Recurring Use of VR
This week, we surpassed 12 million VR headset video views that Vrtigo has processed. With all this data, we finally wanted to answer a burning question that our customers (and we) have wondered about — do people who don a VR headset and watch videos for the first time act any differently than users who are already used to viewing 360 videos?
Usage
Of over 1 million users we analyzed, 80% were recurring users who watched more than one video and 20% churned after watching only one video.
The majority of recurring users typically watch between 2–10 videos over their entire lifespan.
Most recurring users come back within a week to watch another video. 93% of these users watch more than one video within a month.
Behavior
What’s more interesting is to compare how users who have watched multiple VR videos behave differently from users who watch a 360 video for the first time.
- Are “experienced” viewers more likely to finish watching a video than new users?
- Do new users look around more?
To investigate this, we compared the behavior of users* watching the RecoVR Mosul video from The Economist VR. This video takes viewers through a virtual museum containing reconstructions of artifacts in Mosul that were destroyed in 2015.
* Note: We only compared data from users (new and recurring) who watched the video for the first time. Data from repeat views of the video is excluded.
Completion Rates
Experienced viewers progress more through the video than new users.
Looking at the actual completion rate distribution, we notice that recurring users are twice as likely to watch more than 75% of the video than new users.
Although we focused on a single video, RecoVR Mosul, this trend is consistent across nearly all the thousands of videos we’ve analyzed.
Field of View
Surprisingly, there is little difference between where new and recurring users look inside the RecoVR Mosul video.
Heatmaps for new and recurring users look almost identical. When we look at hotspots (points of interest) within the video, we notice that almost the same percentage of users look at nearly the same area of the video.
It remains to be seen if this observation is true across all videos. RecoVR Mosul employs a variety of techniques, including audio cues, which may cause all viewers to have similar experiences.
Conclusion
Most 360 video viewers end up being recurring users who typically watch 2–10 videos. And while these recurring users are more likely to finish watching a video compared to users who are introduced to 360 videos for the first time, there isn’t necessarily a difference in their in-video behavior.
This investigation has led us to consider additional questions which we hope to tackle in the future.
- How do VR DAU, WAU, and MAU retention rates compare to traditional video?
- Do new users really behave the same as recurring users within a video or only in guided / narrated videos?
- Can content creators use the completion rate disparity to increase engagement?
Vrtigo is the next generation VR analytics platform for content creators, editors, producers, and marketers.
