VR as a way to improve working and living conditions
The majority of people link VR with the gaming industry. But do you know that its capabilities are higher? VR has enormous strength that can be embedded in various spheres. We are on the way to embrace new technology in education, medicine, military, etc. Every day VR changes our life, making it easier and more fascinating. Know the Best ways to monetize VR.
VR in the classroom
VR can be used in literature, history, geography, etc. Just imagine visiting any place on the globe and seeing VR panoramas with your own eyes! Don`t you think that the level of knowledge will increase and students become more interested in the subject? Who could ever dream of seeing a whirling tornado or erupting volcano safely? It seems that almost all become possible with VR.
VR can be successfully applied in biology as an innovative way of learning anatomy. It is a good solution to make a live presentation of the body, organs, and other different things.
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VR technology helps in teaching special children. Those who have autism, for example. There are various scenarios to practice important communicative skills such as making eye contact or working in a team.
What VR can offer in the sphere of education?
- students will get deeper skills being immersed in life-like situations and interacting with each other. Reading books cannot be compared with exploring the topic and ‘living’ it,
- learners can get practical skills by being involved in experiments they`ve never tried in real life,
- students will be inspired to discover themselves and to act more instead of passive listening,
- it will make experiences memorable and help to boost students’ creativity.
Best ways to monetize VR
VR has got all the chances to change the traditional teaching methods and make the educational process more exciting, practical and student-oriented.
VR for Military Training
For sure, it is very expensive, dangerous and time-consuming to train infantry soldiers. With immersive VR experiences, training can become more efficient, safer and cost-effective. Today, there is a great choice of immersive scenarios for military training: boot camp experiences, realistic battlefields, operation of a plane, medical training, navy simulators, etc.
Another key moment is that VR can be implemented at any place: in the classroom, the field, etc. VR for military training simulates sounds and has many moving parts.
Here are some benefits of such a VR usage:
- quick analysis of military conditions,
- ability to make various training programs enthusiastically welcomed,
- surroundings and conditions simulation for practical purpose,
- cost-effectiveness and full safety,
- immediate feedback from every participant for better personal training coordination.
VR for Medical Training
Unfortunately, today we have a big issue to be solved: a lack of medical staff and high-qualified doctors. We often hear about remote treatment. Can it be touchable? Surprisingly, yes. It is quite possible, moreover, important steps in this direction have been already made. But here we mean a full-fledged remote treatment development that is impossible without VR technologies.
VR is a great breakthrough in surgical training. A beginner surgeon could be afraid of operating. However, they still need to practice their skills without hurting anyone. VR can help to avoid critical outcomes. It allows beginners to make a deep investigation of every human organ and various operations presented via simulations.
The main advantages of implementing VR in medicine:
In many hospitals, surgeons have old healthcare technology that gives just two-dimensional images of an organ. Although, to establish an accurate diagnosis they need a three-dimensional object. That`ll help to evaluate the organ from all sides. Again, it may come real with virtual reality.
- possibility of remote treatment,
- indispensable means for diagnosis,
- qualified help from any part of the planet,
- possibility to get online medical consultation round-the-clock,
- medical errors reduction,
- cheaper medical teaching.
Remote cure, diagnosis, rehabilitation, and support are closer than they seem.
VR for heavy industries
Currently, VR is also used for training purposes in heavy industries. Effective training of large groups of people costs a lot. Such kind of training is on the way to become more accessible to the masses. You could create, for instance, a hazard scenario, so your learners are ready to solve any tangled problem successfully in the future.
VR-enhanced training creates realistic workplace experiences. It eases risks and takes training to a safer environment. There you can create a realistic setup of fires, emergencies, disasters where it is possible to practice without risking lives. A person can cope with methane gas leaks, work in a VR factory, put out the fire, etc. Any number of trainees can get the necessary practical skills.
A good example of implementing VR in the industry is ‘Rosatom’. VR is used for the effective construction of nuclear power plant units. It makes it easier to optimize the construction process. VE CADWall provides a person’s movement tracking in front of a virtual scene and interacts with virtual objects via special suits and gloves.
The main reasons to use VR in heavy industries:
- reducing the term of product development,
- providing a better study of ergonomics, thus improving the quality of goods,
- minimizing the number of errors during product development,
- allowing for involving a client in the process of layout, increasing customer satisfaction,
- cutting repair and maintenance costs by developing and prototyping the goods and their production process.
Location-based entertainment (LBE)
One of the major ways to monetize VR is the gaming industry. Children, teenagers, and adults are keen on games. They are always fond of immersive entertainment like VR escape rooms, seated or warehouse VR games, etc. That is why LB VR is a prosperous business. It almost always allows for direct monetization.
Many large companies create amusement park adaptations as if one wants to be afloat it is necessary to use modern technologies. Thus, The Void provides VR hyper-reality games that allow the participants for a deep game immersion containing physical feedback and admire special effects. An interesting fact is that The Void is dealing with Disney. There was also presented an experience by Entermission, where players could feel the wind, temperature, smells, etc. To see the full potential of VR escape rooms, experience flights in zero-gravity, combats and bare-hands interaction, choose the game Cosmos by Avatarico. For those who crave for unthinkable immersion, there is a free-roam. There, players are free to act as they want seeing arms and legs via trackers all over their bodies. This wow-factor was firstly used by Zero Latency. Sure, for their VR experiences, you`d need more space.
Besides, there are room-scale VR. For shooter-lovers, you can choose Hologate. For captivating space-efficient escape games for up to 6 players, pay attention to Avatarico.
To get a cheaper business, try VR arcades as it is necessary to pay per play model. For those who have limited space, seated VR is a good way out. These games are also vivid and breathtaking. Laser tag VR will give your clients a full immersion in cyberspace, weapons with first-class optics simulating recoil.
VR ARENA by Virtuix represents itself as a high-velocity VR e-sport attraction. Everyone finds something cool for oneself as there are more than 20 games on the platform. VR arenas are gaining momentum and becoming stronger every passing day.
VR for video shooting and design
The world is so mysterious. There are so many fascinating places. Unfortunately, we cannot globe trope the whole world but we can see and admire the world’s beauty via 360 video streaming
360 video streaming is vastly used not only in exploring the world but in various business spheres: design, sale, fashion, etc. Imagine the success of an exhibition or a showroom with VR technology. Buying a house becomes easier with VR, as one can see the interior and exterior variations with their own eyes. The customer doesn’t need to waste time visiting every suggested house as it is possible to make a virtual tour and depict all merits and issues.
As you see, there is a bunch of ways to monetize VR. You can choose one according to your interests and capabilities. It is an arduous choice as every variation has its benefits. Think carefully and be prosperous.
As market leader, PokerStars has been at the forefront of poker innovation to make the game more compelling, accessible and interesting for new and existing audiences alike. Whether it's running out multiple boards with Split Hold'em, revealing all folded cards with Showtime, or unfolding hands that could have been, the PokerStars innovation team has been testing the waters for quite a while now. However, none of these are as ambitious as PokerStars' latest offering: PokerStars VR.
In expectation of a commercial release in the future, PokerStars VR aims to combine the best of live and online poker to create a fun, engaging and new way of playing poker. PokerStars VR is intended as a free-to-play, authentic and immersive social poker game. In VR, players can handle chips and cards just as in the real world, study opponents and pick up tells, chat in real time, and have fun with a host of interactive props.
Before joining PokerNews, I worked at the start-up The VR Room, the first virtual reality entertainment center in Holland. With my background as a marketer in the VR entertainment industry, I know a thing or two about VR. I know what the Oculus Rift VR headset is capable of, and what a challenging, fun and immersive VR game should bring to the table. After an hour-long hands-on experience with PokerStars VR, the game lives up to its promise of delivering a great social experience and shows that the virtual poker playground can be a lot of fun.
Bringing live and online poker together with VR
Becoming fully immersed in another world is one of the key aspects that distinguishes VR from other forms of entertainment. While wearing the Oculus Rift headset, you quickly forget the room you're in, stepping into a new world entirely. Often, this leads to hilarious and sometimes painful situations. PokerStars has teamed up with Lucky VR to create PokerStars VR and mimic the live experience in the virtual world, creating an innovative experience for both new and existing players.
'VR is the perfect medium to bring live poker and online poker together, that's the main reason we chose it,' said Manuel Bevand, a former Magic: The Gathering and poker professional who is now part of the PokerStars Innovation team.
Manuel Bevand: 'VR is the perfect medium to bring live poker and online poker together.'
'With live poker, people love it because you're at the table, you can look at people, try to get a read and socialize as well. You feel the chips, the cards. Then with online poker, you get all the strategy, the numbers, the mathematical aspect and the speed. All the games, 24/7. But bringing the two together is what players really want. That's why we're working with Lucky VR to build this, bringing the best of live poker and the best of online poker in one experience,'
'It was really amazing,' PokerStars Team Online Pro and avid Twitch streamerJaime Staples said, shortly after having his first hands-on experience with PokerStars VR. 'I've never tried VR, so, the first thing that I thought was it was super immersive. I was in this world. The other world didn't exist anymore. That was really cool.'
Cigar-smoking duckies; bottles flying everywhere
After the first round of questions, we got a chance to put on the Oculus headset and experience the product that's still in its testing stages. Immersion came quickly: it took me about 20 seconds to forget I was on the second floor of Hotel Arts and another 20 to grasp the game's easy mechanics. Movement is done by teleporting around — a way of transportation game makers use in VR to combat motion sickness. Accessing the menu is easy: just peek at your watch for everything you need. That's your in-game watch, which means people in the real world watching you will see you stare and point at your own arm all the time.
It was easy for me to join a table: within a minute, I had a seat, chips and cards in front of me. I also had something to drink — I simply brought up a beer bottle from the menu, took a sip from it, then put it next to my chips. Carnage quickly ensued as the first bad beats were dealt and players discovered the possibilities this game had to offer. I found myself fully immersed in no time and started flinging some beer bottles at Team PokerStars Online Pro Randy 'nanonoko' Lew, who was seated next to me.
Due to the immersion, Lew instantly lifted his (real life) hands up in defense and yelled through the headset. The bottle bounced off his avatar, hit his stack and all his virtual chips were spread across the table. Neat. Next, I conjured up a cigar and, jokingly, tried to put it in the mouth of my card protector, a rubber ducky. It actually worked; I never expected a cigar-smoking rubber ducky was something I needed in my life but there we were.
There are myriad items programmed into the game, with seemingly endless ways to use or to poke fun at your opponents. Items do what you'd expect them to do: a gun shoots bullets (you can even shoot stuff off the counter), bumping against a bottle will make it fall over and stuff you throw keeps lying around for others to engage with. The options were so entertaining that playing actual poker seemed to become an afterthought; it was simply too fun to discover all the little different interactions and effects that everyone quickly forgot about their hands.
'What we've seen is that in the beginning, players focus on the objects,' Bevand concurred. 'It's so much fun to mess around with the rubber ducks and the smokes, throwing things at people. After a while, though, people come back to the poker, focus and play seriously. We have two types of games: one where anything goes and the serious, competitive games as well.'
'It was just more fun than playing online poker,' Staples said. 'Even with live poker, it doesn't have all the fantasy aspects you could use. So yeah, I loved it, it was great.'
The challenges PokerStars VR faces
An ambitious project like PokerStars VR comes with its challenges, and the team has taken several steps in order to address them. Most notably is that PokerStars VR will launch as a play-money experience, with real money offerings not being on the roadmap at this time. Instead, the focus will be on developing the game as well as listening to player's feedback before any strides towards potential real money offerings will be made.
Virtual reality is fully in development and while a lot of progress has been made over the years, mainstream adoption still has a long way to go. Current headsets will set customers back several hundred dollars alone, and a compatible (and costly) PC with high-end graphics is needed as well to be able to deliver the full immersion.
Bevand said the following when asked about these hurdles for the average consumer:
Snap Turning Virtual Reality Into Real Money
'We're thinking forward, we're thinking several years ahead. Right now, the prices of both the Oculus Rift headset and the compatible PC are dropping very fast. When this is going to mature is when the price point is accessible for everybody. This happens so fast, the technology and hardware evolve so fast and the price drops so fast that we're not concerned by this. We have to start now, build this from the ground up and get as many people as we can.'
Jaime Staples: 'There's a bunch of jokes in there; you can shoot guns, you can shoot fireworks, you can throw cards at people.'
With PokerStars VR, players will be playing against real players across the world instead of AI-generated opponents. But will the game be able to transition the banter and fun more commonly associated with live poker into the living rooms and recreate the social experience from a live environment? Staples thinks the key is ingrained in how the game has been built up.
'It's still poker at the end of the day but it doesn't take itself too seriously,' he said. 'There's a bunch of jokes in there. You can shoot guns, you can shoot fireworks, you can throw cards at people. There are aspects that make it more human in a competitive environment.'
Virtual Reality Real Estate Software
The potential of PokerStars VR
In a Q&A, PokerStars dove into the social experience that's at the heart of PokerStars VR.
'Poker at its heart is a very social experience and if we can bring more of that to the game then we believe it’s very beneficial,' a company rep said. 'VR and poker go together incredibly well because VR is incredibly immersive and the possibilities are endless. The more people you put in, the more immersive it becomes.'
As a streamer, Staples sees a lot of potential in this social experience as well and is interested to see how the product will evolve.
'It's not going to appeal to the grinders that typically are playing six to eight tables, but it's going to appeal to pretty much everyone else,' he noted. 'It's a broader way of playing poker, it's a richer experience. I think everyone from who've never played before to who enjoy playing for play money with their friends, will love it.'
Jaime Staples: 'I think this is perfect for Twitch.'
PokerStars VR contains a in-game camera to facilitate live streaming. In terms of viewing streams whilst in game, Oculus Rift provides the functionality to view anything that is open on a desktop. The Canadian was all smiles when thinking about the entertainment possibilities for his own audience.
'I think this is perfect for Twitch. So this is my first trying — I have to develop my thoughts on how it's going to work best. But I know the audience is gonna love it. It's funny, interesting, it's engaging. I think the first approach will be playing with other streamers or audience members and see how it develops from there.'
With leaderboards and private tables, players can earn free chips to use at the tables by spinning a virtual wheel every day. In addition, there are five exotic virtual reality settings for players to experience: Macau 2050, The Macau Suite, The Showdown Saloon, Monte-Carlo Yacht, and The Void, with more to be added in the future. What the future holds for PokerStars VR will be seen as the game and technology develops over time. One thing is for sure: together with Lucky VR, PokerStars has delivered a social gaming experience with PokerStars VR that is fun, fully immersive and a blast to play.
The Stars Group owns a majority shareholding in iBus Media. Views expressed by the author are strictly personal and based on personal experience.
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