LBE company list – The Free Roam VR Cage Fight
LBE expert and VR specialist Kevin Williams and I huddled up one night at the hotel bar while at the Future Port Prague Conference last week. ... There are 42 free roam VR companies.
Twenty of these companies operate one or more retail entertainment venue, and the other 22 are right behind them. And I’m sure this list is incomplete.
Free Roam LBVR Leaders (more than 5 locations)
VR Studios (65)
Zero Latency (19)
The VOID (9)
TrueVRSystems (6) (Swiss & German)
SandboxVR (6)
Less than 5
Eclipse (3)
Tick Tock Unlock (UK)
Pilots, Pop-Ups, Single location
Dreamscape Immersive (original IP Alien Zoo)
SPACES (Terminator)
Alien Descent (Fox Next)
MassVR (Chicago)
Battleverse AR (Toronto)
Golem VR (DiVR)
ModalVR (Nolan Bushnell backed)
Holodeck VR (Europa-Park project)
Beyond The Gate (Milan)
Smaller Footprint Free Roam VR, Optimized for FEC locations
Hologate (faux free roam)
WePlayVR (AiSolve)
YDreams Arkave (Latin America, expanding north)
Atom (VRStudios)
VR Nerds (with Sega and Zero Latency)
Asia
Bandai-Namco (Ghost in the Shell, Dragonquest VR)
Globalcore
SLQ VR Park
InOwize (Japan)
Tyffonium (Japan)
GLO Station (China)
SoReal
SKonec Entertainment
NINED
LEKE VR
Wild Cards & Unknowns (to us)
ABAL - game called 'Dinosaur', using GearVR and trackers JP
Skonec Entertainment - Mortal Blitz, working with SEGA and other venues
Dark Realities - funding raising UK project
EXA VERXUS - in dev with DJM and Capcom JP
VoodooVR - in joint development with Springboard VR
PolygonVR - part of VRTech who have Russian licenses
Venturion - developed by Tapps VR
ARenaSpace - Russian developer free-roaming
CinemaVR - Russian developer free-roaming
Hypercell
We haven't even talked about the expanded tracking abilities and wireless capabilities of the new Vive Pro, which has the potential to transform the humble, low-cost VRcade into a free roam platform as well. That would turn our forty-two into five thousand!
On the surface, free roam VR appears to be booming, but underneath there is turbulence. Mundane retail operations, marketing, and group sales are relentlessly difficult.
There need to be standards for free roam and, like movies, and there need to be hundreds of retailers using that standard operating system.
Who's making it work? Dave and Buster's, Rec Room, and perhaps the new Two Bit Circus. This way you're not going to The VOID, or Sandbox, you're going to an experiential entertainment destination that might include a movie theater or two, a multi-title free roam area, an Arcade and/or VRcade, redemption games, food and beverage, and even a big footprint simulator like Jurassic World. And/or bowling and ping-pong.
See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2018/09/18/the-free-roam-vr-cage-fight/#59ec6b306aab