Virtual Reality may have been around for a while now, but for many, VR is still a fairly new concept with many organisations trying to identify how and what VR content can be used to create a sustainable revenue stream. SixPorts decided to find out a bit more, so we sat down with our head of Resource and Development for a Q&A session on VR.

Q. Hi Andy, can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your role?

I’m Andy, Head of R&D at our sister company PageSuite. I research emerging technologies and look into how PageSuite can create digital solutions that add value to businesses and drive additional revenue streams. It’s my job to ensure that PageSuite and SixPorts are at the forefront of new innovative technologies.

Q. Who are the big players in the VR world?

The primary competition in the market exists between Oculus (Facebook), HTC Vive (Valve), PSVR (Sony), and to a lesser extent Gear VR (Samsung), all at varying price points and advantages.

Q. How do you think virtual reality will impact businesses?

So far, VR has seen its best use-cases through interactive and non-interactive media consumption, such as short vignettes and 360 videos or interactive environments. There are also many games that now exist for the various VR platforms, but there is still a lot of exploratory work being done in this field to find the optimum comfort level for each experience.

One of the best experiences offered by VR is providing a sense of real-world scale. Upscaling video content to either cinema-size or 360-degrees around the viewer are both examples of how video content can be delivered differently through VR. Naturally, navigating this content can be done through interactivity using gesture-based movement or hand/touch controls (where available).

Q. How will VR be used to engage readers and add value?

Unlike traditional web or device-based applications, VR allows for a sense of whole-body immersion in the content. It’s possible to simply deliver content visually to users without offering any additional means of interaction, but the real value of engagement lies with giving users the freedom to both move and interact with their virtual environment, providing some scope to enhance the traditional video or editorial mediums with whole-body (movement) or tactile (touch) capabilities.

Q. Do you see VR being viable to distribute to the masses?

Commercially-available VR hardware is slowly coming down in price, with the best value-for-quality level being offered by Sony in its PSVR platform. The common denominator that’s stopping the hardware being taken up by more people is the price. The current distribution of quality devices (Oculus, HTC Vive) is limited mainly to enthusiasts or early-adopters looking to invest in VR. PSVR is a cheaper alternative to those who already own the PlayStation 4 games console, but the price is expected to drop across the board in the coming years as the manufacturing processes involved become more affordable and streamlined.

Q. How do PageSuite plan to use VR?

PageSuite are already in discussion with major publishers to explore new ideas in expressing their content through this new medium. At this stage, many people are still experimenting with how to get users engaged with their content in different ways to really exploit the possibilities offered by VR.

Q. How can businesses create an immersive reader experience?

There are ways of delivering content to users beyond simply putting text on a screen. There are also ways to allow users to more directly engage with advertisers through VR, and the potential here is effectively limitless. The key here is to understand the user, step into their shoes and find out what drives a truly engaging experience without feeling contrived or forceful.

Q. What are the opportunities for businesses to monetise VR?

Advertising still plays a large part in underlining the benefits of exploring new content mediums. In VR, there are more tactile possibilities that can be provided to the user. Rather than simply delivering an in-headset video for an advertiser such as a car manufacturer, perhaps the user can experience what it’s like to drive the car themselves through a 360 video taken from inside the vehicle? Or be given the chance to see the car, fully-modelled in 3D in front of them at real-world scale. These are opportunities that are quite impossible through other mediums since nothing else offers the immediacy and presence offered by VR.

In a traditional set-up, you may run advertising pre-rolls before your in-house video content, but there are now opportunities to discreetly step the user out of the content and into a fully-immersive environment used for advertising. This area is still being explored, but there is potential there to do something truly unique and unexpected.

Q. What are the different experiences VR can offer businesses?

There is a fairly clear delineation of experience-types offered by VR. A sit-down experience is more forgiving on issues surrounding motion sickness and ‘on-rails’ types of movement in the virtual space. The VR experience has to be tailored carefully to avoid ‘breaking the 4th wall’, and acknowledge the user’s sitting position to provide the best immersion. Standing experiences are best in static environments where the user is free to move around, but are limited to how much space the user has available to them. Care has to be taken not to presume the user has a specific size of movement space available, otherwise you could risk some users suffering a poor experience as a result. Stand up / movement related experiences can feel truly immersive if executed well, especially when combined with touch / tactile elements of interactivity.

Q. Do you ever see VR being a mainstream way of consuming news?

If it becomes mainstream, it will be because the medium is providing a unique and exciting alternative means of consuming the same content available on other platforms. Putting your news on the Internet as well as on the physical pages on your newspaper doesn’t mean you’re replacing one medium for another. Rather, you’re giving the option for the readers to decide for themselves, whether by convenience or preference, which means suit them best. VR can offer additional ways to consume that content that may provide an overriding preference for some people, but like everything else, it will all come down to personal choice rather than ‘need’.

Q. Which industries are already implementing VR particularly well?

There are many companies now producing quality VR content in the games industry, but we are now also starting to see interesting opportunities for media consumption offered by content channels such as Discovery and Sky (who offer 3D content through VR).

Q. What’s the next step for VR?

VR will inevitably become cheaper, lighter and more technologically advanced. There are many, many VR headset currently under development that isn’t listed here, each of which is bringing its own unique advancement to the industry. Development standards are starting to become more organised (through standards such as OpenVR), meaning that more companies will be able to focus clearly on how a VR development workflow fits within their business. Technical limitations such as hardware power, display size and resolution and such will get pushed beyond their current bounds, resulting in a VR experience that will ultimately be more comfortable, high-fidelity, and affordable than ever.

If you are interested in discussing how we could collaborate on a Virtual Reality or emerging technology project, SixPorts would love to hear from you. Send your project or idea to hello@sixports.com.