2018 was billed as the year when Virtual Reality 2.0 was going to finally descend upon millions of gamers waiting for an experience that would finally make it all worthwhile: the cost, the glitches, the pain-in-the-ass hardware configurations, and so on and so on. The press was all aquiver about the new hardware (the VR glasses) coming to a Best Buy or PC World near you. And, well, that promised hardware may actually just be on its way if the hardware folks deliver what was promised in January at CES.

Additionally, 2018 looks to be the year of ICO. But isn’t it about time we move to ICO 2.0? What exactly does that mean? It means it’s time to cut the shit with these scam crypto-pirates minting bogus currency and make the process more of, well, an actual process — with due diligence and business plans and pretty much the stuff any VC or major investor will be looking for from any start-up or other company wanting to raise a few (or a few million) bucks.

But let’s start with VR, or for that matter, XR (mixed reality, a combination of VR and AR). For this entertainment medium to bust through to the magical “2.0” realm, it’s not just about hardware. The content, the software…the actual games and XR experiences have to step up the plate and hit more than singles (a baseball metaphor for you non-initiated)if this technology platform is going to come near to reaching both its experiential and, more importantly, it’s revenue potential anytime in 2018.

So what exactly are the features and functionality required in a product to make it truly XR 2.0? Here are just a few ideas:

- Actual “mixed reality” in a single app

- Multi-platform

- Ability to sustain and increase time within the virtual world

- Massively multiplayer and persistent

- Multiple experiences from within the same virtual environment/world

- Built on blockchain and providing the ability to transact real-world commerce from within the virtual environment

There are more but let me provide a few details on those listed above:

Actual “mixed reality”

This simply means the ability to be in the virtual world and then see the real world with augmented reality without breaking the virtual world’s immersion. Some products do this but not nearly enough. VR 2.0 depends on longer usage sessions and being able to operate in the real world from within the virtual one.

Multi-platform

What this really means is the ability to for a single product to exist both with the virtual environment as well as the real one by having “companion apps” or other peripheral media on mobile or tablet devices. The more one can “check in on” their virtual world, especially if it’s a persistent world, will instill and build the feeling that one really is moving back and forth between two very real, but very different worlds.

Sustaining/Increasing “In World” Time

Simply put, the more things I can do or affect in the real world from within a virtual one, the more time I’ll spend in there. A few examples include posting to my social feeds, taking selfies of my beautiful avatar and posting, ordering food (real food delivered), and shopping. Whether these activities are enabled from a full virtual environment or a “mixed AR/VR environment” that lets me keep an eye on both worlds simultaneously, doesn’t really matter. The point is to keep the immersion going.

In the next post, we’ll discuss the other points as well as how to drag ICOs up the level of 2.0.

Doug Dyer,

COO Terra Virtua