s a return to the original promise of the internet- a new medium to experience beauty and truth, a limitless world where you can create meaningful connections and experiences with others in ways previously incomprehensible. This, more than anything, is the future of brand engagement in VR.
Source: Medium