The Last Days of Pompeii is an ok immersive experience

Executive summary

Welcome to your weekly briefing on the metaverse and spatial computing. Here are your snippets to sound smarter in meetings this week:

• Top stories: My thoughts on The Last Days of Pompeii: The Immersive Exhibition (read below)

• Research: A new study suggests VR headsets could cut astronaut motion sickness by more than 80%, offering a potential alternative to medication for easing space adaptation syndrome.

• This week’s stories: Valve announced the Steam Frame, a new VR headset (more below).

Top stories

I went to see The Last Days of Pompeii: The Immersive Exhibition, which had two different immersive experiences. One was a seven minute piece showing life in Pompeii inside the gladiatorial arena before it was destroyed by Vesuvius. The other was a more free-roaming experience where you could wander through a Roman villa, seeing the home after the eruption and then seeing it as it would have looked before.

Between these sections there were lots of objects from Pompeii, along with historical notes. I went with some historian friends, and there were definitely a few inaccuracies. The first VR experience had a slightly lower frame rate, which made it a bit jittery. The second one was much more detailed, and I thought it was a strong way of showing what everyday life might have felt like for a Roman.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good as an experience, but if you are looking for true historical depth and accuracy, it falls a bit short. It is more of an immersive attraction than a traditional exhibition.

This week’s stories

• Cornerstone VR reported that its immersive knife-crime film series significantly shifted attitudes among 14–18-year-olds, with most participants deterred from carrying knives and all rating the VR as more effective than traditional learning.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched its first virtual reality tours, letting visitors explore the Temple of Dendur and its Oceania galleries through immersive 3D experiences.

• Michigan State University researchers found that playing AR and VR sports games can help reduce loneliness, with more engaged players reporting higher psychological well-being.

• PYMNTS research shows that 31% of consumers are very or extremely interested in using VR to shop in physical stores from home, highlighting growing demand for virtual retail experiences.

• Valve announced the Steam Frame, a new VR headset.

Note: The Immersive Wire is run by Tom Ffiske, who also works at Accenture. The contents of the newsletter should not be regarded as Accenture’s views.

All spelling mistakes are deliberate, actually.