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Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment specialist, Kevin Williams joins me in this episode of the Rev VR Podcast. We discuss virtual reality’s rocky history, some interesting developments in the Arcade world, and make a few predictions for the future.


The Game of Thrones exhibit ran on Intel i7 machines with NVIDIA GTX 780s
The Game of Thrones exhibit ran on Intel i7 machines with NVIDIA GTX 780s

When I last had Kevin on the show, we discussed the evolution of the traditional “arcade” and whether people would prefer certain experiences in their home versus at a commercial establishment. For this conversation, we actually have several examples of an “Out-of-Home” VR experiences that are being developed. Dave & Busters is currently experimenting with providing a VR experience with Oculus Rift DK1s and the game Dirt 3.  A Russian company called AET is also developing a 4D theater using VR HMDs as a replacement for the screen. The Game of Thrones exhibit that is being shown around recently is another good example. It will be interesting to see if projects like these are accepted by consumers.

Dave & Busters - Irvine. CA
Dave & Busters – Irvine. CA

We take a good look back at the rise and fall of VR in the 90s and try to tackle the hard questions that are looming over the VR industry right now. What happened? Why did it fail back then? How are things different this time around? How do we address the elephants in the room?

4dtheater
A Typical 4D Theater Setup

Of course, no podcast with Kevin Williams would be complete without a few insightful predictions and words of wisdom to guide us into the future.

Here is a link to Kevin’s book, “The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier”

and a few of the other sites Kevin shared with us:

http://www.thestingerreport.com/

http://www.dna-association.com/

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SEE ALSO
'Metro Awakening' Gameplay Shows Off Patently Tense Combat, Immersive VR Take on Familiar Mechanics

Direct download of episode 60: MP3 Download

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  • elecman

    Game of Thrones “Ascend the wall” PC specs?

  • elecman

    From https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=6161&sid=874ad30fd4deec100d12ddd95bfa9942&start=20

    Intel i7 CPU
    Specially made casing
    3.3ghz
    GPU Rendering 4k at 60fps.
    nVidia780
    2888 cores per GPU

    • kevin williams

      …also:

      – Sony PDT digital-stereo headphones
      – Enclosure with wind and floor effect system
      – Experience content and platform developed by Framestore (same people who did the special effects for the film Gravity) and created by experiential agency Relevent

  • Owain

    I would really like to get in contact with Kevin Williams to discuss with him what I’m doing in regards to the arcade experience in Dubai. Would anyone be able to contact me with his email? Much appreciated.

    • kevin williams

      Hello @Owain,

      You can email me on kwp(at)thestingerreport.com

      Funny I was in Dubai this month attending the DEAL expo.

  • Andreas Aronsson

    Oh so interesting.

    Related to this I just have to tell you about a simulator at a local biosphere center, Naturum in Kristianstad, Sweden. They have a large screen and two benches as a base line. They had one movie the first time I was there, a helicopter, boat, submarine combo, and even with my feet on the ground, the moving bench (fitting three people) added a phenomenal effect to the experience. Of course I wondered just what kind of gear was in this, haha, later bought a buttkicker but obviously it’s nowhere close but I wanted to try.

    Now they have a new movie, with includes fans when the window of the vehicle is broken, and it was again super effective. It’s such a… natural thing to happen, it was very well done. It’s all local stuff, movies recorded in the biosphere area around the center. But yeah, uh, just figured I would share xD And I totally want a motion chair, haha.

    Oh, and I need to get a bandana… yeah, I’m still listening to the podcast, haha.

  • William Wallace

    Since you guys brought up Oculus (now owned by Facebook) and Jaron Lanier, here is Jaron telling you why Facebook isn’t Free and the dangers perhaps of the new merger.

  • William Wallace

    Since you guys brought up Oculus (now owned by Facebook) and Jaron Lanier, here is Jaron telling you why Facebook isn’t Free and the dangers perhaps of the new merger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5puB_7Q2n74