Here comes Virtual Reality! What’s happening & the impact for marketers

July 2015

With E3 now behind us, we felt it would be useful to review where the VR offer really is and what it means to marketers over the next few years .   We have had the chance to experience the bleeding edge of virtual reality and see how the games industry is pushing the frontier of VR/AR, embracing this new format in story telling. Where VR is heading should be of interest to all marketers as they think about their content, story telling & marketing strategies.

Oculus, the re-creator of the VR industry were showcasing their first consumer Rift at E3 & also providing a first look at the latest innovation, Oculus Touch.  Sony have been building their VR story around PS4 with Project Morpheus and at E3 offered hands-on experience. Microsoft are in VR in a couple of ways. With their announced enabling partnership with Oculus (taking in Xbox) as well as their own offer, HoloLens. HTC were conspicuous by their absence from E3. Over the next few pages we provide a quick snap shot of their offers.

Key players in the VR space Oculus  Ri)   Sony  Morpheus    

Microso)  HoloLens   HTC  Vive  

Facebook owned Oculus pretty much kickstarted the virtual reality industry back into life and since then have showcased a number of d e v e l o p e r m o d e l s a n d demonstrations (DK1, DK2 and Crescent Bay) as well as its wireless partnership with Samsung in the form of the GEAR VR. This E3 was different however, hot on the heels of the San Francisco press conference this was the first chance to really see the Rift in action along with its Xbox controller and desktop motion monitoring device. More importantly it was a chance to get hands on with the Rift gaming content. 

oculus

Oculus Rift requires a high-end PC with enhanced graphics cards (Nvidia GTX 980) and therefore if you are not a hardcore gamer you’re probably into a c. £1,000 investment for a PC to power the Rift.  There were a number of great titles a v a i l a b l e t o t r y i n c l u d i n g EVE:  Valkyrie,   Edge of Nowhere, Lucky’s Tail and Chronos. For us EVE: Valkyrie was the standout example of the realised potential of VR gaming, a completely immersive experience where you fly a heavily armed space fighter and dogfight your way around the galaxy. 

oculus

Eve:  Valkyrie  gameplay    

Oculus Touch was the first demo of Oculus’s new style “input device”. Two handheld controllers which fit naturally and snuggly put your hands & gestures into the VR space. They were t ru ly impress ive, feel ing absolutely natural and allowing one to point, thumbs up, flick and catch without a second thought. Inside the demo we were able to play in the “sandbox” experience pushing toys around, shooting ray guns and catapults, not to mention the shrink ray which suddenly made the user a few inches tall.

oculus

What was shocking about the experience was the total immersion; having been lucky enough to try a few VR demos in the past, this was the first truly 100% total immersion. The room we were standing in, the controllers, the headset were all forgotten as the VR space was explored with another person (who could have been the other side of the world), enjoying the space together, socially, totally free of the world we’d been in moments before. 20 minutes felt like 2 as we played together and explored the VR environment.

oculus

Morpheus works on the PS4 and utilises all its graphic and gaming capability and will, we suspect, quickly take it to its limits. The Morpheus headset is a futuristic looking glowing white visor complete with LED details which works as part of the head tracking system. At E3, Sony’s Project Morpheus experience used a slick app based booking system to gain access to the experience.

Sony Morpheus

In-game control is through the PS4 controllers and also through the wireless “Move” controllers where the game/experience permitted. Putting users hands into the game but without real gesture.  A number of game experiences were on offer at E3 including London H e i s t : G e t a w a y a n d R i g s : Mechanized Combat League - both first person shooters and impressive along with softer experiences (tech demos) such as Summer Lesson.

Sony Morpheus

Microsoft’s foray into VR/AR (aside from providing some deep integration with Oculus through Window 10 and Xbox Live) takes the shape of the HoloLens. Microsoft showcased it on stage at their Xbox briefing at the beginning of the week, showing a compelling Minecraft demo where the presenter was able to see his Minecraft game come to life on the table in front of him and then play with other users within the space, seeing the game in a completely new way.

Microsoft HoloLens

The live experience for HoloLens was linked to the Xbox mega title, Halo5. HoloLens is AR rather than VR and allowed the user to see the real environment through a perspex visor. The virtual (digitally crafted images and experiences) overlaid onto the real environment along with a convincing audio layer. At E3 as one walked through the Halo5 briefing centre the imaginary c o m m a n d e r f r o m t h e g a m e instructed and directed players through the physical space as well as the game objectives. Glorious 3D maps prepared you for a foray into Halo5.

Microsoft HoloLens

Microsoft HoloLens The HoloLens experience was unlike anything experienced before and provided a holographic wire-framed type view of content. Importantly this experience was an augmentation with the real world, wonderful things happening in the spaces people are familiar with and as such was a unique experience. One that will no doubt develop with more content and hardware developments. HoloLens still feels very experimental and at an ear ly point in i t s development cycle. We are looking forward to seeing more in the consumer space but suspect this is going to be some way off.

HTC’s Vive product, created in partnership with Steam is due to be on sale in late 2015 and therefore was surprisingly absence from E3. The early demos have been extremely well received. Vive will give players the chance to move around their physical room, in te r rogat ing the v i r tua l environment they are in (assuming they have the physical space to do so). It will also provide input through handheld controllers. No news isn’t always bad news but there does seem to be a lack of i n f o r m a t i o n c o m i n g t h r o u g h surrounding the content & game titles that might appear with it debut release. 

HTC Vive

The key take out from all the demonstrations on show at E3 is that VR has certainly arrived and over the next 2-3 years will really start to move into the household and become part of people’s gaming and video consumption at home. Aside from the platforms outlined here, there are at least another 10 developing. It is fair to assume that by the end of 2016 there is likely to be an installed base in the region of 1-2 million units and that this figure is likely to grow three fold during 2017. 

VR & AR all around

Gaming will be the driver for this adoption closely followed by film. Ridley Scott is reported to be previewing a VR short as part of his Martians release at the end of this year and there are numerous re p o r t s o f s t u d i o s planning to use VR to preview/tease films in 2016. 

VR & AR all around

The impact for marketers VR is teetering on the edge of

becoming a major new story telling medium through CGI and pure film content. The market is going to grow fast with the focus of the big players, Oculus, Mircosoft, Sony and HTC and there is no doubt that mi l l ions of VR consumers will be ready, willing and able to step right into and interact with the developing narrative from 2016. By 2018 there could be as many as 10-15M VR users worldwide.

The impact for marketers Ahead of that 360

o video is going to

gain massive traction and provide a much lower tech entry point (via an enabled mobile device). Leaders such as RedBull & Bjork are already exploring the medium. YouTube recently opened up its platform to 360

o and Facebook will

opening up feeds to 360o

very soon. With Youtube now drawing over a billion users, 360

o video represents a

fantastic way to learn and leverage immersive story telling within a mainstream audience.   Subscribe to our slideshare channel for our guide to 360

o video which will

be released shortly. 

To date brands have successfully used VR as part of their experiential activity (Mercedes recent activation at Goodwood or TopShop’s virtual catwalk at London Fashion Week).  Now is the time to start creating mobile and at home storytelling experiences that can catch the immediate wave of 360

o video as

well as the developing VR consumer audience. Begin to reimagine and articulate your brand’s story into an immersive mobile experience that will then t r a n s i t i o n i n t o t h e a m a z i n g possibilities that VR offers as the installed base develops. 

Start now; immersive story telling VR /AR & 360o video 

A communications agency for the Experience Age

Creating ideas and telling stories that will travel within a mobile-connected, experience-hungry audience. From idea to execution.

Contact Richard or Chris @ Fundamental London +44 207 193 9199 hello@fundamental.london www.fundamental.london