Based on which analyst prediction you happen to click in a Google search, the virtual reality industry will be worth $7 billion, $21.8 billion, or possibly $30 billion by 2020. Landmark predicts there will be 170 million active VR users by 2018. The ultra-simple Google Cardboard notwithstanding, most consumers today have yet to use the technology in any meaningful sense, but Christopher believes that the amount of high-profile support it’s gotten is a sure omen. "There’s too many very, very powerful organizations trying to launch this business for it not to happen," he says.

"There’s too many very, very powerful organizations trying to launch this business for it not to happen."

Landmark believes its role is to help solve the "chicken and egg" problem the industry faces: people won’t buy VR if there’s nothing to do in it, and no one will make experiences for VR if people don’t buy it. Christopher thinks the company is uniquely poised to succeed, compared to filmmakers or game developers — who are making a "whole different thing" compared to VR. "We’ve been doing what we call ‘total theater’ in the theme park space for three and a half decades," he says. "We’re way beyond experimenting with this."

Both the Virtual World’s Fair and the Pavilion of Me (POM for short) are described as portals; the former is a digital theme park, the latter a personal entertainment complex. POM is slated to arrive first in the fall of 2016, after the launch dates of Oculus, Sony, and Valve’s high-end headsets — Landmark hasn’t officially announced launch platforms, but Christopher says there’s interest from Sony and Oculus. Right now, Landmark is showing off only a video of an early build, a series of separate "rooms" for activities like watching movies, holding Skype calls, lounging with friends, and looking through virtual versions of your old-fashioned photographs.

In other words, Landmark is building a VR user interface — a notoriously hard thing to get right. Indie developers have experimented with everything from virtual art galleries to mirrored versions of the Windows desktop, but the only widely used custom interface right now is Oculus’ home screen for the Gear VR, which is arranged like a smartphone app that you stare at instead of tapping.

One of POM’s unique features is that users can decorate their spaces, adding a paid component to the free service. Another is the addition of smart digital companions. The demo reel features an Aibo-like VR dog, along with a British-accented silver robot who guides viewers through POM’s features. In the long term, Christopher imagines an assistant like Scarlett Johansson’s more-than-human AI in Her, albeit without the potential romantic attachments. In the short term, his examples are more akin to almost any smartphone or smart TV’s search tools — things like pulling up a travel itinerary or looking for a list of movies starring Tom Hanks.

The Pavilion of Me is effectively trying to recreate and unify individual features that dozens of software companies are already working on, like artificial personal assistants, immersive music and movie apps, and VR chat tools. In some ways, it’s hard to imagine Landmark competing with teams that have made this their entire business, especially if we see the massive breakthrough that Christopher predicts, which would almost certainly mean giants like Google, Microsoft, and (obviously) Facebook getting into the business. But while so much is up in the air, who knows how one speculative product will stack up against another?

Landmark is on much more familiar ground with the Virtual World’s Fair. The experience, which won’t be open until 2017 at the earliest, is a series of worlds with names like "Passportal" and the "Tower of Humanity," designed for different age groups and interests. Unlike most Second Life-style virtual meeting places, it’s pitched more around attractions than social experiences, though it will include both.

Who knows how one speculative product will stack up against another?

It’s also unabashedly commercial. Intencity, one of the more clearly realized sections, is a futuristic cityscape that Landmark plans to populate with sponsored experiences — Christopher at one point refers to it as "Brand Land." Landmark hasn’t apparently locked down any brands, but enough companies have put work into VR promotions that it’s not hard to imagine collecting them all in one place and adding a shopping component: you could check out something like Nike’s Google Cardboard soccer match and then head straight into a virtual store. "In the theme park space, attractions are the attractors. They bring people to a theme park," says Christopher. "But if it is a well-run, professional theme park, a lot of the money is really in the food and beverage and retail."