Status of virtual reality arcades
VR Now and Tomorrow Working closely with hundreds of developers and location based entertainment centers (LBE) , virtual reality arcades and family entertainment centers (FEC), Synthesis VR will be publishing a series of articles on How we help arcade (#HOWVHELPVR) topics based on our talks, analytics and the data collected with these above mentioned entities. Current Status of LBEs & VR Arcades Virtual reality dedicated arcades popping up everywhere in the world from a minimum of 2 stations and in some cases 20 or more stations Arcades and LBEs using VR dedicated hardware such as treadmills, fitness equipment and various other apparatus to enhance the user experience (does always enhance the experience) Larger LBEs and FECs adding VR as an added attraction to their existing venues Theme parks like six flags embracing VR and having VR roller coasters and other R Attractions Large scale VR theme parks such as VOID and the up and coming Spaces. Also attractions like VR Zone in Shinjuku, Japan. With theme parks and large venues having investors and a big budget in marketing behind them, it is very easy for them to attract customers, we on the other hand want to take a look at small to medium location based entertainment and virtual reality arcades. Running a successful Business Certain points to consider in this new business. There are NO DEFINED OUTLINES It is a new industry Local community outreach is very important. Attracting new customers is hard but retaining customers is the hardest part. Creating programs within the local community, schools and colleges is your best bet in customer retention Hold events and parties Hold events based on holidays & religious days Try multiple methods, this is a new industry and no one has cracked the “so called code”. If someone says they know how to run a successful vr arcade, run as far from them. don’t be afraid to try new methods and if nothing works GIVE FREE ICE CREAM or COFFEE. Remember this! Best Practices If the things aren’t going well during the weekdays, specially during the months of September, October, January and February. Studies show these are some of the slowest months for LBE and VR Arcades in North America, it is time to try a differently approach: Daily weekday (1pm to 6pm) discounts Kids specials and after school special discounts Night discounts (every Wednesday or Thursday 7 to 10pm) – Times may vary by community. Be consistent with events. Hold weekly or monthly events and stick to a consistent schedule so your customers can plan around it and plan for it. Other ways to attract customers: Group discounts Feedback option with discount High school reunion discounts Gift cards Creating your own Coupons Marketing with Groupon Synthesis VR supports real time discounts online and for walk ins, group discounts, multiple experiences catering to a wider audience and different pricing. Best Practices – Continued Do Not Provide any weekend or holiday discounts Customer Retention As mentioned above, retaining customers is the hardest part in any business. Using some of the cool features provided by Synthesis VR, this can be achieved with ease: Arcade membership options Weekly and Monthly events based on local community activity, themes and holidays Providing multiple experiences, different pricing targeting different customer base Pay Per Game option – A popular new feature we found talking to various arcades is the new interest in certain games. With Synthesis VR you can provide experience based on certain games. The main key to running a successful business is not just a good VR experience but a GREAT Overall experience. Keep yourself tuned and we will be adding more great practices, how to minimize expenses and key features that can help run a profitable and successful business in this new and emerging market. For more questions on how we can help and other features please do not hesitate to email us at info@synthesisvr.com At Synthesis VR we are at the forefront of introducing new features, creating an ecosystem that helps arcades and developers thrive in this fledgling but exciting industry.
Great games for Halloween!
Top Games to offer during Halloween Halloween is almost here. Synthesis VR has some great virtual reality games for VR Arcades and location based entertainment centers just in time for Halloween. Escape Bloody Mary Though there are a few scary title out there, Escape Bloody Mary is an old fashioned escape room scare game that will keep you tensed and in constant fear. Figuring the puzzles before she takes your soul is a good way to start your Halloween No confusing gameplay, combat, or puzzles to explain Keeps the player tensed and interested Easy to start Short and sweet experience AFFECTED: The Manor! AFFECTED has been commended as one of the best Virtual Reality experiences to date and thus far has over 200 million YouTube hits and countless features worldwide. The most popular horror experience for arcades and location based entertainment is available on Synthesis VR. Take advantage of the Halloween season by offering Affected: The Manor at your location. AFFECTED: The Manor is a horror walk through that only takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. With 2 routes to choose from and multiple endings…can you make it through! The Haunted Graveyard Visit the Haunted Graveyard — if you dare! This spooky fun walk through a magical haunted graveyard is suitable for all ages. Meet the ghosts, explore their world, and learn their secrets. But you’d better keep moving — if you’re still in the Haunted Graveyard at midnight, you’ll be trapped here forever! Made for VRcades and location based entertainment. Kartong In a twisted world best described as ”a miniature cardboard city turned into a malicious science experiment”, you find yourself captured against your will by an oddly charming but mysterious YouTuber that goes by the name “Sven” in the deadly city of Kartong. What makes “Kartong” unique is that it is a horror experience for kids with a twisted take. Odd and Fun experience Stealth Gameplay Death by cardboard Ghost Town Mine Ride and Shootin’ Gallery “Ghost Town Mine Ride & Shootin’ Gallery” is a thrilling new interactive VR horror experience designed for a spooky and fun Halloween experience. Ghost town offers a new virtual reality experience by taking players on a ride exploring an abandoned and haunted tourist attraction. Both on-foot and on-rails experience Easy to start plenty of jump scares for create social sharing Based on extensive feedback provided by SynthesisVR, the game would be optimized for VR Arcades. LA Deadzone The west coast has fallen. An army of undead roam the streets. Your only chance of survival is to retaliate. Not everyone will make it out alive. LA Deadzone is a virtual reality cooperative fight through the streets of Los Angeles. Specifically built for VR Arcades and location based entertainment Multiplayer support Easy to use controls Fun shoot em up game play A Cool feature With Synthesis VR is you can create your own experience for Halloween and target customers based on this experience. This gives you greater control over the reservations without changing your existing experiences. You can also add special games for Halloween as mentioned above and customize your Halloween experience by adding these games. Features like this is why Synthesis VR is the number #1 platform when it comes to managing your virtual reality games, arcades and location based entertainment centers. Please check this tutorial on how to adding your own experience:
SynthesisVR 3.4 and October Newsletter
As we are getting closer to the end of one very extensive October and we would like to recap on what has happened. SynthesisVR 3.4 is out We added a static desktop timer functionality (turn it on from the desktop settings). During the VR sessions, the timer would stay on top of all your games, helping the spectators and people waiting in line to know when the station is going to be free. As usual, some code optimizations are in place, keeping Synthesis up-to-date with the latest SteamVR changes. The SynthesisVR desktop border is now hidden when playing videos in the “Idle Playback” mode. Along with that, the initial setup of the “Idle Playback” mode got much more intuitive We managed to add better shutdown detection, which gets rid of the email alerts when abnormal usage is detected. Addressed issues with the latest AMD drivers. Head to our download page and update today. The new SynthesisVR web administration interface takes preference over the legacy one. The old one would remain available for at least few more months, for all of you who got used to it. However, our advise is to switch, as the new interface offers a wide range of extras: You can easily change the game for multiple stations at once. You can take a single VR station out of a multi-station session, This is vital during extending a session for certain members of the group. Wider NFC integration – you can assign customers with a quick tap of a NFC card (a standalone NFC reader app would be released before the end of October) Take a look in “Your Games” – a new games administration page. Thanks to the new advanced filters, you can easily find games missing on specific stations or games that you no longer use, but that takes unnecessary SSD space :). Helps concentrate on fine tuning your offerings. A new scheduling logic is now in place for partitioned Free Roam installations. Better menus – the system administration became much more organized. Subscribe for our YouTube channel, highlighting key administration functionalities: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFotz447dZmL2ilIMAZURrA/playlists Stay tuned for a lot more cool stuff coming out of our lab. We also got some new games for you: The Great C – a perfection in cinematic VR experience. Karnage Chronicles – now with multiplayer support, great for arcades. V-Racer Hoverbike – fast-paced racing competition in VR. Creed: Rise to Glory Arcade – Train. Fight. Win. Humble Pie – Throw pies at the most powerful man on earth. The Haunted Graveyard – another great experience, in tact with Halloween. Shortly after the release, the developers brought great improvements. Take a look on the full update notes. Mad Factory – A fast-paced, and infinitely replayable VR experience, Mad Factory is five minutes of frantic fun for everyone. Holopoint – another well known title arrived on SynthesisVR. Big Breezy Boat – a simplified and more arcade-friendly version of VR Regatta. Even better – BBB is on a $10/lifetime license. DoodleVR – the first VR pictionary game. Great games are in work – don’t forget to regularly check our games catalog! Mad Factory has been created specifically for VR Arcades. It is a fun, visually delightful, and highly replayable 5 minutes of intuitive gameplay with a ticking clock. Set in a retro-future world where you bake and frost cookies, Mad Factory is uniquely positioned to appeal to a wide audience of players – from newcomers to more experienced gamers seeking to score high on the leaderboard. So don’t miss out on this highly addictive and polished game! We are delighted to list few notable game updates: We have got a good feedback about the game and we passed that to the VR studio. The result – a game update bringing significant improvements. Unlock them by following the instructions – https://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791462402480/announcements/detail/1705066227224796778 Now: 4c/minute NEW! LEVELS OF DIFFICULTY – There are currently three levels of difficulty to choose from: VERY EASY, SUPER FUN and EXTREME. You should ALWAYS be playing on SUPER FUN or EXTREME. The easiest option is very easy and really intended for small children only and does not include powerups or several other key features. NEW! DEATH MODE – This is selected after you choose your level of difficulty. Death mode has been really popular to play with more hardcore gamers and is super addicting and fun to play . If your score drops below the threshold, or if you have 3 collisions you can not complete the level. NEW! BONUS LEVEL – When you select DJ Johnny ‘Beast’ song and choose your level of difficulty, you will see a new Bonus level has been added above Extreme in the menu. This level is fast-paced and super extreme. TIPS & TRICKS: ADJUST SFX – You can adjust the SFX feedback levels from inside the Hotel Transylvania lobby or by pressing pause mid-game. If you set them too high it does become distracting (FYI) Please have a look at the manual HERE on page #14. OBSTACLES – When you are playing, you will see these large pink rotating walls. You must get your head and controller thru them without touching any lasers. Your feet/body doesn’t matter just get your head and popstic/wands through. GREEN POWERUP – When you hit a green powerup (green orb), you can blast thru obstacles by quickly pushing your Popstic/Wands forward right before the obstacle. Link to updated game instructions here: http://bit.ly/PlayHotelTransylvaniaPopstic The team behind Electronauts was very generous letting us all use such AAA experience for free. With the upcoming multiplayer update, starting from November, the game no longer would be free for commercial use.
Commercial Licensing
2016 – An unforgettable year where the landscape of reality became virtual. An year where it began with virtual reality dedicated arcades, a new industry even Nostradamus couldn’t have predicted let alone Google. Everyone jumped in and naturally we took the dive as well. During the early stages, there were not too many content for VR. The content developers were looking at Arcades with suspicion in terms of licensing their content. The arcades were finding it difficult to come to a price point to attract customers, the customers were trying to wrap their head around what is VR? Everything was a big unknown. Through all this confusion there was one thing that was certain, VR is cool and it is here to STAY. Slowly with the proliferation of arcades and the push from big players in VR, developers started emerging with great VR content and coming to terms with commercially licensing their content, there was a realization among LBEVRs, Arcades and Developers, the need to co-exist in an ecosystem, which is important for the industry to thrive. 2017 – The big questions were, what sort of experiences to offer? how much to pay for licenses? finding the right price point? Educating the customers in VR?, and the developers were having a hard time wrapping their heads on how to price their content. Do they collect a one time fee, monthly or usage. How to track the time? etc. Fast forward to 2018, there has been quite a lot of development in this and we believe in creating an ecosystem that helps arcades and developers thrive. Consumers have also gained considerable knowledge about virtual reality and are seeking out this form of entertainment. With the proliferation of arcades all over the world, the developer community has embraced this surprisingly new development. At Synthesis VR we have been thinking on how we can make the existing license model even better, a solution that can truly help arcades and developers and provide the best experience for consumers. We had to take into account that arcades are popping up not just in North America and western Europe but everywhere in the world. Places like Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Hungary and various other places where it would be impossible for an arcade to pay the same price as arcades in the USA. We came up with the obvious solution and introduced our Fair Rates Plan in early May 2018. The developers now have the ability to set different rates for different regions, this helps everyone in three ways: Developers are able to monetize in regions where they couldn’t possible monetize before Arcades in these regions are able to commercially license games and offer the latest updates to consumers Reduce Piracy and illegal usage As developers and arcades have geared towards the PPM model (pay per minute), At Synthesis VR we wanted to do more. Our commercial licensing platform is tailored to provide a solution that can be feasible and flexible, hence we also introduced the fixed monthly fee model as well as the PPM model. We didn’t stop here – in July 2018 we introduced the Floating License Plan. An ingenious way to license games combining pay per usage and fixed monthly fees. With our state of the art tracking and analytics we found arcades that use this model, profits have increased by 32%. A model that tracks the concurrent usage of the gaming stations and then calculates according to their licensing model. At Synthesis VR we are at the forefront of introducing new features, creating an ecosystem that helps arcades and developers thrive in this fledgling but exciting industry.
The Great C – a Cinematic experience for your arcade
The Great C – now available for licensing on Synthesis Renowned sci-fi author Philip K. Dick became known for his odd, and often twisted narratives which covered near-future and themes that became popular in cyberpunk. One of his short stories, The Great C, has been adapted into virtual reality (VR) and will premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The Great C short VR film is described as a cinematic VR narrative, which takes the viewer to a post-apocalyptic future where the remnants of humanity are ruled over by an all-powerful computer known a The Great C. The story of The Great C concerns a young woman called Clare, who lives in a village under the control of the almighty computer. Each year, the village is forced to send a young person on a pilgrimage to appease the machine. Clare finds herself faced with a bitter choice when her fiancé is chosen for the pilgrimage and she must choose whether to accept the brutal rules of her society, or try and fight back. The story has been adapted into VR by Entertainment One’s studio Secret Location, who are trying to use The Great C as a test bed for pushing the boundaries in VR editing, composition and structure. “Philip K. Dick’s wonderfully forward-thinking stories have always felt primed for telling in equally forward-thinking mediums. Secret Location is highly focused on ushering in the future of storytelling, so pairing The Great C‘s provocative themes with our VR development prowess is helping us redefine how we consume sci-fi stories,” said Ryan Andal, President and Co-Founder of Secret Location. “Authors have long adhered to the ‘show, don’t tell’ technique. We’re hard-pressed to find a better way to ‘show’ a story than in VR – adapting Philip K. Dick’s The Great C only makes our ability to ‘show’ even stronger.” We are proud to announce Synthesis VR is partnering with this renowned author to offer this masterpiece to all the arcades and location based entertainment centers.
Games on Focus – May 2018
Hi Fellow Arcade Owners, Finding the best games for your arcade isn’t either easy nor fast. Considering different genres, we chose and are happily presenting you some of your best options: Kiss or Kill Welcome to Kiss or Kill: Trivia Royale, the ultimate trivia showdown! The social VR game show is filled with big choices and crazy shenanigans. 2-8 players must answer fast-paced questions in an intense trivia battle! Designed for VR arcades with local and global multiplayer Tens of thousands of questions Mini games in between rounds Tournament mode allows for easy rematches AFFECTED: The Manor! Oculus described AFFECTED: The Manor as the original VR horror experience, now it’s available for commercial licensing under SynthesisVR! Commended as one of the best VR experiences to date and with over 250 million views on YouTube, it has been the highest rated experience since its release on the Oculus store. It’s simple one-button controls and high quality VR environment makes AFFECTED: The Manor the perfect app to show newcomers and experienced gamers alike. AFFECTED: The Manor is a horror walkthrough that only takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. With 2 routes to choose from and multiple endings…can you make it through! Arrowborn Arrowborn brings you the fast-paced and visceral action of a multiplayer first-person shooter and combines it with the immersive experience of virtual reality archery. Show your lethal accuracy and clever map tactics as you load your quiver full of deadly magical arrows and lay waste to the competition! Select from an ever-expanding assortment of magical arrows each with their own unique way of wreaking havoc on your opponents and giving you the advantage. Attach a powerful gem to your armor to increase your survivability or boost your mana pool to unleash deadly barrages! Cosmic Trip You’ve been deployed on an alien planet full of hostile enemies. You must defend yourself by building and commanding an army of cosmo bots to gather resources and destroy the opposition. Built from the ground up for VR, Cosmic Trip lets you experience real-time strategy like never before. Feel what it’s like to destroy alien enemies using futuristic weapons. Strategically build swarms of badass robots to defend yourself and gather materials. SynthesisVR supports the arcade mode for Cosmic Trip Sovient Lunapark VR Treat yourself to an array of thrilling VR-attractions! Contemplate the magnificent creations of Dr. Pavlov! Immerse yourself into the brilliantly crafted world of walking and thinking machines and abominable cadavers hungry for the flesh of the living! Stroll through the facility in single player mode or compete with other visitors in the arena. Based on extensive feedback provided by SynthesisVR, the game would be optimized for VR Arcades. Vacate The Room | Vacate 2 Rooms Can you find your way out of the different rooms? You need to find a lot of hidden items. Uncover secrets. Use strange mechanisms to proceed through the different rooms to the exit.