011 – My Virtual Reality

#designlife

Tonight I had the pleasure of being invited to a VR showcase event held by the lovely folks over at Gramercy Park Studio.

I attended with Bill my Creative Director from Other Media on one of our networking / inspiration / creative outings. We found ourselves in an awesome studio space in central London with a beer in hand observing a talk by where we were shown the awesome possibilities that can be realised with VR.

I’ve always been relatively sceptical of VR and its commercial viability, over and above a novelty you show your mates when you manage to get your hands on Google Cardboard (much like I have done). Don’t get me wrong Google cardboard is fantastic fun and I can see the innovation behind it. It’s great as a gateway to experiencing the possibilities of VR and what can be achieved without the price tag, but feels gimmicky and well cheap.

During the initial keynote talk both myself and Bill were picked out to play with the HTC Vive, we obviously accepted with open arms and huge grins. Our presence caused great amusement for the rest of the attendees as we tripped over headset wires and managed to ‘virtually’ smash into the walls of the Louv’re which for that split second before you realise it’s not real is like ‘Oh Shit, wall, wall, wall, stop! STOP!’ It was great fun and awesome to try something brand new and alien.

From the talk and subsequent conversations with attendees and GPS staff I was able to see a viable and creative opportunity to apply this type of VR interaction to clients that we work with at Other Media. The biggest issue that I foresee with the technology is the cost to develop, and the accessibility to format. Obviously Google cardboard bridges this somewhat but is not a scratch on the 4K screens we witnessed tonight.

The highlight of the night for me was playing a 3-D game on the Oculus Rift which was so surreal. It really drew you in and made the whole experience so much more visceral and organic. I was part of the environment I could ‘just reach out touch’ the rip off crash bandicoot character that bounded around the scene smashing penguins and collecting coins. This is where I see the most practical application, as an avid gamer the opportunity to be in the game really excites me. You can see the uptake and interest in the market through games like Pokemon Go that augments the characters into the real world and the possibilities don’t stop here if you introduce a headset and controller. It’s huge.

I’m excited to discuss with colleagues and hopefully some of my client in the next coming days and weeks the opportunities that presented themselves to myself and Bill tonight.

At Other Media we strive to innovate and push the boundaries creatively and technically and I feel that this is a perfect fit for our remit and some of our clients. With applications possible within sport, fashion, retail and medical to name but a few.

As discussed at tonight’s talk there is still a fair way to go to iron out some of the flaws in VR:

• Price
• Wires
• Accessibility
• Heaviness
• Limits to space

But I don’t think it will too long before we see more VR experiences and we all get to give it a ago.

Appolgies it’s been a while since I last wrote, I’ll try stop by more often!