Category: kfc

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KFC Releases Its Wacky VR Chicken-Frying Escape Room for Oculus Rift

When we first saw KFC created a bizarre BioShock-esque VR training experience, we weren’t sure if it was the company’s next attempt at creating a brand engagement advert, or if KFC really intended on using the wacky chicken-frying escape room to train its employees. While the company says they’re actually using the KFC The Hard Way to train employees, they’ve also released the experience for free on the Oculus Store for Rift—making it a little less clear of the company’s overall intentions.

The objective: escape the clutches of the Colonel by learning how to fry chicken ‘the hard way’. The ultimate outcome: do exactly as the Colonel says and you’ll live to see that sweet $8.35-per-hour paycheck. It’s a quick (and free) experience, taking less than 10 minutes to complete, so I popped in for a look-see.

As an escape room, it fails miserably. The Colonel tells you how to do pretty much everything within a few seconds of incorrectly fumbling a piece of chicken, and there isn’t much to explore beyond the defined tasks ahead. As a less terrible way to teach employees the basic steps to preparing and cooking fried chicken, well, it seems to get the job done however.

Visuals are fairly impressive, although object interaction and hand presence could definitely be better. I found myself swiping at things just in reach, my hand passing through them to no avail. When I did grab onto something, it would automatically snap to a the desired hand position. This, combined with the lack of hand articulation possible with Touch controllers makes it a less immersive experience than I’d hoped going in. It’s certainly more entertaining than watching an employee training video in the back office, but that goes for almost any hands-on activity though.

laser beams stop you from tossing chicken on the floor, image courtesy KFC

Despite what KFC says, it’s clear its franchises won’t be installing a gaming PC and VR headset to actually train employees using KFC The Hard Way. It simply isn’t comprehensive enough, nor does it include anything more than a few tasks to teach you how to fry chicken. If you’ve ever worked at a fast food restaurant, you know just how many codified step-by-step tasks there really are, and this doesn’t scratch the surface of everything required to run a clean and safe restaurant.

Check out my full play-through below:

The post KFC Releases Its Wacky VR Chicken-Frying Escape Room for Oculus Rift appeared first on Road to VR.

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KFC Says Its Wacky VR Chicken Frying Experience Will Really Be Used for Employee Training

KFC has revealed a curious trailer for The Hard Way: A Virtual Reality Training Experience, an ‘escape room’ game designed for VR. While it may seem like a rather smart marketing campaign at first glance, the world-famous fast food company apparently has real plans for incorporating the VR experience into its employee training program.

VR training applications for the service and food industry have genuine potential, as seen in Google’s interactive learning tests, and Honeygrow’s training app for new employees. In the case of The Hard Way: A Virtual Training Experience however, the production value is unusually high, with gameplay that is heavy on presentation and light on actual training. Nevertheless, the sequence does introduce the basics of preparing chicken for KFC in a highly entertaining way, and could serve as a fun part of the employee initiation process.

With an atmosphere of light steampunk horror, including a somewhat disturbing version of The Colonel asking you to kindly fry some chicken, The Hard Way appeared to be an elaborate marketing campaign, but PC Gamer received an official response suggesting that the project is indeed going to be introduced to new employees in the future.

“KFC will use the VR simulation to supplement its robust, multi-step employee training program, called Chicken Mastery Certification, which provides detailed eLearning and hands-on training for cooks in each of KFC’s kitchens,” reads the press release from Yum! Brands. “KFC will provide yet another platform for training by bringing the VR simulation technology to its regional general manager training classes, quarterly franchise meetings, and employee onboarding.”

The post KFC Says Its Wacky VR Chicken Frying Experience Will Really Be Used for Employee Training appeared first on Road to VR.

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KFC Have Created A VR Escape Room For Employees And We’re Now Absolutely Terrified

Now several years into the ‘second coming’ of virtual reality (VR) we’ve become accustomed to various brands utilizing it to tell the story of their product or sell their prodcut in a variety of different ways. Be these VR viewers as part of the product, utilizing the branding to tell a story or just give a branded expereince in 360 degrees or on occasions to try something a little bit more different, a little bit more creative, or a little bit just plain whacky.

The latest to do so is Kentucky Fried Chicken aka KFC and the way they’re utilising VR is very much under the creative/unusual bracket.

Called The Hard Way: A KFC Virtual Training Escape Room, the experience looks to channel Job Simulator and, apparently, sheer utter terror. In The Hard Way would be employees enter a mysterious kitchen area to learn the ways of cooking chicken the traditional way as The Colonel did more than 70 years ago. After you successfully completing the five main steps – inspecting, rinsing, breading, racking, and pressure frying – participants then exit the kitchen with an understanding of what it takes to cook Original Recipe chicken like a true connoisseur of finger lickin’ culinary enterprises.

“In 1940 the Colonel was just one man frying chicken by hand. Now we have nearly 19,000 trained cooks across the U.S., but they’re still doing it by hand.” Explains George Felix, KFC U.S.’s Director of Advertising. “Our cooking process hasn’t changed much in 70 years, but the way we can train our cooks using modern technology sure has.”

Which is great. Fantastic. Now let’s get to the point where KFC have gone out of their way to make it look bloody frightening. The experience, developed by W+K Lodge and which utilises the Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch is all part of their employee training scheme and the “Chicken Mastery Certification”, an eLearning and hands-on training for KFC’s cooks.  It’s been created as a fun add-on and to show it off they have produced a trailer.

The trailer includes: a malfunctioning helper robot, deadly lasers, jump scare like transitions, objects with minds of their own and for some reason the creepiest cover version of Tiffany’s 1987 hit I Think We’re Alone Now (or the original by Tommy James and the Shondells if you like) ever produced.  There’s also the fact that The Colonel (as in the real one), is… you know… dead. There’s the mascot Colonel obviously, but when you’re being stared at by real eyes from the picture of the Colonel on the wall with all this going on you might begin to wonder just what you’ve signed up for. Especially as The Colonel will apparently be giving you hints and tips throughout as you learn.

You can see the trailer below:

“What excites us is experimenting with new tools and mediums to tell stories.” Explains Jonathan Minori, W+K Lodge design director. “VR became an obvious choice to create an immersive experience that teaches trainees how to make KFC’s Original Recipe. The escape room concept builds on the pure training and utility of the experience into something that’s also entertaining and connected to KFC’s iconic founder.”

VRFocus will be bringing you more on this experience should we find out any more.

 

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KFC: Bizzares Hähnchen-Frittier-Training für Rift erschienen [Update]

[Update] Die schräge Erfahrung der Hähnchen-Kette Kentucky Fried Chicken steht nun zum kostenlosen Download für die Oculus Rift bereit. Die an Bioshock erinnernde VR-Erfahrung erschien im August und sorgte für einiges Aufsehen. Angeblich setzt KFC die The Hard Way: A Virtual Reality Experience zur Ausbildung von Mitarbeitern ein. Ob das stimmt, sei allerdings dahingestellt. Für einen kurzen Ausflug in die skurrile VR-Welt ist die App aber gut.

Originalmeldung vom 24. August 2017:

Ob Werbegag oder tatsächlich sinnvolle VR-Anwendung: Einige Liebe zum Detail und einen bizarren Humor beweisen die Entwickler der Mitarbeiter-Trainings-Anwendung für die Hühner-Bräter Kentucky Fried Chicken. Das grundlegende Konzept der VR-Erfahrung für die Oculus Rift kennt man aus Escape-Room-Spielen, am Ende erwartet den neuen Mitarbeiter so etwas Ähnliches wie die Freiheit. Ein Video zeigt, wie die Erfahrung abläuft

KFC: Escape Room in VR fürs Hänchen-Handling-Training

Als frischer Mitarbeiter für die Hähnchen-Frittier-Kette KFC wird man vom Gründer Colonel Sanders festgehalten. Da dieser bereits seit einigen Jahrzehnten verstorben ist, erlebte er eine Widergeburt als Türknauf und gibt seine Anweisungen. Erst, wer das Training und alle fünf Stadien der Hähnchen-Zubereitung erfolgreich absolviert, darf den Raum verlassen. Dabei entdeckt der erstaunte Mitarbeiter in der virtuellen Umgebung etliche liebevoll gemachte Details und erlebt viele Anspielungen. Zu viel wollen wir hier aber nicht verraten. Das Video führt durch die komplette Erfahrung, für die angeblich eine Oculus Rift zum Einsatz kommt.

Das Trainings-Programm mit dem Namen The Hard Way: A Virtual Reality Experience soll laut KFC die Ausbildungszeit drastisch verkürzen: von 25 Minuten auf (unter) zehn Minuten. Mehr Spaß dürfte der harte Weg den zukünftigen Mitarbeitern aber schon machen. Dass das Ganze doch eher als virale Werbung und nicht als echtes Training gedacht sein könnte, darauf weist ein Statement hin. Eater.com zitiert einen Sprecher von KFC: Die VR-Erfahrung allein reiche nicht, sie erweitere lediglich das Chicken Mastery Programm und soll ein vergnüglicher Weg sein, die Arbeit der Köche des Unternehmens zu feiern.

(Quelle: Eater.com)

Der Beitrag KFC: Bizzares Hähnchen-Frittier-Training für Rift erschienen [Update] zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!