23 Aug OrlandoiX 2017
We spent several days last week at the Southeast’s largest gathering of creators in virtual reality, augmented reality, video games, and digital entertainment – OrlandoiX. The Futurus presence was strong, in that Peter Stolmeier and I were both on different panels and enjoyed hearing from many other top minds in our industry. In addition to hearing great speakers and panels, the event also hosted a large expo with content creators from around the region.
Annie’s panel – “What’s the real business of VR?”
I was on a panel to expose the business of VR. How are people using the technology, both for B2B and B2C approaches? How are companies actually monetizing development for virtual reality? Where do we see the industry heading, especially with augmented reality growing up alongside virtual reality? We also discussed the importance of self-presentation in a virtual reality environment. Users need to have options for how they appear while in a virtual setting and when you can truly be anything, where do you start? I offered up my own opinion in that I want to fairly accurately represent myself, but other women might disagree. Others may feel that if they are a more generic, non-gender-specific avatar, they can have the freedom of anonymity that they don’t get in real life.
There are already many production studios, like Futurus, who now specialize in VR and AR work, each with their own target market. We built our business on creating interactive experiences that serve a non-gaming audience, mostly for businesses. We find growth in experiences for marketing, training, and testing and it was good to hear that many others are going down the same path. Training was a hot topic and we discussed how useful it can be to put an inexperienced worker in certain situations and simulations before exposing them to real world hazards. Programs like this are already proving to save liability cost and time. Overall, we agreed that there is real business to be done in VR and we are in the middle of defining a new industry.
Peter’s panel – “How is AR going to evolve?”
We see the evolution of augmented reality technology on a daily basis, but there are many significant announcements and releases in the past year that have rapidly changed the landscape for consumers. The two major points of discussion were Pokémon GO and Apple ARKit. With the release of Pokémon GO just over a year ago, there are still about 65 million monthly users, which is an enormous number for an app that many people believe to have passed its peak. The release of Pokémon GO was instrumental in helping our clients understand the idea of augmented reality. Much of what we do is technology education, so when there is a mainstream case study to point at, it can make the learning process more fun.
In regards to Apple ARKit, we are excited to see such a large company bet its chips in augmented reality technology. Apple is allowing their massive user base to experience AR by implementing it into its operating system. The demos that are coming out of the developer release are so fascinating, creative and in many cases, useful. Introduction of technology from larger, well-known brands to the masses makes our job and the education of augmented reality easier.
The event was especially near and dear to us because it took place on Full Sail University’s campus. It was a great opportunity to head back to Peter’s alma mater as industry experts.
If you want to hear more about our panels, our good friend Cathy Hackl did some live streaming! You can see portions of our panels here: Annie/Business of VR and Peter/Evolution of AR.
