Hand tracking VR as a technology doesn’t often appear on the radar. Leap Motion, a pioneer in hand tracking, was poised to kill the mouse and keyboard and raised $50 million in 2017. It was rumoured that Apple wanted to buy it, but eventually, the company was acquired recently by a rival company named Ultrahaptics. Now under Ultraleap, they’ve joined forces to facilitate engaging, natural spatial interaction between people and machines. For now, it’s hard to say what will be the big thing from them. An AR headset for $100? A controller combining hand tracking and mid-air haptics? Or both?
Oculus launched hand tracking for Oculus Quest last month, with Navah Berg, a social VR influencer tried it and told VRScout, “Removing controllers makes the experience so much more real because moving freely without equipment in your hands gives you the feeling of freedom and ultimate reality.” At the same time, Ben Lang from Road to VR says it’d be better for casual input.
Does it mean it’s not for gaming purposes? It may look like that, but in fact, it’s the opposite.
Now you can bring your non-gamer friends and family
Casual is good when we’re talking about out-of-home entertainment. Amusement parks and attractions appeal to a much broader audience than videogames or arcade venues. And this kind of audience — the kids, the teenagers, the moms and dads, the elders, groups of friends and colleagues — is much more like the mobile games audience (as the opposite to PC gamers). They love casual games. They love to be entertained and amused. And they don’t want to work hard to make it happen. And hand tracking is as easy as entertaining.
So you can invite your old folks or friends and colleagues with no videogame experience. Acting with bare hands is the most intuitive thing to do, so it’d be easy for them to adapt.
Jorge Torales, CEO at Torch VR, a VR park in Prague, the Czech Republic said: “When people grab controllers, they are like ‘Ah, okay, this is a videogame’. And when they see their hands in VR thanks to hand tracking tech, they are like ‘Wow, I’m actually inside the game right now. Shortly followed by the realization that their friends and family are there with them”
On top of that, people expect something special when they deal with hand tracking. Olga Glagoleva, an owner of ‘Outreality’ VR centre located in a small Russian city, says that a group of customers declined to play any VR title with controllers because they ‘didn’t come here to play videogames, and were promised to visit an attraction’.
What you can actually do in the game?
In videogames developed by Avatarico which Jorge and Olga are using, players can see their hands and manipulate objects. You can even feel the phantom feel of touch. In order to move, you can fly, swim and ride vehicles. It’s always fun to communicate with your teammates with gestures in addition to voice chat. You can literally make a hi-five. And on top of that, you have some superpowers like telekinesis, shooting fireballs and lasers with bare hands.
What else should I know?
These experiences are seated ones. Players physically sit in chairs while flying, swimming and driving vehicles in the videogames. But how much fun is sitting? One is used to sitting in the amusement parks while flying, bouncing, riding and driving. This is just the same.
At this point, you may ask ‘What about motion sickness?’. Keeping the same metaphor, you may feel uncomfortable like you do at the attraction in an amusement park. It’s an individual thing, and there are tools to make it comfortable for you. First of all, you shouldn’t push your body to the limits. When you go to outer space in the experience, you should keep in mind that you can always ask for help, and there will be a person to help you. A game operator will guide you through the videogame, helping you on each stage.
What games are available?
Currently, there are only a few location-based entertainment (LBE) venues offering hand tracking titles. Avatarico’s Cosmos and Mind Horror are two examples. The first is an adventure about escaping a space station ready to explode, destroying robots and flying in zero gravity. The latter is about infiltrating the mind of the serial killer, fighting his nightmares and solving mind-twisting puzzles.
Companies such as The VOID also provide hand tracking gameplay using Ultraleap technology, on titles like Nicodemus and Ralph Breaks VR.
Where can I try it?
Although there are more than 50 locations across the globe running hand tracking videogames, here are some recommendations:
The virtual reality (VR) market is at low expectations right now. Impulsive investments go down. It’s time for conscious decisions and realistic business plans. Some developers who have published games on Steam have realised that there is no money in VR home use. Now they offer licenses for commercial use to VRcades. Still, such arcades are like cybercafés which mostly disappeared when home internet access became more commonplace.
Free roam VR is totally different. There is no way for a customer to get this experience at home. But could warehouse scale VRcades pay for themselves – especially if they aren’t located in amusement parks?
What items of expenses are critical to ROI?
How can you build a sustainable VR business today?
How can the escape room business model help VRcades?
How can VRcades attract a broader audience?
And what products will let VRcades be profitable in the future, independent of VR home use?
Let’s dive in.
What’s the current state of VR market?
Goldman & Sachs reported in 2016 that the forecasted outcome for VR/AR revenue in 2025 was $23 Billion (USD) which is a “delayed uptake” scenario. Hardware TAM will represent a market size similar to the current videogame console market. Now everyone is much more pessimistic about VR. Unity CEO John Riccitiello spoke about that gap of disappointment at VRLA 2017. And he appealed to developers who must focus on surviving.
The headsets are getting cheaper. But besides Google Cardboards are there many VR headsets sold? Not very much if you compare with iPhones. And do the customers use the headsets? Not very often.
VR products compete with consoles and PC titles as well, not just with each other. It’s sad to say, but the VR user spends much more time on PC/console. There are certainly worrying numbers on the Steam Charts. Arizona Sunshine has 186 players in a month as of December 2017. Just compare this with Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy – 1069 players in a month. That’s before you compare it to, say, something like The Witcher, Fallout 4 or even Factorio. Even the last has tens of times more.
So what about developers surviving? Some offer commercial licenses for cybercafés. Check Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes for an instance. Not to mention Raw Data’s commercial license cost, It’s totally different business model. And it’s good opportunity to earn money out of the videogame.
You can only guess did developers of these games return their expenses. And did they do it with Steam or commercial licenses? But the truth is there is no super-profit in home use these days for sure. To survive developers should raise investments, close big deals or search for alternative business models.
Types of location-based VR business
Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment (DOE) is the hope of VR industry right now. There are three different types of location-based VR in the world. They differ with the rent cost which is the biggest item on the list of monthly expenses. The ROI will depend on it in the first place. Initial investments could differ but sustainability is more important in the perspective.
Hyper-reality
When we speak about VRcades it’s The VOID that often keeps pop up. They call their project a hyper-reality. If a player takes a lantern in VR, he feels it in real-life. The walls, the ladders, the wind, the sounds are real. It’s like 7D cinema, but you don’t sit, you act.
To an entrepreneur, it’s like building a real-life escape game but a way more expensive. You should pour millions to open such venue. It’s pure magic, but it costs a lot. It’s no wonder it has good bookings in Disneyland parks, but what if you want to open such venue in your city? How many sessions a day will it be? Could you start such business without Disney investments and infrastructure?
How long does it take to return your investments? If you are not in the Disneyland it’s good to have 3 sessions a day. If the player pays $30-60 for a session and the average number of players is 4, it’s $194,400 in a year without regard for monthly expenses like rent, staff fees, etc. So it’s better to close the deal with Disney.
The bad news is this train went off already. The good news is it’s not necessarily to do something like The Void if you want to open location-based VRcade.
Free-roam VR
Free-roam VR is much more widespread across the globe. Players move and shoot zombies or other enemies. You don’t have to build walls, but you still need a lot of space. That’s the reason it’s also called warehouse scale VR.
If you have three sessions in a day, an average number of players is four and each player pays you $60 (USD) for a session, the monthly revenue would be about $21,600. But if you rent 3000 sq. ft, it will cost you $10,000 at least.
Don’t forget that there is no mass production of standard equipment for this. Zero Latency, for instance, use custom made markers, simulated weapon, and game controllers. Sometimes it’s hard to buy the right VR headset, and it goes without saying with custom-made equipment.
You’ll need to be sure about your marketing strategy to get all the sessions you can, so you’ll be satisfied with the profit.
Room-scale VRcade
Players don’t have to move around a lot if the game has other movement controls like teleportation or flying. In some games players seat all the time, in some they stand, step to and fro, rotate, duck and dodge.
In such case, you’ll need 50-70 sq. ft space. Lower rent allows you to charge $10 per player. If you have 3 sessions a day, an average number of players is four, the monthly revenue would be around $3,600 and you will pay $500 for rent. So, it seems room-scale VR has higher marginality.
This type of location-based VR is the closest to home use in terms of experience. Still, VR equipment is too expensive to have it at home ($450 for Oculus Rift, $600 for HTC Vive and $1500 for the VR ready PC). Actually, you’ll need a separate room for a room-scale VR system like HTC Vive. It’s not for everyone.
The problem with room-scale VRcades is that if they don’t offer some exclusive content, they will vanish anyway like cybercafés did.
VRcade content
The success of VRcade business depends on content a lot. Here are some crucial points of what content should VRcade provide.
Format
Single-player games are basically useless for VRcades. The real-life escape game business model is a proof of concept.
Team-based games are better for out-of-home entertainment.
Cooperative gameplay is better for corporate parties which could take the big cut.
A 1-hour long session is better than paying per minute. It is an event.
So VR games should be team-based by design. A player shouldn’t be able to make it without their pals. They must help each other.
Audience
Games should be simple enough for your grandmother to play. They appeal to a wide audience. VRcades customers are not geeks, they are companies of friends, colleagues or families.
Genre
What you can learn from escape games, that a team must beat a game in 60 minutes, and you have a clear goal in the end.
Action and horror seem to be obvious genres. But in fact, they are not for everyone. Adventure, on the other hand, are the best option for cooperative time-limited gameplay. Colourful fantasy is as good as breathtaking space odyssey.
Also, VR must give you a thrill. The key point is an experience you can’t get in real-life. Flying in the outer space, shooting fireballs with your own hands, that kind of stuff.
There is not so much VR cooperative adventures that are suitable for VRcades. So entrepreneur’s best option is to address to professional VR developer which is specialized in that kind of games.
If VRcade provides such games, it has better chances to keep going in the future. People watch movies at home, but going to a movie theatre is an event, something for you can do with other people.
What about motion sickness?
Not everyone likes amusement parks because rollercoaster can cause nausea. It’s the same with VR. Some individuals experience motion sickness in VR more or less. There are four solutions to minimize this issue.
The Controls: The common movement control in VR is teleportation. It’s 100% motion-sicknessless. If the game has no such option, there are a few workarounds. Players could use some vehicles to move – airplanes or mech robots for example. Or they can fly using controllers or hand tracker devices. Or they can walk around as long as a room-scale game allows.
No walking via pushing controller’s buttons or/and uncontrolled movement like sudden player’s body’s turn is allowed.
The Game Master: A game master should check if somebody feels sick and offer to turn less and/or put off the headset for a while. It’s a human factor, so pay attention to it.
The Game Master’s App: It’s great if the game master has an option to skip sequence for this player particularly. It means the developer should provide an application for the game master to watch the players’ actions and help them with puzzles and stuff.
Candies: You should have sour candies onboard (just like they do on airplanes). No joke.
Marketing
Typically VR arcades just started have a common problem with marketing. They try to promote VR itself, show powerful headsets to the customers. And it works badly. Screenshots from VR game don’t work. People with headsets put on are anti-social.
As escape games owners you should know that the escape games should be promoted with photos captured players’ emotions. The recipe is the same. Shoot people. Shoot the players’ emotions after the game, when they put the headsets off.
If you have players’ photos it’s already enough. But some VR arcades make beautiful futuristic decorations or themed decorations based on the VR game setting. It’s a good ‘topping’ to the experience.
As for the marketing texts, you should sell emotions and experience as always. Flying in the space, shooting fireballs with your bare hands – is what you don’t have in your real-life. And it’s a great thing to try in VR.
Mention the phrase ‘wave shooter’ to any long standing virtual reality (VR) fans and the likelihood of a groan and roll of the eyes will follow. In the 17 months that PC head-mounted displays (HMDs) have been available to consumers, both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have been inundated with this genre of first-person shooter (FPS). Whilst certainly an easy and engaging form of VR entertainment, the proliferation of these types of videogames has already saturated the market, and with far more exploratory titles like the recently released Killing Floor: Incursionor Lone Echo, the question has to be asked, is there still a placefor the stationary wave shooter? Well Avatarico seems to think so, releasing comedy title Dracula: Vampires vs. Zombies.
Very much in a similar vein to Dick Wilde, Dracula: Vampires vs. Zombies doesn’t take itself too seriously with a protagonist who’s a brash, in your face, action b-movie star, and the fate of the world is somehow in his hands. As you might expect from the title, this videogame is all about killing waves of cartoon zombies, vampires and a few other enemies to boot.
Unlike some of the other FPS titles already mentioned, Dracula: Vampires vs. Zombies doesn’t weight itself down with excessive weapon loadouts, mixing up ranged guns with massive explosive ordinance. Instead you have to master just one, a compound bow and unlimited arrows. There’s no drawing arrows from a quiver – this is a pure arcade style experience – just fire away as quickly as possible. It seems that because Avatarico hasn’t needed to spend time on developing other weapons, focusing solely on the bow, that the studio has created one of the best gameplay mechanics for this style of weapon.
Using the bow feels fluid and accurate, the controller that’s in the bow hand nicely rumbles as the string is pulled back, so whether it’s a long shot or short range there’s never a moment when the bow seems inadequate for the task. So that’s your one and only main weapon – the bow does have blades attached should any enemies get too close – but there are four secondary items to collect that help in those tough situations such as a handy molotov cocktail for some group damage, or a lure to attract them to a certain spot.
Dracula: Vampires vs. Zombies has two modes, Campaign and Survival. The former has two areas, City and Forest, each with a total of 20 waves to complete. While you do need to survive in the campaign the main focus is that of scoring points. Headshots are the best for this, and the further the distance the more you’ll score. To mix up the gameplay somewhat, not only do you have different types of zombies to kill there’s also a few people to save. They’ll come running out from behind buildings screaming their heads off to be saved. Not only do they score big points but certain survivors will carry health bonuses, or items like the molotov, so saving them is of the utmost importance.
So now you maybe wondering is Dracula: Vampires vs. Zombies any good? Well yes and no. To be brutally honest it’s still a fairly generic wave shooter where everything pops up around you, and as long as you’ve reasonably quick and accurate it shouldn’t be too difficult to complete. That being said the bow is awesome fun and a joy to use. If you’re after a simple, pick up and play shooter then there’s nothing wrong with Dracula: Vampires vs. Zombies – it’s certainly one of the better ones. Should you be looking for a title that features loads of immersive gameplay, story, and really explores VR technology then you should look elsewhere.
What you can actually do in the game?
Types of location-based VR business 
Room-scale VRcade
