On Tuesday morning, Lydia and I made the short trip to Bristol, to attend the VR World Congress (previously, South West VR – organised by the good folks at Opposable Games).
After a great lineup of speakers and exhibitors last year, I was incredibly excited to see what would be there.
We only had time to rush around the expo before getting back into the office, but wanted to share a few of our favourite exhibitors.
As an agency that’s done a good deal of work in the space – especially with brands using VR in campaigns, I’ve written previously about virtual reality in PR – asking why the wider marketing world should care about virtual reality (unsurprisingly falling into the camp ‘because it both is and has future potential to be awesome).
Games:
If VR is to go mainstream, getting headsets into living rooms and in the hands of mobile users are the best shot it has, in my mind. Brands have been quick to do some interesting things with 360 content (regular examples on VR Focus and Road to VR), but adoption beyond quick-hit marketing campaigns, VR early adopters and people with expensive PC set-ups is low at present.
A raft of headsets are being released this year, from the recently-launched Oculus Rift (which has seen a few delivery issues, resulting in free shipping for those affected), the HTC Vive and PS VR (PlayStation’s exciting and comparatively low-priced VR offering). Analysts think the big three will drive three quarters of the industry’s market value in 2016, but only make up 15 per cent of total shipments, with cheaper mobile VR devices set to make up the massive difference.
ANYWAY, here are three games that we liked the look of at the expo:
- Fierce Kaiju’s pick-up-and-play arcade game Viral:
2. Tammeka’s Wipeout 2097-style VR racer Radial-G, demoed here by Lydia:
3. Vertigo Games’ zombie survival shooter Arizona Sunshine:
Here’s a bonus shot of somebody playing Arizona Sunshine which made me smile:
And here are 3 of our favourite exhibitors in terms of…
Applications outside of gaming:
There weren’t as many exhibitors for applications for VR outside of games, but here are three we liked:
1. PropertyScape – a business that allows estate agents to virtually walk potential buyers around both rendered (pre-build) properties and existing properties
2. PlayNicely create immersive experiences for brands and organisations, having developed experiences for The National Theatre, BBC and Paramount Pictures to name a few
Here’s what the little one above was seeing:
3. Ximmerse’s X Cobra controllers – which allow for in-VR item manipulation. We sat in front of a table filled with colourful, stackable bricks, but you could easily see the application for something like this in engineering, art, physiotherapy and more:
It was a shame we didn’t get chance to hear any speakers this year, but it’s great to see such a prominent virtual reality event on our doorstep!
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