The Immersive Wire - 18 April 2021 (Sunday edition)

SUNDAY READ EDITIONCurated VR/AR analysis every Wednesday and Sunday

// 18 April 2021

I don't think my body is used to getting so much vitamin D from the sunshine this weekend.

Connect with the Igloo Vision team on LinkedIn.

Let's talk about Oculus adding subscription billing for VR content. Following the heels of Viveport, Facebook's company added the capabilities

last Thursday

. Adding the capabilities makes sense; if done correctly, subscription-based services are incredibly lucrative for companies who want a consistent cash flow and tight relationship with their customers. Apple's transition towards providing more services is one example, as well as Microsoft's successful push of business-related applications. But for me, the most interesting area is fitness. During the pandemic, VR saw a sizable boom in activity, and one of the most popular activities (alongside gaming) is exercise. Restricted in their homes and perhaps wanting to do something different, users don the headset and release the pressure with some jabs and squats. The demand is there; CCS Insight released a survey stating that the 'majority' of VR users work out at least once a week. Companies are responding quickly. Recently I spoke to FitXR CEO Sam Cole, who is

incorporating a subscription model

into his fitness VR company. For $9.99 a month, users can receive a new class every day of the week which they can hop into to sweat it out. (This compares favorably to

Supernatural

, which is $20 a month). This comes along with a whole host of new additions such as multiplayer and a new HIIT studio, but what struck me as the most interesting is the transition itself. 'Oculus launching subscriptions represents a coming of age moment for VR,' he said, 'as developers can provide significantly more value to their customers.' For FitXR, it's a bold pivot that is in line with their long-term growth goals. I don't personally exercise much in VR. At best I get sweaty after playing more active games for some time, as I personally prefer running. But the burgeoning demand shows that people are willing to wear headsets to get fit, and a subscription model is a great way to deliver consistent content and a broad swathe of services for their users. Not all verticals would suit a sub model - but fitness is bang on target.

Punch it out. Photo credit: FitXR.

Igloo Vision has landed on the continent - our first demo centre in Europe is now up and running in the heart of Rotterdam. If you'd like to visit at our newest location, or at any of our demo centres around the world in the UK, US, Canada or Australia,

just get in touch.

We can

even offer you a virtual demo

.

Q&A with... an expert reporter on VR games

Ian Higton, Video Producer at Eurogamer.

How different is it reporting in VR compared to other video games?Whenever I'm covering flat games for Eurogamer's YouTube channel, the gameplay footage I show off pretty much speaks for itself. What people see is what they get. When it comes to covering VR however, be it in a written article or some kind of edited video or live stream, there's currently no way for the audience to accurately share in what I'm experiencing in the headset. The difference between watching what's shown on a sharescreen or a gameplay mirror is so radically different to the feeling of actually being immersed inside a game it means that I have to be extra expressive with my descriptions of what I'm seeing. The height, depth, and scale of the locations I'm inhabiting is something I try really hard to get across to the audience as I think this helps them to imagine what the flat images they are watching might look like in 3D.Describing how the sounds work within the environments also helps me to bring the gameplay to life a little bit more too - emphasising the skittering claws of monsters in overhead air ducts or the distant sounds of explosions and gunshots behind me - those types of things. Mainly though, I just mess around and try to do as many things that aren't possible in flat games as I can. I'll pick up props and do silly things with them, I'll interact with the game world in bizarre ways and I'll try to test the boundaries of what's possible in VR so that the audience thinks "wow, that is way cooler than a flat game. I need to try that!". How do you share the reporting with your audience?Every Sunday on Eurogamer's YouTube channel, I host Ian's VR Corner, which is my weekly chance to showcase something that's interested me in the VR world that week. This could be a new game, a mod, or perhaps a list video of my current favorite VR games. In terms of posting content, it's normally about 80% video coverage and then 20% written posts on the main site to help promote those videos.It's not always possible to back up video coverage with a written article due to a pretty hectic schedule but I like to try and get VR coverage on the main site as much as possible.What are some of your favorite VR game mechanics you have seen?I remember being blown away by Red Matter when I first played it. It did some really great things with the motion controls and the controller feedback that made it feel like I was interacting with real-world solid objects. Also, I'm a huge fan of windows in VR. It sounds silly but a good window makes all the difference to a game's immersion. In VR a painted on the window just looks like a painted on the window, but if you can look through it and something beyond, that's when you start to believe you're in a real place. Examples of this would be the window you can draw on in Half Life: Alyx, which has this amazing view of City 17 behind it, or the start of Hitman 3's Chongqing 3 level where you pass a bunch of apartments when you're on a walkway and you can see signs of life inside them. Tables with food on, piles of clothes, a TV left on; things like that.Also, a good VR window always needs to have scuff marks on and a fingerprint or two. These are things you won't notice in passing but if you decide to peer through, they'll give you multiple focal points and add extra depth to what you're seeing. Plus these little signs of life make it feel like people have inhabited these locations before you've visited - they make the world seem more alive, like it has history.

For more information on Ian's work. check out his VR Corner.

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That's all for this week! Want to have a chat, let me know about a news story, or talk business? Either reply to this email, or contact tom (at) virtualperceptions (dot) com. Have an excellent day!