Challenges of VR

We are in a unique position with SpinVR in that we share the same floor as our VFX sister company, SpinVFX. With a filmography that includes shows like The Expanse, Game of Thrones and feature films like Gerald’s Game and Suicide Squad, we have a unique opportunity to hear from companies about “how they want to work with VR”. The entertainment industry has expressed a strong interest in engaging with VR, as in the case of The Expanse, for whom we created a VR 360 video experience. We also get a lot of interest from different industries. For example electronics companies that want to encourage their consumers the chance to interact with, say, a refrigerator, which we can allow become interactive and true-to-scale in VR. VR lets consumers do this in the way that an HD 6″ picture on a screen can’t do, no matter how physically accurate the render is. We event engage with architectural firms who would like to create a pre-construction walkthrough, and we also hear from many automotive companies who would like to create customer-facing interactive product experiences.

Many things present barriers with current VR software platforms on the market today. For example to create something interactive you need to learn how to code C#, C++ or some scripting language. For this, businesses need to hire someone, which is a high cost, and requires a lot of time to write the code. After this you need to share it, so you are forced to place your app on one of the app stores or Steam. An additional hassle is you need to convince your audience to come to find your app and download and install it! That costs lots of money. I myself have spent hundreds of thousands for my own apps in the past doing this, and I lost all of that money. Learned plenty but that gives you some idea of the types of risks involved for companies that would like to create VR experiences.