Those of us what have been around virtual worlds for a while can be forgiven for being somewhat bemused by a lot of the hype regarding the forthcoming virtual reality boom, because a lot of what is being discussed as futuristic advances are use cases we’ve all seen before. However there are use cases that already exist that may even pass us virtual world enthusiasts by.<\/p>\n
These thoughts crossed my mind as I read a couple of articles today, the first was by Adi Robertson over at The Verge;\u00a0The Virtual World\u2019s Fair is where VR hype meets theme parks<\/a>. The article concerns the work of Landmark Entertainment Group<\/a>, who are famous for building theme park attractions and have plans to dip their toes very firmly into the waters of virtual reality.<\/p>\n What really struck me about this article was this part :<\/p>\n Landmark believes its role is to help solve the “chicken and egg” problem the industry faces: people won\u2019t buy VR if there\u2019s nothing to do in it, and no one will make experiences for VR if people don\u2019t buy it. Christopher thinks the company is uniquely poised to succeed, compared to filmmakers or game developers \u2014 who are making a “whole different thing” compared to VR. “We\u2019ve been doing what we call \u2018total theater\u2019 in the theme park space for three and a half decades,” he says. “We\u2019re way beyond experimenting with this.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Whereas I’m not familiar with Landmark Entertainment’s work, it is indeed true that theme parks have been the home to immersive experiences for quite some time. However those are immersive attractions where you go to the theme park itself and Landmark will be building what they call “live centers” that host digital art, zoos and more, with one set to open in China in 2017. However they will also have plans to launch The Virtual World’s Fair<\/a> :<\/p>\n Landmark Entertainment Group has taken inspiration from its theme park design heritage and the long-standing World\u2019s Fair tradition to create the concept for the \u201cVirtual World\u2019s Fair\u2122,\u201d a virtual reality experience loaded with real-time social interaction, entertainment, education, and shopping, just like a traditional world\u2019s fair, but designed to be enjoyed in-home rather than as a real-world travel destination.<\/em><\/p>\n Landmark\u2019s Virtual World\u2019s Fair has been developed in conjunction with the Pavilion of Me \u2122 (P.O.M.\u2122) concept, a daily-use in-home entertainment portal that reimagines everyday activities such as checking social media, online shopping, watching film and TV content, video chat, and playing video games into virtual reality experiences.<\/em><\/p>\n The Virtual World\u2019s Fair will be accessed through the P.O.M. portal donning a VR headset; first-time users will create a personalized avatar, and then journey into the Virtual World\u2019s Fair embodied in their newly customized digital persona. Both the P.O.M. and Virtual World\u2019s Fair will enable social interactions with other people\u2019s avatars (including family, friends, celebrities, world leaders and even total strangers) from around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n P.O.M. is scheduled to launch next year, with the complete Virtual World\u2019s Fair experience to follow in 2017.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n How well this progresses is of course dependent upon how well the technology surrounding headsets develops and gains acceptance but it’s interesting to see plans such as this in progress.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The second article I was looking at is by Andrew Heikkila over at Tech.Co;\u00a0The Age of VR is Almost Here\u2013But Are Businesses Ready for It?<\/a>\u00a0This article suggests that virtual reality is mostly associated with video games, and then goes on to exemplify use cases that are not video games and in doing so, links to some old Second Life related video footage that is actually a really good example of virtual world usage for education.<\/p>\n The video footage comes from Joe Sanchez of Rutgers University who was a Second Life enthusiast<\/a> some years ago, but I’m not sure where he is with his research these days. What I found interesting about Joe’s videos was that they are similar in style to those of Draxtor Despres for his The Drax Files : World Makers<\/a> series. Draxtor’s videos are more stylish and exemplify many more use cases than Joe’s videos, Joe’s videos are education centric, but like Draxtor, Joe produces short videos that pack quite a lot in.<\/p>\n For example this video has students talking about the benefits of education in Second Life :<\/p>\n