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The LBX Collective aims to inform and educate, create opportunities to connect with industry peers, and to spur collaboration, discourse, and cross-pollination of ideas in the location-based entertainment and experience industry.
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LBX Collective
Sound Off #65 - Meta abandons "VR", Netflix builds houses, and more!
Sponsored by Intercard!
The term "VR" (virtual reality) may no longer adequately describe the evolving spectrum of immersive out-of-home entertainment experiences. Our industry needs clearer terminology to help customers understand different immersive experiences while major brands across entertainment sectors increasingly invest in location-based entertainment.
• Meta abandoning "VR" terminology in favor of "mixed reality" despite billion-dollar investments
• Need for better industry terminology beyond just "immersive entertainment"
• Consumer video game spending dropping to 2023 levels amid economic challenges
• Major IP brands from gaming, toys, movies, fashion, and sports invading location-based entertainment
• Netflix House opening 100,000 sq ft entertainment venue in Texas with custom attractions
• Raw Thrills releasing Top Gun: Maverick arcade game as Dave & Buster's phases out VR
• Cyberpunk 2077 becoming innovative mixed reality arcade game with projection mapping
• Amusement Expo 2025 representing transitional period for the industry
• Trade associations need to become more inclusive of new entertainment formats
• Successful shows require not just booth count but strong attendance and business transactions
Join us at Amusement Expo in Las Vegas where we'll be recording live from the show floor.
Are you on the edge of your seat Because we're about to sound off with Kevin Williams covering today's latest trends in location-based entertainment brought to you by the LBX Collective your community to connect, engage and inspire. All right, everyone, let's buckle up.
Speaker 2:All right, well, welcome everybody to SoundOff number 65 with Kevin Williams so let's dive right into it.
Speaker 3:What do we got for today's meme? How are you going to change my mind? Well, the argument seems to be about whether the term VR is vr is still suitable, uh, to describe the experiences we're offering. So I'm sort of pondering do we need a new term to describe immersive entertainment? This is similar a little bit to a previous sound off, where we sort of talked about to own the language, uh that goes, uh that we present to our audience.
Speaker 3:But I think there is a serious reason. We need to come up with a different term than maybe VR, and I'll go into a little bit more detail further on, but I wanted to pose this as the meme, brandon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it depends. If we're talking about a term to replace out-of-home immersive entertainment and if we were using VR to describe that, then yes, absolutely we need to change that, because what is the type of entertainment? Uh, mixes. We were having augmented reality, mixed reality. We've talked about shared reality in the past and some of the past sound offs. There's plenty of other forms of immersive entertainment and it's all and it's not all virtual reality. In fact, it's becoming less and less virtual reality. So, yeah, I would agree. If, if that's what we're talking about, if we're talking about virtual reality in its own term, vr, then I think we have, obviously, like, we've got to stick with that, because otherwise people are going to wonder what it is if it's not vr it'd be really stupid to you know, after putting all that money into promoting VR, to then suddenly change the moniker.
Speaker 3:Anyway, it's that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before we dive into the latest trends, let's hear a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1:Intercard is the only cashless system designed, developed and manufactured all under one roof. They introduced cashless technology to the amusement industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Cashless systems from Intercard increase customer spending, guest satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry and if you aren't already part of their global family of customers, they hope you will become one soon.
Speaker 2:All right, let's dig in.
Speaker 3:Well, we've got a lot of trends out there and a lot of developments in the biz. But, going back to what we were saying in the meme, it would be really weird if you suddenly decided not to use VR as a term, especially if you've, say, dropped a couple of multi-billion dollars into buying VR. But, surprise, surprise, our friends at Meta in the consumer VR sector has decided that they're going to stop calling what they're doing VR and they're going to focus wholly on the MR side of the business. Now, it doesn't mean that they're not going to be doing virtual reality technology. It's just that I think the best way to describe this front and center. They're pushing this as mixed reality technology. That includes virtual reality as well as augmented reality or see-through, pass-through stuff.
Speaker 3:I included a nice little infographics there that shows the current definitions of what's the difference between augmented reality you know, pass-through, looking through your camera, superimposing information on top of the world that is seen through the camera, then mixed reality, where you can see the world around you and objects in front of you and virtual items can actually interact or superimpose themselves and be affected by what is around you, and then virtual reality is dropping you into a complete virtual world.
Speaker 3:That is how we've been treating this derivation. But you know, as we saw our friends microsoft hijack what holograms meant when they called their technology holographic the HoloLens system, I think we're going to be seeing our friends at Meta do the same thing, where they're going to hijack the mixed reality term and get it to mean whatever they want. And that goes back to what we were saying earlier regarding the mean, which is, while the consumer sector squanders the investment on building up virtual reality and confusing their audience, we in the out-of-home entertainment need to be much more clear and much more precise and much more engaging with our audience so they understand what they're getting out of our VR, our MR and our AR experiences.
Speaker 2:And I totally agree with everything you've said here. I think the question for me is what should that term be? Because I don't like the immersive, the out-of-home immersive entertainment component, because what is immersive I mean? We throw that term around all the time right.
Speaker 2:And depending on the theming of the escape room, it could be immersive. I mean, we throw that term around all the time, right, and depending on the theming of the escape room, it can be immersive. We talk about Illuminarium type facility, bridge projection mapped on the walls and those being immersive. We talk about rooms like Meow Wolf, venues like Meow Wolf being immersive, so, and there's no VR, ar or MR going on in a Meow Wolf location, for example. So you know, I just I don't. We have to come up with something for this type of reality, virtuality continuum, as they have here on this graphic, but I don't have an answer for it yet, but it just cannot be immersive entertainment.
Speaker 3:Well, as soon as we come up with an answer, then we'll be sitting on a beach earning 20%. I'm not going to come up and give it away. It's not going to be a mercertainment, that's for sure. Um, and we need to have a term that is simple and explains to the audience. Are they putting something on their head and going to must their hair? Are they going to put wear goggles and must their makeup? Are they just going to walk around without being encumbered? You, you know, those are the things that we need to get across with the description.
Speaker 3:I work, you know, when people ask about my involvement, some people say, oh, you're into VR, and I say, no, I'm into XR. I cover all aspects of this, from AR, mr and VR, and I would argue that this infographics doesn't even include some of the things that we're dealing with in MR, doesn't include projection mapping, for example. Uh. It doesn't include the new types of immersive uh led displays. So we have a rich and vibrant sector that we need to come up with some terminology so our audience knows what they're getting, while our friends in the consumer sector seem to be fighting over, trying to reinvent themselves because they haven't achieved the goals that they were hoping, but you know a couple of beers in Vegas and maybe we'll come up with the terminology.
Speaker 3:Yeah, talking about the consumer entertainment side, and we're seeing some interesting changes. We've been talking about the job layoffs in the consumer VR game development sector. We've seen shakeups, mergers and acquisitions, and now we're seeing graphical proof of a dip in the consumer video game purchasing market. The spend has dropped to 2023 numbers. We're part of a trend at the moment where we're coming to the middle part of some of the game console systems, or the ending middle part of some of the games consoles. We're also seeing the audience fixing stagflation, so they're not spending as much on some of the consumer items that they would normally be spending. But also we're seeing the consumer games industry going through a period of reinventing itself, as it has had a number of major flops, badly interpreting what the audience wanted to play, and that kind of leads us on to really uh, where certain established sectors especially in entertainment, fashion, sports, toys and video games are now looking at broadening their appeal and use us in the location-based entertainment market as a kind of a bully wick, and I've broken these into two phases to better describe. So we have the video games industry, we have the toy industry and we have the movie industry, and all of these groups have now planted a flag in the ground and invested very heavily into getting into the out-of-home entertainment sector.
Speaker 3:Best examples I can give you is, of course, in the video games sector, our friends at Nintendo, the success they've had with Super Nintendo World, just about to throw the doors open on the Orlando version of this experience, after the success of the MLA and Tokyo openings. In the toy side, we've just been talking about in Open and Shots how Nerf is an important brand to incorporate into your laser tag or, as we see here, the Nerf action experience, a standalone chain environment. And then in the movies there's a list of movies that are parachuting their way into being turned into bricks and mortar entertainment facilities. The john wick experience that's going into area 15 is a good example, but I could have picked the universal horror unleash experience as another. You know we are seeing brand and IP moving into bricks and mortar with variation and we are now at the tip of the iceberg as other major IPs and brand operations now look to create their own entertainment facility offerings, adding to the chaos and confusion and also adding to the list of facilities I have to list open and shut looking at phase two of this. And we see the next wave of operations looking at having their own entertainment facilities.
Speaker 3:Streaming obviously plays a major part, superseding, in many cases, the film industry as important. Superseding in many cases, the film industry as important. The sports brands now are looking at having a presence and this is not the first time that we've seen the sports brands look to get involved in location-based entertainment. And now the fashion brands even the fashion brands are looking at having some form of entertainment facility or immersive adventure experience using their IP. That can get them bigger presentation, marketing and branding and recognition, but also a secondary revenue stream through their business models.
Speaker 3:And one of the best examples of the streaming invasion that we're seeing is our friends at Netflix House who are just in the final stages of throwing open their facilities. And we can actually see the last finishing touches being added to the Netflix House in Texas, along with their plans for their second site, which is going to be opening quite soon after in Dallas. But again, you can see from the rendering that this is no small slouch of a location-based entertainment facility 100,000 square, that's large and that is going to be populated not just with um, acted live mission room kinds of experiences, but they're going to have some immersive immersive again, uh and entertainment attractions there. They're going to have some vr. From what we're hearing, you know, we're looking forward in the next couple of months to see them start the soft opening for this. But they even have a restaurant component to this. So it's a major entry into the location-based entertainment and it's the big IP to be making that move.
Speaker 2:I'm most confident about Netflix House so far of all of the new venues that are opening up that are tied to IP, although you know, mattel adventure park, if it ever opens, should be good.
Speaker 2:Hasbro city and Mexico city is fun, is a phenomenal installation, but Netflix house are as a streaming stamp, you know, streaming or even film, film installation is the one that I'm most excited about. One because they've already been testing these types of location-based or even film installation is the one that I'm most excited about One because they've already been testing these types of location-based entertainment concepts through their partnership with Fever and I think they've learned what's worked, what hasn't, and what gets interest, what gets repeat visitation, et cetera. So I'm excited about that and it also looks like they've just really done a good job with building out a really solid plan from a layout and walkability and guest experience standpoint, unlike Wonderverse and what they did where they just could take an open space and throw some random things in place. With Netflix house that, though, many of the attractions are being custom developed, they're not just off the shelf elements that they're just dropping into a location and then slapping some of their IP names and brands on them. So I am looking forward to this, this first location coming up.
Speaker 3:This is a major rollout for them and they're trying to do everything right. They've had a lot of experience, as you say, through their partnership with Fever, but also through the rollout of a number of their temporary installations. Their Stranger Things rollout facilities, their Army of the Dead virtual reality experience have given them a lot of unique lessons on how best to do this. So it is for them to fail and I'm getting the monopoly live vibes from how they're doing this I think we won't be disappointed. It's just how quickly and how effectively they can roll out these facilities, which are quite large, to establish a foothold in the market will be the key point, and also how quickly they refresh, because these are not theme parks, these are going to have to be repeat visitation facilities. If they can't get that right then they could become white elephants. But again, we're looking forward to the first one's opening in a couple of months' time. Jumping across to the trends that we're seeing in the sector, I don't really want to steal too much from Adam, who's going to be going into the detail of the new openings and new releases in the amusement side, but there were two things that caught my attention and I wanted to give my two cents on if the currency is still viable. The key issue here for me is that our friends at Raw Thrills have really got their handle on the IP-generated experience. You know they're Fast and Furious, they're godzilla and now their next one, their top gun, maverick. Experience builds on a proven formula, but with the right bells and whistles to attract the audience. So we have a fighter experience, but with the fast-paced action that we've come to experience, expect from royal thrills, and utilizing the fast-paced action that we've come to expect from Royal Thrills and utilizing the Fast and Furious four-screen two-player large motion deluxe, super deluxe cabinet configuration. And this unit has already started to appear in a number of Dave Buster's Surprise surprise. Interesting that we're seeing it being deployed in dave and busters as dave and busters pulls out their failed virtual reality experience, which also had a top gun. Uh, maverick uh, experience created quite a expensive learning experience for them and a little bit galling. That, uh, you know, after spending all of that money on a virtual reality experience, that was a little bit meh. The video amusement version of this experience is the one that is going to get the bums on seats and I think will also generate the cachet that they were hoping for.
Speaker 3:It is important to understand that Dave and Buster's is in a tricky position at the moment. Important to understand that Dave Buster's is in a tricky position at the moment. They're needing to prove the validity of the direction that they've picked and they also need to generate quite a lot of money regarding some debts that are still hanging over them. You know, regarding the main event acquisition and also the general layout of their business structure. Depending on how these cards fly, we may have to dedicate some time in a future SoundOff to looking a little bit more closely at the structure of Dave Buster's. But I just wanted to mention that while we were talking about this product and then the next product that is worth picking on is another license. You see the trend, you see the pattern here.
Speaker 3:This time, video game IP and Cyberpunk 2077 was a so we say contentious, successful AAA release from 2023-24. From 2023-24. The game released to very poor reviews because there was a lot of bugs and a lot of problems. The developers, cd Projekt Red, worked incredibly hard to rectify that and the game went from being a lemon uh to being super popular, and lai has decided that the popularity of this particular franchise is enough to turn it into being a video amusement game. And this is an unusual video amusement game because this is an mr game mixed reality game using projection mapping inside this very large enclosure to interact with the shooting experience. It actually uses physical pellets. We hope to have a lot more about this game live from the show floor. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the most talked about of the games on the Amusement Expo show floor in a couple of weeks time. Personal opinion, but again, it shows both the crossover of ip and also the utilization of the latest xr technology to make a compelling experience. Do you have any opinions?
Speaker 2:on this one, brandon yeah, I mean I think I completely agree with you. I think this will be the most talked about, I mean, unless there's some surprise we don't know about, and maybe Adam has got something embargoed that we haven't heard from yet from our heroes.
Speaker 2:I will say that we lines because you don't have, you know, amusement experts and have that big of attendance but there won't be lines waiting to play this, but there will definitely be. You know everybody will want to get their hands on this, for sure, and you know just, the cabinet itself is alluring. It fits very well with the the current kind of design aesthetic, like the throwback to the early nineties, late eighties, feel to it, you know. So it's got a very good, it's got great eye-catching cabinet design. I guess Curve appeal. Yes, it has good curve appeal.
Speaker 3:Yes, I like that.
Speaker 2:All right, so, as long as we're talking about the Amusement Expo, given the fact that this is the last sound off before the actual Amusement Expo starts, what else are you looking forward to seeing? What are you expecting to see on the show floor? And, yeah, what's got you excited to roll around, whether it's on the show floor or, you know, in Vegas?
Speaker 3:Yes, Well, starting outside of the show floor, I'm interested in visiting some of the new competitive socializing venues that have opened up. I'm eager to get inside Swingers to see how they've applied that for the Vegas market. There's quite a few facilities that are on the list that we need to visit and we will try and do at least a video synopsis of those Returning to the show. It's a double whammy for me, it is not just Amusement Expo that I'm interested about, but it's also Restaurant Bar Show and Pizza Expo, sadly separated by a few days. It's better when those two or three shows are all combined during the same period. But the crossover.
Speaker 3:This is going to be a very pivotal amusement expo. It's going to be changing after this one. 2026 is going to be having a different kind of feel, flavour, formula and layout compared to this year's show. So it will be a bit of a hurrah for the change. But also this is going to be a transitional period for a number of the exhibitors on the show floor. We will be seeing a new approach to amusement business and this will be reflected for the first time at this show. So I think you know I always say that amusement expo is an important show, especially its position at the beginning of near the beginning of the year, but it's also going to be a pivotal show for the amusement trade in north america, in particular brandon yeah, uh, what we'll solve, do the same thing, starting Starting outside.
Speaker 2:Swingers is 100% on my list to go and check out. I know we're going to go do a tour together, so we'll definitely check out Swingers together. I do believe he's already been to Playground, but that is one that I have not had a chance to visit yet.
Speaker 3:I'll do it again. You can run around and I'll have another gin and tonic Perfect round and I'll have another gin and tonic, all right, perfect. Yeah, because I've been looking forward to doing that one as well.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, we'll go pop around at area 15 see what's uh, there's always a little bit of something new going on there. In fact, I think they put in a new um, I'm trying to remember the name of it, but it's up in the top right corner and you walk. When you walk in, they replaced one of the immersive experiences they had up there was just some mirrors and music and lights and stuff with something else. So I want to go check that out for sure. On the show floor, I'm actually just really interested to see what vendors we're going to see there. Obviously, we'll see all of your standard amusement vendors that have come.
Speaker 2:Your distributors, your manufacturers will be there, but I'm really curious to see if it's a sold-out show. What are we going to see? Some immersive enclosures? Are we going to see competitive socializing, especially considering many of them are going to be at the bar and restaurant show? Most likely, and so how many of them are going to also co-exhibit or exhibit at Amusement Expo as well? And are we going to really see anything new from like a non-amusements attraction standpoint, or is that really going to be held for either bowl expo or iata expo, so I am interested to walk around and see what we have. Uh, what are the vendors we have there that are now part of the mix the the presentations that are happening before the show.
Speaker 3:We have, of course, the vr summit, uh, run by bob cooney, and uh, I know it's going to be a very hard-hitting VR summit because we're in a transitional period for VR.
Speaker 3:There is going to be a lot of frank discussion, I know, on and off the convention floor, regarding the real state of where VR is and its revenue-generating capabilities, going forward, celebrating its eighth or ninth year of adoption in our sector, this latest phase, um.
Speaker 3:But one of the things I think we will see is we're not going to see that much competitive socializing, but we will see some competitive socializing platforms on on the show floor, though not as many as it could have been. That is part of the reason why, again, we're expecting to see the trade, especially the trade association running Amusement Expo, taking a long, hard look at the future of their show and asking the questions about why they're not being more inclusive to some of the new aspects of the business. There's a problem with the North American amusement traders there is with all amusement trades is that they do have a habit of sitting on their laurels and they are a little bit intransigent to new trends in the market, and it is usually the job of people such as myself consultants such as myself is to shake the tree a little bit and scare the gatekeepers into encouraging new opportunities into the market. And I wouldn't be surprised if, going forward, amusement Expo becomes a little bit more inclusive rather than exclusive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would certainly hope so. I think they need to. But they are going to have to solve their attendee mix in order to justify, in order for other vendors, like a 501 fund or a conductor or an NOIs, a Cubix to come. They're going to have to work on that and obviously we could go down that whole thread separately. But I do hope 501 is at least there and if they're not, then you know I'll try to pop over to the bar restaurant show because I do want to see if they've made any upgrades or changes to their golf since they brought it to EAG, see if they had a couple of months now to take feedback from that show.
Speaker 3:They only had two experiences so far loaded into it and I know they were going to make some changes to the physical structure of the, the platform as well, so I want to see what they've done there. Our friends at conductor are exhibiting uh at the restaurant and bar show. Uh, and I know sega, who represents 501, will have an example of their darts on the Amusement Expo booth. I'm not sure if they will bring over the golf experience. As you say, that was in early pre-production for EAG. We're also going to see a couple of surprises on the Sega booth. I know one of those is still embargo, but the other one that broke recently was that we're now going to see the Maimaya music game experience from Japan get a North American application, as was rumoured.
Speaker 3:As Adam at Arcade Heroes broke and again I expect in his next LBX show coverage he'll be able to go into a little bit more detail of what we can expect I really think the key takeaway that we have to have after the two days of the exhibition floor of Amusement Expo, the one thing that we need to be able to say to each other when we're doing the recording is wow, the attendance was up and wow, a lot of business was done, because we cannot have what we had at 2024, last year's show where we had wow, that was a lot of booths.
Speaker 3:Attendance was really hit and mixed and people weren't feeling that they were doing the business they were. You know, I had more exuberance about business being done at IALPA Europe and IALPA Orlando than I got from Amusement Expo, which is not how it should be. You know, especially the way that the trade shows are set up before the Easter buying period, which I know is very nebulous now. But amusement expo should be seeing people on the show floor with hot cash in their pockets wanting to buy product and, as I, as I've just had the misfortune of doing running through all of the new openings of facilities over the last few weeks, there are a lot of facilities out there that are going to have to refresh themselves on a regular basis, and so there is no excuse for there not being sales out there. The only excuse is that the environment is not conducive to selling. But again, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves until we've actually experienced amusement. Expert.
Speaker 2:Yep. Well, we will be there in just a week and a half from the time that this is running, so looking forward to hanging out with you on the show floor, and we will definitely be doing some LBX podcasts while we're on the show floor together, so looking forward to that. Until next time, everybody, this is Sound Off with Kevin Williams and then Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.
