The state of virtual reality and augmented reality in 2016

[Music] so welcome to the state of VR and a our panel and I'm gonna ask each of the panelists firstly to introduce themselves and just to give you a very brief introduction of myself i'm a developer and a consultant I've been in the industry for at nine years based in the UK and work mania mobile games so I'm very interested to see what these guys are doing in the VR space and but i'll hand over have you guys got mikes somebody wants to introduce themselves hmm yes hello hello you want to start well I can begin I my name is all is normal I'm the chairman of FIV are and also one of the cofounders of mine field games which yaakov was the scream a presentation about um what else oh nothing more to add the next day thank

you hello everyone my name is Thor I'm the CEO of Nordic trolls and VP Europe for magical world both our Chinese companies based in Beijing and we focus almost fully on anything that has to do with VR of corny I'm Kevin joist the CEO and L to reveal focus we are a VR specialists publication targeting consumer audience hello I'm you Hana kotti linen I'm the president of Silverman entertainment the creator of philosophies we are game hello my name is a sample up a line and I'm day CEO of Umbra we build technology for for basically anyone who is working on on 3d apps oh we are most well known for our contributes in triple-a games we're about fifty percent of T of the games are the top games today use our

our technology great thanks guys say we've had some really good talks already so i'm happy for anyone from the audience to ask questions at any point I've got loads here so I can fill the whole half-hour but if anybody does have any questions just put your hand up so I'm just going to dive right in and mass market adoption and customers is obviously a really big challenge at the moment we're how long is it going to be until it becomes a market that can generate sustainable revenues or are we already there are any of you doing that already well at the moment the problem I think is on the consumer side because of the business the business side there is a lot of revenue to be made you can do a lot of third-party you can do a lot of advertisement you can have customers about everywhere at the moment the only issue is that the paying customers is pleasantly on first a gaming site it's a small market people don't yet have let's say money for the two thousand two thousand year old wife headset and 200,000 apartment that you need to feed the thing into so that's the big issue

at the moment how long is it going to take I'd say a couple of years and then it will be huge that's what everybody says from from my perspective we see that VR is already kind of similar to mobile on that there's a couple of standout titles that are making revenues that are making profit for the developers but they are varied they're a very few of those there was a talk this morning we're on the Solus project talk where the gentleman on the stage said there was only about 50 titles in PR that is wildly inaccurate on Steam there's about three hundred fifty games already but most of them are just tech demos that you pay four bucks for and no one's ever going to make money of doing that they need to be big hope right high-profile releases I think one of the most successful ones is space pirate trainer which is just a wave shooter it's not a bad one but there's lots of them out there but they're doing very well because they got in early and they made a name for themselves and they built a community and as but there's

very few of them that are action very few games that are actually able to do that to keep people coming back and it's the same situation sorted we where this person will play and get very much into it and show it to their friends and then they'll get into it and and that's that's the only way the game is making money at the moment and beer yeah exactly like the guy said that like consumer side is pretty tough so basically there's just not enough people who can i buy the games but though like to be the beef side is very interesting as well because everybody really needs the corn that the manufacturer has invested so much money into it so they just need games they can't really sell the game like the devices without the games so that's really I think that's one of the biggest markets right now as well Google is coming in Apple is coming in and so on so it might be growing faster than the two years I hope like I'm saying that like just gonna happen already this Christmas a lot of things it's going to crow but again like then we move forward I think

like a year or two it's going to be a massive business I think it's one of the biggest technology businesses already or at least people have been investing to it so much that like dad updation must be coming because everybody are doing and the main thing is that people are so excited about it that like I am myself so it will come of course and I'm going to have to side with only on this one actually arm as I don't think that we have the device out yet which which is the device that the mass market will adopt truly because I'm on the I guess give yours is closest to that right now as you can basically just plug in your phone into it but on the on the high end side oculus and wife I'd I just don't see them go going into the most mass market something like or your arcades might make a

V or more widely adopted the average user but but as for something that people would buy for their homes i don't see that the current devices are there yet right so i will talk a little bit about it from the from the chinese point a point of view pretty much agree that there is no big revenue to be made yet in the consumer market at least a regular consumer market where we have people with hardware at home so what we're doing back there is basically reviving the old arcade halls so we're bringing on lines the roadhouse not only our company but many many companies are bringing out their several thousands arcade halls where people can go there experience short bursts oh we are pay a little bit of money for it and that seems to be the way to go right now yeah I also agree with the VR case that is going to be the way people experience which are reality nowadays and when i'm

saying when it's going to be in two years what I'm talking about is the phase when you everybody in this audience you won't be looking at your cell phones while the student is talking at the stage it will be sitting there with something on your face totally immersed into this discussion we are having on your home sofa that is what I'm looking for that is two years so the cup you mentioned obviously funding particularly from B to B and you know how difficult is it to get funding at the moment you know if you were a developer starting out now I'm wanting to do VR or a are here is there lots of opportunity for funding and you know water investors looking for primarily so we just raised a angel round and based on our own experiences and also the experiences or other companies we see that investment money and also risk willing as much investment money especially in Asia is it's really there in all other sectors of gaming is almost

completely dried up I will be surprised if I heard about anyone being able to raise any money anymore from mobile gaming in in China but money is technically there for BR and AR yep china is definitely the place to go if you are looking for money in VR United States it's a bit of like inner market yeah they are giving money for virtual reality but if your company is based in Silicon Valley or San Francisco we Europeans we have our own troubles at the moment so not much money about here but I'd say also on the mobile gaming market there has been a couple of big news in Finland lately about 5 million dollar racist raised rounds and such but the case has me that they also need something to go with it like say eSports or some other angle than just going with we are doing a free-to-play mobile game the non week goes by we don't report on someone raising 10 million dollars investment on E is easy to come by if

you've got the right idea I agree that American investment money is you've got to be friends you've got to be based in Silicon Valley two miles down the road from the people you're taking the money from and i love it is based around incubate incubators and vc organizations whereas from china as long as you've got an idea and something that has a long-term plan is fairly easy to raise money still yeah act like like to be honest like I think it's the place where people should be investing it's the biggest technology right now coming up so all the vc's should be looking into as well and as we discussed with the guys before that like even the Chinese government is investing and same thing with the Phoenix government they should be investing heavily to that because a lot of things are moving from mobile to VR and I think its way much easier to raise money of course what we are but you need to write the ideas for it you need the business

model and you need to beat background so you can market it make a good product so it makes sense for everybody but I said it's not like it's an investment to long term as you can't get the return of the investment back right away but it's AB it's a good place to invest definitely in my opinion yeah I can't really comment on the video game development side of things but but as for technology I think that there is currently a lot of money out there and the big companies particularly are looking to sort of built their VR and a or portfolios so to speak so they are trying to figure out what is the killer app and what is the like the killer platform in the future in two years or five years time and right now they are figuring that out and that means that there is currently like lots of investments in into wild tech nology ideas oh but what that said I think I

think that um simply ideas won't carry very far you still need you still need something concrete something tangible something more than just an idea and also one thing that about the investments in ve are it's usually when you go to an investor meeting and then they ask so who are your competitors virtual reality is the only area where you can say no one and that is a good thing anybody got any questions yet ok and what about non games markets so obviously you know there's a lot of research going into use of ER and IR and other sectors and what are the most interesting ones for you and are you guys looking any of those or are there any other game developers you know of that are actually looking outside of the industry at the moment for us non non games markets are actually our primary focus right now as all we have our video games business which is running well but I think the

growth only actually said that that is to be to be where the adoption is going to happen first so envy or a or and other otherwise in 3d as well for us um it'sit's industry such as architecture construction automotive navigation things like these that will see fast adoption of these new technologies I definitely agree with that one we are also looking at another aspect and that is the winner comes to education I mean the possibilities in education is virtually limitless when it comes to to what you can do in VR we all know that the way of learning the way we learn best is by by doing and having a text book and reading from a textbook and looking at pretty pictures doesn't give you or that understanding very quickly but picture yourself you're going to learn about let's say dinosaurs in VR you are put into a

prehistoric jungle you walk around you listen to the sounds etc and suddenly here heavy footsteps of the t-rex approaching 0 boom and he's right there he's next to you and you look up and oh my God he's huge is your mungus you don't get that feeling from just reading a book but in VR you can do these kind of things and it's gonna stick in your mind so that's also something i believe it's gonna come very quickly exactly the same sir I'm looking forward to go to Harvard on we are as well and learned there what's going to have like happening there at all the time but as well I think it's going to connect all these things that people can actually go to virtual universities and get universal education of course there's the dangerous of that as well in a way but so again these things are already happening I agree totally on the enterprise side we're already seeing the happenin with as you say architecture

and and in education I agree that education is if exactly the same reasons you've said since I've started in via that was one of the most exciting areas for me that's already in healthcare in military and any industry that has even the vaguest interest in it has pushed hard and yeah it's BRS easy to come by in any in any industry yeah it's a well we are have been called like a gaming platform because of course gamers are the guys who are buying all these new peripherals and they are the guys first test on how does a Valkyrie feel in VR and so but eventually I think that games will be say a quarter of the whole market or something like that it's not a huge part of the pie but it's a really important part because that is the one that gives us the runway to go to burst virtual reality and besides of being educational platform tourism platform social platform so multiple different possibilities that we are currently has there's also almost the elephant in the room of what is the most

successful we are thing that is going to happen next months or years adult entertainment as well the games like if you if I go back to their like smart early smartphone times like Angry Birds was sending the devices so we got some stats directly from the manufacturers that okay this phone sells better with Angry Birds so basically going back to that like this kind of games and the eyepiece there will be the driver of the market to sell the devices because it's something exciting entertainment is easy casual fun and it's for everybody as well so when more nice things they are not so let's say saleable things so I think games are the one of the biggest driver of the whole market definitely apps yeah and also like to add about games that games have over and over again they have proved that they are really like

driving the technological advances of of tea on like interactive entertainment and particularly 3d or so I believe that the games will keep keep that role Oh game games will bring the advances in the sort of like the research side of things so we've talked a bit about kind of challenges of b2c in mass market and the previous tour talked a lot about play a role and the challenges with that what other challenges are there at the moment for you know games to go out to the consumers what other challenges are you guys facing nothing that would be worried yeah making games for virtual road is super easy no problems what's also you just take your generic a 3d game and import it into game and everything goes fine just publish it no issues whatsoever no really to be frank it's a yuck just gave a huge lecture on things that you need to know man making virtual reality content one of the interesting things I think about making games for VR is that

all the things you learn about making a game for we are they actually work for everything in virtual reality you have you when you make a video game for VR you know how to make software for it it gives exactly the same learnings about motion sickness user interface but not only the software that you use to develop it I think for us the biggest challenge right now is that even the the two top game engines out there is not really ready for we are sorry if anyone is here from unity and unreal but there's a lot of things we cannot do and there is a lot of old thinking and to make one example I mean a lot of the stuff we have done for 3d on a flat screen we cannot do in VR and the best example here is parallax mapping put parallax mapping into your game you're almost guaranteed to make people sick and then you can start talking about well what's the reason for that it gives greater

depth in like ground textures and break some walls and stuff like that well maybe your mind just don't want to accept it in VR it has to be real you have to build it the whole way which is gonna make nvidia laugh all the way to the bank the next ten years because of hardware coming out so about two and half years ago oculus during the dk1 days release the white paper stating all the things you cannot do in VR in order to avoid simulation sickness and over the last two years all have been proven wrong someone has found a cure for ever aqua said was not possible it was simple things like when someone gets close to a wall in a room you can't stop their head movie and you have to let them just pass through the wall well developers have been discovered clever techniques such as like when they do approach will just fade the screen slowly to black reveling going through and let them see the wireframe and what's going on behind just come up of techniques to avoid that while not making the player sick and not

making your audience sick is pretty important yeah I think on the mobile side it's a lot about the performance side and they're like resolution of the screen because that's not there yet and things don't look that good yet so you guys need to improve a lot on that side for me to see that's a very high quality product and device ID is definitely there lot to be done there to make it more quality and of course like i have a iphone and i can't use it so that's a quite big problem for me right now so like getting all the new devices in and making those better is just one of the big difficulties yes so we are tools comp and software and tools companies or job is to eliminate the problems or at least some of them so that's what we're trying to do and our focus is on on the performance side so we try to sort of like bridge the gap between the sort of

like a regular video games and NVR video games to bring the performance up there but also to improve the workflow um as us getting getting the required performance in in a V your app requires a lot of like manual work how to get how to optimize the treaty itself to really really on run fast enough on on on the gear VR frame for instance so we try to help their to automate part of that so I think I want to make one advice based on what what Kevin brought up and that is what was what was true yesterday is changing today and it's not necessarily true for for tomorrow we see that things are changing very very quickly things that we were told couldn't be done can now be done and I'm seeing that also all the collaboration bc in the sea between game companies is really helping to push things forward quickly so i hope guys

that we can all continue to share ideas and best practices and if you were a start-up now you know starting of starting your first company would you be looking at vr or AR and what would your advice be to them well that's a interesting question in many ways um it's really hard to say in fact uh I'd say that look for the long run don't expect to make money in the next 30 sorry six months years in the next six months plan ahead I think beyond like the normal software nobody has yet uncracked the this is the golden piece of virtual reality was it's going to be for example tilt brushes ingenious software it was something that was not possible before virtual reality

I wouldn't consider windows paint the same thing um I may have something else but let's put the other guys on the road so with vida do they are yeah absolutely but that's probably because I'm just super passionate about it an advice would be to look carefully at the platform you are aiming for and the amount of players that it currently has in VR and scale your game ambitions and your budget accordingly don't go big yet you know do small gameplay experiences instead this is more than good enough at the moment given that i'm a journalist have never made a game in my life I probably wouldn't start a VR company up in terms of advice again coming from it from a journalist perspective you can make the best game in the world if nobody knows about it you're not going to anything so talk to people get your game out there show it to people go to events like this and put a little table take a laptop with you in

the headset and just get people to play it get people to see it business what I would say that it's good to focus right now the mass market products because that's something that's going to sell the devices as well and it's good to focus on the building up the IP right now because there's not that much competition as well you put the word we are after something it gets a more attention and the communication is interesting so it's good to use the hype and the partnership possibilities to drive your product and your game forward for the future in a long run but yeah there's not much revenue right now but then again like there will be soon and i would say that as the market is so immature right now it's pretty easy to become the best in the world in something like so it my suggestion would be to pick something like really difficult a problem that there is in VR AR and solve that and become the best in the world in that and

likely that's going to be a big thing for for in the future and then also you have to also play play the long game so you have to have the fonts to sort of like wait for the market to mature yep from Johannes talk I got the idea that IP I would probably expand it that is what i would recommend because if we look out virtual reality games that have you published these for our products there's one that is actually pretty successful code keep talking and nobody explodes and where the success come from they used virtual reality as a way to tell people how you're playing the game if you guys don't know but what game is it's about defusing bombs where one is seeing the bomb in a virtual reality and the other one is telling you how you defuse it but the game also works on ipad it works on pc there is instantly some virality in it because i need two players to play it all this kind of ingenious ideas when you incorporate it together where you start

to get your but i was talking the golden again goes whatever thanks any questions for anyone ok I've only got two more and then I think we have to wrap up and predictions ten years time what's Vee RNA are gonna look like I'm gonna write them all down and come back in ten years I'm sorry um I'm a firm believer of the so-called middle-earth a concept of made-up were so like a virtual and real environments combining into one and and everything basically going virtual like working social interactions and everything basically and I really do think that that's going to happen and our really big companies are also betting into that as well and I think the Facebook acquisition of oculus is a testament to that and I think Facebook is in a great position to make that reality as well at least on the social

angle right I'm gonna started with a question to the to the audience how many here could live it out their mobile all right no one Wow a one person okay so for me 10 years from now we are an AR is going to be what mobile is today you can't live without it definitely and that is something I was thinking is going to happen in two or three years already so probably I need to go even further with what I'm thinking about so let's go with an idea that in 10 years you will have their social facebooking virtual reality where most of the users are actual humans and the other side pcs but you cannot recognize them and it will be go to life I think it's going to be definitely one of the biggest technology things in the world right now and it's going to affect our lives our kids

everybody a lot more than we can even think about right now and even like think about it like sometimes I get a little bit scared because it's as well a way to affect in your brain you know many ways so there's as well big risk involved and a lot of good things I think it's going to be the best way for people to learn new things and make the future I see that's one of the future another world that can make everything possible it's a pretty cool I think in 10 years AMV I will converge so you have one headset that does does this both over a shot comes down and get projection on rubbed in the screen or someone will have solved that problem and it'll be one heads that they can do both I don't believe the mat of us is gonna be here in ten years I'll love the idea of it but I think we're talking more 25 a and two until you've got a believable space that people can exist in I think to be frank because it's such a huge change for us I

don't think that our generation ready for it I think it's going to be the generation of follows us that builds the metaverse okay last question what's the best game we've ever played in VRA are you can't say your own games ok so it's several games but I just pick one or the the recent ones fancy skiing also called fantasy skiing i believe it's not really that much of a game right now it's more like an experience to up high in the hill you have you have your skis and you're setting out downhill and you can decide the speed you're going to have and you can go really really fast avoid some obstacles but then suddenly again you're up in the mountain what does Mountain have clips and who you go and it's like free fall for five seconds and you really feel it and still today I played it a lot but I'll and I fall I fall forwards I have to have someone there to help me play

this game I'll go with a bit older one this is DK one time when we don't have hit tracking or we don't have any motion controllers it's a classic called keep talking nobody ever know that's a different game sorry don't let go it's like all these games have some kind of like these sort of names but in don't let go the idea is that you guys holding your fingers on the control buttons on the keyboard and you are seeing a 3d model of your self holding the same control buttons and then spiders start to crawl on your hands and I've stopped chop on your hands and all of that and disappear Amos it was fun i'm gonna cheat not name a game or bought and not even an experienced really bought hololens as a device um i guess that was the most recent sort of like magical experience that you get these Holograms like really well tracked in the environment 3d objects in the in

the real environment and that that was simply a very very strong experience to me um seeing that so having rag don't check them as early i'm going to pick a deck tech demo it's a bullet train Epic Games is accursed touch tech demo it basically makes you like a badass for four minutes you're you're invincible you've got hundreds of girls trying to shoot you and you just lobbing grenades around and picking guns up shooting that all the ammo until they're running out then fronting the gun at the enemy as well and yeah so awesome and the other 1i i'd say probably is vancien realms for the vibe as it's been created by the guy who did the audio for the half-life series X valve employee and it's basically Elder Scrolls in VR it's amazing this is not the one of the best games there is but I like bright colors and colorful things so Lucky's tale is like nice for me but it's mainly because of the cartoon character and the colors and so on I want to go back to the knee in

there the world myself like in a real world I want to leave there myself it's not right we're gonna rough it out there thank you very much guys thank you thank you [Music] you