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Boxblaster and Elaut Changing the Game for Kids VR
VR simulators are great moneymakers for amusement operators. LAI Games set the bar high with Virtual Rabbids. It took a couple of years for operators to really buy into the…
How To Get Your Area 15 VIP Reception Tix
VIP Reception tickets for the Area 15 Event at the VR Arcade Game Summit must be purchased during your Amusement Expo registration process. Use the code VR2023 on the first…
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New Supply Chain Chaos for VR Arcade Game Suppliers
If you’re considering adding virtual reality arcade machines to your family entertainment center in the next year, keep reading. This post will save you time and money. The supply chain has…
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What’s Better Than Beat Saber Arcade Cabinet?
VRsenal, inventor of the original Beat Saber Arcade Cabinet, continues to innovate in the VR music rhythm genre. When Facebook acquired Beat Games, the studio behind Beat Saber, they pulled…
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VR Esports Games: Competitive Recipe for Growth
Could competitive VR esports games be part of the future FEC arcade landscape? Esports is wildly popular. Video games like League of Legends and Fortnite pay out millions in prizes.…
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Launching a Unique VR Arcade Game Distribution Model
Virtual reality is exploding. It’s the fastest-growing segment of the Amusement Industry. More traditional amusement manufacturers have jumped on the VR bandwagon in recent years. Sega is the latest entrant…
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What’s The Best Combination of Games for VRsenal’s V2?
VRsenal showed a 2-station unattended VR arcade platform (the V2) at IAAPA Orlando last month. It was one of the hits of the show. Now I’m getting constant questions from…
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Netflix Double Taps The Unlimited Demand For Zombies with Army of the Dead VR
Viva Las Vengeance teams Zack Snyder with Pure Imagination for location-based virtual reality mayhem The Army of the Dead VR experience “Viva Las Vengeance”, is a bold move for the…
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Secrets of Digital Marketing for VR Attractions
Guest Post by Eric Schwartzman – There’s a lot of confusion about what digital marketing is. If you sat the digital marketing revolution out cause you were running your business,…
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The Being Virtual Show Selects Roomkey for Season 2
Season 2 of The Being Virtual Show is coming to the immersive meeting platform, Roomkey. It’s a 2.5D immersive meetup platform you can participate in via your mobile device. Register…
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How to Make More Money from VR Arcade Games
Virtual reality games are the latest trend in family entertainment centers and arcades. The location-based VR market is extremely complex. Most operators are taking an overly simplistic view of it.…
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Was Facebook’s Acquisition of Oculus a Bargain?
Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5 explains Zuckerberg’s need to own the VR market The VR battlefield has been formed. Facebook has firmly taken control of the consumer…
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95% of Product Launches Fail – How to Launch like SpaceX
Thirty thousand new products launch every year. Most of them fail. And according to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, it’s because companies fail to understand how their product fits in the…
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The Truth About Star Wars Lightsaber VR Game Earnings
One of the only companies brave enough to launch a product into the teeth of the pandemic was VRsenal. In October, the company announced that the VR lightsaber game would…
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Is VR Safe for Kids?
With the success of the Oculus Quest 2, and so many AAA games coming to virtual reality, kids everywhere are asking for a VR headset. But Facebook (the company that…
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It’s Your Time to ShowUp
After six months of design, planning, sweat, sleepless nights, and a fair bit of exhaustion, we are ready to launch what many people are saying is the first virtual event…
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Transformation: JUMP into the Future of the Experience Economy
In 1998 Joe Pine and James Gilmore wrote a now-famous article in the Harvard Business Journal and predicted The Experience Economy. During my lifetime, I’ve watched consumer preferences shift from goods to services to experiences. But Pine and Gilmore went on to predict what’s beyond the Experience Economy. What's next? Read on...
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Esports: Don’t Miss Out On the Next Big FEC Trend
In February 2016 I started covering virtual reality's third wave featuring The VOID, VRcade (now VRstudios), and Zero Latency. A year later I wrote that the third wave was shaping up like a tsunami. Five years after VR's reemergence as a legitimate FEC attraction, it's become a staple attraction in FECs. What's next? Read on...
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New Year, New Mind, New Reality
What if we could develop a practice that enabled us to continuously and instantly recognize our cognitive state, determine if it served us, and changed it immediately if we decided to?
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Hope for Suppliers Amidst Amusement Expo 2021 Continued Rescheduling
Amusement Expo, the largest arcade-focused trade show in the US, has postponed for a second time due to COVID-19. Normally held in March, the show was moved to early May,…
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Let’s Get Social
I miss your smiling face. By the time the week of IAAPA gets here it will have been 8 months of no travel for me. Six of those months have…
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Did Covid-19 Kill Location-Based Virtual Reality?
When I talk to manufacturers, distributors, and operators, there’s a clear sense they’re afraid of opening up their location-based VR attractions due to risk of consumer blowback. It feels like…
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Star Wars VR: The Arcade Strikes Back
A new Star Wars VR Arcade game just hit the market, which has been searching for the ideal use of virtual reality in a compact, unattended package. ILMxLAB, VRsenal, and…
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Unis Ultra Moto VR and the Reimagined Arcade
Constraint drives innovation. A recent Harvard Business Review story covers 145 empirical studies that show individuals, teams, and organizations all benefit from constraints. The current pandemic has constrained more aspects…
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World’s First Star Wars VR Arcade Game is Coming
There’s a disturbance in the force. The menace of the coronavirus wasn’t a phantom, but a threat to the very existence of our galaxy. Under this perilous existence, an unlikely…
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I Miss Our Trade Shows – So I’m Doing Something About It
If you’re like me, you’ve been to a few virtual events this year. I guess that most were just ok—lots of webinars, too many PowerPoints, and hardly any real meetings.…
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All About the Feels – Give Them An Experience They’ll Talk About
Too often, when designing experiences, we focus on what people will be doing. In-game design, lots of effort goes into balancing and core loop design. UX designers want to make…
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Why Asking Why is the Key to Innovative Experience Design
In my last blog post on how to design entertainment experiences, I wrote about the importance of a holistic approach to experience design where you consider all of your stakeholders.…
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5 Critical Components of Successful Experience Design
In a time when everything is changing, we all need to innovate the design of experiences we offer our customers. What we did last year is unlikely to work today.…
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Innovate or Die
Everything has changed, but at the same time, nothing has changed. That’s the paradox of the times. The rules of being in public are changing. Consumer habits, parent’s risk profiles,…
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How to Deliver Social Experiences to Your Guests
When I spoke to Randy White in June of 2020, one of the areas we touched on was the need for more social experiences. Why do they want to be…
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What Do People Want? Social vs Shared Experiences.
When I spoke to Randy White this month, one of the areas we touched on was the need for more social experiences. Why do people want to be entertained? Why…
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You Have to Change to Survive – Here’s How
On a call with a client last night with a location-based entertainment startup, I was continually asked for answers to questions. “If we do this, what will the result be?” …
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Every Business Is A Startup Again
I interviewed Randy White from White Hutchinson a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of the first wave of the Coronavirus in America. I write “the first wave” because…
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Resistance is Futile
Are you resisting the circumstances thrust upon us by the coronavirus pandemic? Are you struggling to accept the new reality of our situation? Have you thought about why? I realized…
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Movie Theaters – Seeking Comfort in a Pandemic
Blooloop just published a new article I wrote about the possible extinction of the movie theater. It’s worth a read if you love movies, are in the entertainment business, or…
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Location-based VR Company Spaces Pivots to Virtual Collaboration
Location-based virtual reality was the hottest segment of virtual reality up until the coronavirus pandemic. Companies from consumer games, military, and other tech segments all rushed into the location-based VR…
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A New World Calls for a New Format
In this pandemic, there’s more information to consume than ever, so the format of Dropping In is changing. Those long-form articles that many of you love will now show up…
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Coronavirus – WTF Should You Do Now?
Well, that escalated quickly. A week ago I wrote a blog post about how to make sure you’re employing good, visible hygiene practices to give customers peace of mind they…
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11 Critical Steps to Mitigate Coronavirus in your Virtual Reality Arcade
I’ve hesitated to write this article because I don’t want to give energy to the panic already ensuing. The media hype around the Covid-19, or Novel Coronavirus, is already at…
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Eat, Learn about VR, and Network in New Orleans
The VR and Amusement worlds converge in New Orleans next week for Amusement Expo 2020. I am hosting two extraordinary dinners in New Orleans! Would you like to join an…
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Some Truth About Location-based VR Earnings
So many people have questions about virtual reality. “What is it?” “Why do I need it?” “Can I make money with it?” This last question is one I spend a…
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What We Can Learn from the First VR Device
The most popular stereoscope product and the first Virtual Reality viewer was the wildly popular ViewMaster 3D. It came with little round paper discs with stereographic images embedded. Clicking a…
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Virtual Reality is Like Déjà Vu All Over Again
All new technologies are built on something that already exists, and VR is no different. The early seeds of virtual reality harken back to the early 1800s. Sir Charles Wheatstone…
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Use Scarcity to Drive Demand
People want new and different each time they venture out for entertainment. If you are promoting your VR Arcade, and they’ve already been there, you’re offering them the same thing…
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Will Lower Prices Increase Repeat Visits?
I hear operators and solution providers talk about “replay value” and “repeat visitation” all the time. It seems to be the goal of many people in the location-based VR business…
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2019’s Top Location-Based VR Trends and Stories – Part 2
Last week I began my review of the top 20 Location-based VR trends and stories for 2019. This week I round out the list. 11. Sandbox VR – One of…
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2019 Year in Review – Part 1
2019 saw much improvement in the location-based virtual reality landscape. Looking back, we can see some of the trends that will help up predict what’s coming in 2020 and beyond.…
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Creating Your Own Reality – A Study in Being Homeless
You know those innocuous questions you get when you meet someone for the first time, like “What do you do for a living?” When I meet someone who doesn’t know…
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4 New VR Bobble Award Winners at IAAPA Orlando
IAAPA 2019 might go down as the year VR grew up. Last year, operators experienced overwhelm with the selection and varied quality of VR products on the show floor. Most…
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What Does the Facebook Acquisition of Beat Saber Mean?
Bob, Forbes columnist Charlie Fink and HP’s head of VR Joanna Popper at IAAPA At the IAAPA show in Orlando last month, one of the breakout hits of the show…
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Could VRsenal’s Beat Saber be the most profitable VR attraction yet?
Attended VR, the 4-minute mile, and the 2-hour marathon One of the biggest challenges operators have with virtual reality is the staffing requirement. Most VR systems require at least one…
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Zombie Go-Go Girls
Greetings from Russia. I had a fantastic experience this week that highlights the possibility of VR storytelling. I was playing a new zombie game from Anvio VR in Moscow. You…
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15 Top Insights from Brent Bushnell and Two Bit Circus
As you probably know, I have a webinar series called Deep Dives, where I interview leading voices in the location-based VR industry. Last week, I had the sincere pleasure of…
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IAAPA Paris Review Part 2
Last week in part one of the IAAPA Paris VR review, I covered Spree Interactive’s kid-friendly free roam system, the latest from Hologate, motion simulation attractions from Modimage, the amazing…
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Virtual Reality Takes over IAAPA Paris
I travel the world constantly, uncovering, discovering and reviewing what’s happening in the world known as location-based virtual reality (LBVR) so I can deliver the most relevant insights to you. …
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What problem are you solving?
Every successful product solves a problem. This is one of the few truths in marketing. If your product doesn’t solve a problem, it will never take off. If you’re resistant…
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LBVR is Approaching the Tipping Point
I just spent a week in Chicago with the insiders and influencers of the amusement industry. Every year the American Amusement Machine Association (AAMA) gathers to hold their committee and…
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VR Addiction Post 3
Oculus, one of the two largest virtual reality platforms, is owned and controlled by the largest social media company on the planet, Facebook. In my last two blogs, I write…
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Virtual Reality, Distraction, and Addiction
Last week I wrote about how VR can be a pain mitigation treatment in hospitals. We’ve long known distraction is a useful treatment methodology for pain. The mind has trouble…
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Will VR be the New Opiate for the Masses?
Virtual reality is going to change everything. Consumer companies like HTC and Facebook (Oculus) have been building headsets, banking on it being the next big consumer gaming platform. Whether that…
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How to Evaluate Non-Gaming Experiential VR Content
Last week I gave you a framework to help evaluate content for a VR attraction. I focused on gaming content, but there’s lots of experiential content out there. This week I want to…
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How to Evaluate Content for Your VR Attraction
For the last couple of months, I have been writing about how to select the perfect VR attraction for your location-based entertainment operation. I’ve been encouraging operators to take a 360-degree…
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How Zoos and Aquariums can use VR to Connect with Millennials
Last week I wrote about how operators need to consider the context of the consumer when considering what VR attractions they offer. I used high end karting centers as an…
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VR for Karting Centers – The Customer is King
Location-based entertainment venues are adding VR attractions at a staggering pace. For the last several years, VR was on the pre-chasm curve of the crossing the chasm model, with mostly…
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Is VR The Key to the Escape Room Profit Puzzle?
Escape Rooms are the newest location-based entertainment segment to embrace virtual reality and one where the value proposition is the strongest. Escape rooms harken back to ancient Greece, where labyrinths…
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Aquariums, Zoos and Science Centers – The Perfect Fit
For the last two weeks, I have been writing about how various locations should be looking at virtual reality to help narrow down the selection process of VR attractions. There…
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Theme Parks, Casinos and Malls – Where Does VR Make Sense?
Last week I wrote about how the attributes of your location can help inform the virtual reality attraction your select. I covered VR Arcades, Family Entertainment Centers, and Trampoline parks. …
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VR and Your Location – What Makes Sense?
Last week I wrote about how your capabilities as an operator are critical to selecting the best VR attraction for your business. (The email had formatting issues, so if you…
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The Capabilities Required to Operate a Profitable VR Attraction
Last week I wrote about the different categories of attractions; from single and multiplayer arcade to arena-scale, and multi-sensory free-roam systems, there’s a wide selection of products in a limitless…
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What VR Should You Buy? – The Attraction
There are four areas of consideration when looking at a VR attraction for your business. Last week, I wrote about how your experience, mindsets, and vision can help inform your…
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The Operator
Last week, I wrote about the four categories of operators I see in the location-based entertainment industry. The Spectator is sitting on the beach, watching other operators ride the third…
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How To Select The Perfect Virtual Reality Attraction For Your Operation
One of the most frequent questions I get from operators is, “What VR attraction should I buy?” When I started writing about virtual reality in 2015, my skepticism was rooted in…
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The Future of Virtual Reality is Here NOW
VR Update With Bob Cooney RePlay contributor and virtual reality aficionado Bob Cooney hosted a webinar on Jan. 31 for nearly 100 people, breaking down the “third wave” of virtual reality…
Read More The Virtual Reality Groundswell
https://www.replaymag.com/bob-cooney-on-vr-part-4-july-2018/ Part Four: Stormy Seas Calming Into Clear Opportunities for Operators The creation of waves requires wind to blow over the open ocean for long periods of time. The sea…
Read More Innovating for Millennials
What You Need to Know to Get Them In Your Locations Bob Cooney on Millennials – March 2018 Millennials. If you ask anyone from previous generations about them, you’ll likely…
Read More VR Takes the Stage at Expo
Bob Cooney on VR at Amusement Expo – February 2018 Cooney Makes a Case for Why VR Belongs There & Urges Examination For the last twenty-five years, I’ve been observing…
Read More The VR Scene
Bob Cooney on the VR Scene – December 2017 Tech Development Bodes Well for Arcade-Based VR For the last two years, I’ve been observing the virtual reality market develop. In…
Read More Sex & Violence In VR?
Bob Cooney on the VR Scene – October 2017 Self-Reflection Leads to Change In Game Perception As some of you might know, I’ve been on a personal journey over recent…
Read More Third Wave of VR Looks Like A Tsunami – Part Two
Bob Cooney on VR – April 2017 Part Two: Avoiding the “VR Arcade” Trap & Maximizing Its Potential Editor’s note: Part One was published in the March 2017 issue and can…
Read More Third Wave of VR Looks Like A Tsunami – Part One
Bob Cooney on VR – March 2017 And If You’re Not Careful, You Could Get Swept Away – Part One Those who attended the fall IAAPA Expo in Orlando certainly…
Read More Virtual Reality’s Third Wave
Bob Cooney on the VR Scene – October 2017 Is the Third Time the Charm? Virtual Reality is hot. Lava hot. Kate Upton hot. Ryan Reynolds hot. But for those…
Read More Can Amusement Games Save Gaming?
Bob Cooney on Skill-Based Gaming – February 2016 Recent Changes to Nevada Gaming Laws Will Lead to Opportunity, Confusion and Potentially Disaster for Some in the Amusement Industry Coin-op has…
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