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The LBX Show #55 - Holiday Plays, FEC Summit Preview, Openings, & more!

• Brandon Willey • Season 4 • Episode 55

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On this week's show, we discuss IAAPA FEC Summit’s value, a leadership-focused keynote, and why seasonal overlays can unlock repeat visits, then dive into openings, closures, and the VR pivot separating winners from laggards. Along the way, we unpack Chuck E. Cheese’s holiday content play and Zero Latency’s Slay Season strategy.

• lower IAAPA FEC Summit pricing and keynote focus on clarity, team engagement, growth with tours at Fat Cats and Pecan Lake Entertainment
• IAAPA Foundation scholarship fundraiser via wacky golf
• Michael Browning interview teaser and leadership nuggets
• Chuck E. Cheese holiday special, merch, watch parties
• Zero Latency Slay Season and Outbreak 2 sequel
• using seasonal overlays to drive repeat visits
• Sandbox VR expansion patterns and site selection
• Topgolf saturation risk and suburban push
• Japan updates: Silk Hat in Akihabara, Gigo model
• 810 Bowling’s mixed-use attraction mix
• Punch Bowl Social eviction context and landlord churn
• DNA VR liquidation and lessons for VR differentiation

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SPEAKER_00:

Win now to the LBX Show. With your host, Brendan Wyatt. Brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community to connect, engage, and inspire.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, well, welcome everybody to the LBX show for December 7th, 2025. We are firmly in December. And uh look, we have a short but mighty show lined up for you today. First, we're gonna dive into a news you should know, and then we'll roll into a full open and shut with Kevin Williams to review all the opening and closing trends from the last week. And then we'll round out the show since we had some audio issues with Adam Pratt's Arcade Corner this week, and Chuck D'Motti was taking a time, uh was taking a short break post-IAPA. So don't worry, we'll get a double dose in next week of uh Adam Pratt's Arcade Corner. He had actually some really great things to cover, and uh, you know, that's uh that'll be it. That'll round everything out. So that being said, let's dive into some news you should know. All right, so within just a few months, uh month and a half actually, we have the IAPA FEC Summit coming up February 1st through the 3rd in Glendale, Arizona, and it is$499 for members, which is$100 less than it has been in the past. So that is awesome. It is an amazing deal. Um, and there will be no snow because it is Glendale, Arizona, and it will be beautiful and the weather will be amazing. The mornings might be a little bit crisp still, but the days will be absolutely incredible. And I can't promise you there won't be any rain. Sometimes that's happened, uh, but uh that's all right. There won't be any snow, no snowman getting nobody's getting rained in or snowed in, and they're not gonna be able to go home. Everybody's gonna have a great time out here, and so it'll be awesome. And uh, so we also have Libby Gill, she's the keynote speaker. She is an internationally recognized leadership expert, she's an executive coach and a best-selling author. And so she's gonna be sharing insights on leading with clarity, engaging teams, and driving meaningful growth in an industry that is changing, and really you need to be thinking about how are you staying up to speed and making sure your leadership is is uh is guiding your company and guiding your venue and your your team in the right direction. So she's a former head of communications for Universal, Sony, and Turner Broadcasting. So brings tons and you know, tons of experience helping organizations uh just navigate just transformation and you know building high performance cultures. Uh, the overall theme of the education is play the long game, build a lasting legacy. And there's gonna be three locations as well that we'll be visiting. Uh, there's two confirmed already. This is Fat Cats, they're a Cinattainment uh concept out of Utah, but we actually have a number of locations here in the valley. I say here because that is where I'm based, is in the Phoenix area, not in Glendale, on the east side, that's the west side, but doesn't matter. Uh, you all understand when we get here. And then Pecan Lake Entertainment, which is a really unique facility. I've been out there a number of times. It's uh on the east side, so it is a bit of a trek from one place to the next, but it's worth going out and taking a look at. One of the other things, too, I think is cool. It's brand new this year, is the uh FEC uh foundation scholarship. So the APA FEC Foundation Scholarship is going to be raising money via a wacky golf event. So a lot of times, you know, you do you have a golf tournament or whatever that's there to raise money for the foundation. Uh, this in this case is a golf tournament, but is a wacky golf tournament. And so it will be benefiting the IAPA Foundation specifically for the FEC Foundation Scholarship. It is a separate ticketed event. It is$100 for that ticket. So highly encourage you to do that if you have the ability, have the means, and want to support the IAPA Foundation. Uh, I will definitely be joining that wacky golf event because I like wacky golf. And so gonna go ahead and do that. Um, all right. So that is the update on the FEC Summit. You can register obviously on IAPA's website, iAppa.org. Highly recommend that you go and get yourself a ticket. All right, that is it for the IAPA FEC Summit news. The next thing I wanted to talk about is the fact that uh a couple of weeks ago, just actually the week right before, no, the week, the week of Thanksgiving, so just a week and a half ago, um announced uh I released a third degree with Michael Browning. He's a CEO of Unleashed Brands, the founder of Urban Air Adventure Parks. And uh it was a great conversation with him and thought I would just play a quick little clip so you can see what that is, and you can then go to our YouTube channel or any podcast platforms, uh any of your favorite podcast platforms, and download and listen to or watch the third degree with Michael Browning. Here's a quick little clip. Back to the start. So when you first opened Urban Air in 2011, uh, what problem? I mean, maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn't, but like maybe you're just trying to do something cool. Like what problem were you trying to solve for your guests or for yourself or you know, for the industry? Because the whole trampoline park industry was really young uh at that stage.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that for me it was more opportunity recognition necessarily than problem solving. I would say when I started Unleashed, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, that was definitely problem solving. But for Urban Air, it was really opportunity recognition. You know, I had started a data and analytics company in college, and I had actually sold that to a family office out of uh Santa Barbara, California. And I was traveling around the world doing different projects with them, and and I stumbled upon one of the first trampoline parks. So when I opened Urban Air in 2011, I think we were like the sixth trampoline park in the country. So I don't I don't take credit for necessarily inventing that category or necessarily inventing that concept, but all right.

SPEAKER_01:

So a little bit of a weird transition there, but it's all right. Uh so that is uh just a little clip of the conversation with Michael Browning. Uh it was a fantastic uh hour-long, just under an hour-long conversation with him. And uh, you know, highly recommend. There's uh lots of great nuggets, um, not only in the history of Urban Air and Unleashed brands, but also just leadership nuggets, cultural nuggets as he's built out and scaled teams across multiple different brands over his years of leadership. So highly recommend definitely going and giving that a watch and a listen if you haven't already. All right, the next thing up is Chuck E. Cheese has a new Christmas special, an actual animated Christmas special that was released worldwide on Thanksgiving Day, November 27th. So I think most of the world doesn't care that it was Thanksgiving Day, but in the US anyway, uh they care that it was Thanksgiving Day, but the rest of the world still got it on November 27th, no matter what. And the special introduces a festive story intended to establish basically a new family tradition. They want to do they want to make this something that's a tradition every year. Um, and they plan to have expanded content distribution as well, limited holiday merchandise, and then they had some pretty cool watch party events. So it's streamed in both English and Spanish, and it's available currently, even on Prime Video, as well as the official Chuck E. Cheese YouTube channel. And they also have recently launched a Chuck E. Cheese and Espanol channel. Um, and so you can do that. That is also on YouTube, and then they will do their additional distribution of you know across all their Chuck E. Cheese branded platforms, which is their partner channels. We've talked about in past shows that uh Chuck E. Cheese Entertainments, EC Entertainment has created partnerships with Happy Kids and Kadoodle. They also have a presence on Roku, Samsung, LG, and Fire TV. And so uh also Sony Music released two original songs specifically created for the animated special. They also reduced released those on the 24th of November in advance, and so it just basically you know increases that reach. You can also buy, as I mentioned, the licensed holiday apparel, which is available on uh on Amazon and also the official Chuck E shop. Uh, it's the tease, like t-shirts, hoodies, pajamas for adults, youth, and toddlers, all featuring these new animated characters. And then holiday digital invites are available through eVite. So if you're running a holiday party or whatever and you want to use their stuff, you can do it on the holiday uh that you can use evite and use their holiday digital invites. They're also working with Zigazoo Kids, which is you know kid content creators to create a fun, dance safe, and engaging content, you know, building buzz for the special, you know, the social premiere. So um one of the cool things I thought they did though was that they also offered a uh watch party events the you know in advance. So you could have watch party events on November 23rd. I know this is in the past, but these are things to think about and how you might be able to do something like this for your own brands or for your own IP or your own venues. Um, but they they offered watch party events. You could go and watch this together at what the Chuck E. Cheese locations uh at a specific time. So that is the uh Chuck E. Cheese Christmas. And we have uh I'll play here just a short clip of the trailer. The trailer's about a minute and a half long, we're gonna watch about 20 seconds of it, but it gives you a taste for what they have going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Who is this elf everyone who's talking about? It's like he's purposefully sabotaging our plan. Okay, guys, it's time to get creative. Chuck E. Cheese done.

unknown:

What did we do?

SPEAKER_04:

We get crazy. You're gonna throw a surprise party for Santa Claus, the guy who knows when you're sleeping and when you're awake.

SPEAKER_00:

Man, you are not kidding about this one. I was just getting warmed up.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, well, that is Chuck E. Cheese Christmas. So, you know, thought uh yeah, thought it's pretty interesting that they uh had that going on. So, anyway, uh you know, look, this is just one more way to think about uh if you have IP, like obviously it's you know not easy to just go out and create an animated show, but you know, look, start thinking about how you can do merchandise and other things as well out there. So uh I would definitely you know think of different ways that that stuff can happen. Um, all right. The last thing I want to talk about in this news you should know segment is the uh is Outbreak. So we've got uh here, um, this is a special edition version of Zero Latency's Outbreak game, I guess we'll call it outbreak experience. And they did this last year, and so because it was so well received last year that they are bringing it back, this is they call sleigh season mode of outbreak. So the zombies are dressed up with like Santa hats and everything else. You can currently now at any zero latency location book this through January 4th. And this is just again their holiday twist on this, where you know there's uh snow is everywhere, and and the zombies are dressed like Santa's, and there's jingling sleigh bells and lots of chaos and everything else. And so they just you know, it looked it was really super popular, and so they decided to go ahead and do it again. And I also have a quick clip here we'll play of the trailer. So there you go. That is uh, you know, that is the uh uh the sleigh season version of Outbreak. And uh alongside Outbreak, uh Slay season, they also just announced the release of Outbreak 2, Mall Mayhem. And so this is basically the same you know, outbreak, but now in a mall, and there's a bunch of other new monsters and everything else. And this is actually the first time that they've developed a sequel internally uh at zero latency, and so they actually developed the entire game internally at their headquarters, and so this was not like an outside partnership, but basically it's filled with mutant zombies, spitters, skewers, boomers, new strains, new nightmares, a feeding frenzy of the dead. Uh, they say unlike anything the players have seen before. So uh apparently Outbreak has been one of their most successful titles, and so you now have Outbreak 2 coming out. So look, you can go play Slay Season until January 4th, and then after that, you can play Outbreak 2. Check that out, Mall Mayhem. So that is where zero latency is going. Uh, the reason I bring up the mall mayhem, or excuse me, the sleigh season is again finding ways to implement holiday seasonal stuff that you can bring into your venue. And sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right product and attraction partners that are doing the work of actually having overlays, seasonal overlays to the existing attractions to help drive that repeat visitation. If you have zero latency in your location, highly recommend using the sleigh season opportunity as a way to go out and market to bring people back in to experience something that's a limited time only. The more that you can do, limited time only, seasonal things, the more you can drive and increase that repeat visitation from 1.4 to 2.2 to 3.7 visits per year. So that is the everything on news you should know. Coming up after the quick break, we will have open and shut with Kevin Williams. They introduced cashless technology to the amusement industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Cashless system for Intercard increased customer spending, debt satisfaction, and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry. And if you are already part of a global family of customers, they hope you will become one too.

SPEAKER_05:

Hey, a big hello and welcome to open and shut. I hope I find you well, Brandon.

SPEAKER_01:

Doing well. Yeah, this is the uh first open and shut, like actual you know, post post-IAPA expo. So I'm sure we've got a lot ready to ready to review.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, yeah, they they have been building up uh as always. Uh pause at the correct moment if I go through too fast, but we got a lot here. Uh, you know, seeing 12 facilities this close uh to Christmas opening their doors kind of tells you that the momentum has not stopped. I can tell you from putting together uh the list is a constant process, and we're gonna have quite a few in January as well. So uh read into that whatever you want, but let's jump straight into it. And uh an interesting one here. Uh our friends uh at Amazing Escapes is not a new facility, but what they have done is they've added a brand new uh core attraction to their facility. Uh, they have put in what I would call an immersive uh interactive experience or enclosure, uh, but they're looking at this as a kind uh kind of immersive interactive projection game environment, very uh reminiscent of what our friends uh at Innerwise have done, uh, but much on a much larger scale, uh offering an interactive game experience. Fusion Games is the developer behind this one, and uh it pops up on my radar just as we were uh ending IALPA.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, this is a hard one to get a good sense for how the audience is reacting, how the guests are reacting, because they've they've been around for a while. They they were in a traditional escape room uh escape room facility. They have phenomenal reviews as an escape room, uh, five stars out of 627 Google reviews. I mean, that's almost unprecedented to be able to maintain that level of review. So it means their escape rooms are really good, but it it it masks potentially what this experience is. Um I wish that uh we could we could dig a little bit deeper into the reviews to find out how the audience is reacting to it.

SPEAKER_05:

Reading between the lines, it's clear that the organizers of this escape facility understand their audience and how to achieve a repeat audience, and it shows a level of engagement that they can, you know, fundamentally go in and shake up their operation by dropping in a digital entertainment on top of their physical entertainment. As you say, we need to uh to get a lot more information about this. I get the feeling we're gonna this isn't the last of this type of enclosure that we're going to see escape room companies that care think about. Moving on, and our friends at Sandbox continue uh onwards. Uh, we're getting very close to uh their 80th. Well, we're at their 70s and then their 80th. I know they have quite a spurt going on at the moment. Uh two facilities down, another one in California. This is their fifth one in the Bay Area, where the previous one is uh just adding to their uh Arabian uh operation. I I again I can't get too much of a handle on what's going on with their Middle East operation, but from their American North American operation, we've been getting some interesting numbers over which facilities are doing very well and which facilities are seeing quite light uh operation. I am going to try and uh put together something for a coming sound off in the new year where we will just look closely at uh Sandbox as well as some of the other large chains uh operations that are getting close to quite important pivotal uh financial uh directions. You know, I've charted on this before that sandbox is heading towards a reinvestment of some state uh based on their numbers, and uh we need to get a handle on how that's going to fit in.

SPEAKER_01:

It will be interesting to when we do that deeper dive to really understand which locations, both both by location and particularly the location placement within that location, within that region. So, for example, in shopping malls versus outdoor shopping malls versus standalone locations versus partnered locations, co-located with other experiences, etc., as well as obviously the specific region geographically where they are located, uh, which ones are doing well and which ones are not. Um, and hopefully I would assume that they're making giving some guidance to their franchisees based on their own data that they have internally.

SPEAKER_05:

You're asking for a lot there. Uh we will we will do a light touch on the details because that's getting very close to uh an in-depth rapport. But uh, those are all factors that need to be taken into consideration. My biggest interest is the facilities that are the oldest and performing the least well. Uh as a uh we need to have some kind of uh measuring device. But again, we can go into that in more detail. Our friends at Top Golf still opening facilities, or their franchisees are. Um, this, of course, post-announcement of uh their uh planned uh separation from Callaway and their development. Uh this particular facility from its announcement, which was a very bleak press announcement, doesn't sound like it's got anything additional to the mix. It is a run-of-the-mill rollout. Um, it has VIP rooms, it has its two layers, it uh has multiple hitting bays. They didn't even even in the press release, didn't even go into the detail of uh how many, but I think there were 50 something there. Anyway, the at the end of the day, it is another top goal. Adding to the 112 plus facilities, how many of those facilities are going to be with us following the separation from Callaway will be an interesting observation.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah, and this oh man, I struggle with this one. They are a suburb of Cleveland, so technically, you know, they have Cleveland Reach. I don't know if there's another top golf in Cleveland. I haven't done the quick search here. Um, but this is uh, you know, Avon itself as a suburb has 25,000 people in its population. And, you know, obviously there are other suburbs in and around Cleveland, but it is on the outskirts of Cleveland. So it is not like it's like close in. So I do uh you know worry again, like this this is a clear sign of saturation by Topgolf, the fact that they're having to go and reach further and further out to the edges of some of these more densely populated suburbs just to get space and to you know be far enough away from another Topgolf.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm playing with a mental uh exercise at the moment of what you do with a dead shooting range uh entertainment facility. Um I I wonder why I would be doing something like that. So moving on and uh making the haters in Japan unhappy. Um the uh Akihaba uh location that was so lauded by Sega and such a venerable facility that was then taken over by Genderwen. The blue cladding came off, tears of woe from certain individuals in the internet, the usual suspects telling us that the arcade industry is dead, though I don't see many of them reporting about the reopening of the Ake Harbor facility now with its uh red and white livery, uh, and uh you know, populated with uh uh amusement. Uh again, not many people will be that familiar in uh in the West with Silk Hat amusement operator. Um, the way things are going, I'm waiting for Gender to turn up and acquire them. The they have about a hundred facilities uh operational mainly in central uh Tokyo and uh outskirts in Japan. And taking over the Yakehaba facility was an obvious one. And from the videos I've seen of the opening, uh, it is more of the same, but with cleaner floors.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh but just as a quick aside, I appreciated the use of the word livery, um, especially given the the Silcat uh uh name. So well played.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh an education has to be used for something one day, I suppose. The other one in Tokyo that was uh uh interesting for me on my radar was uh VR-based Tokyo. Now, I I was just coming off the research that I've been doing for the coverage of IALPA, where we had Tokyo Dome uh showing off their VR uh and MR chops, and and this is just another of the VR-based Tokyo uh experiences out there. I would argue that this is more of a couple of uh motion seat simulator uh experiences uh and maybe a VR arcade machine of sorts. Interesting that this is Dino Amusement, and surprise, surprise, dino amusement it was acquired by Gender uh a couple of years ago. So this is our Gender moment kind of. Um that said, we have a proper Gender moment later on. Uh our friends at Time Zone have uh opened up in Singapore, another venue adding to the over 300 facilities, uh, and then we jump around uh to another uh 810 billion bowling uh opening up in Virginia. We talked about uh 810 recently with their taking over of uh pinstripes uh facility or one particular one and possibly more. This one is a uh a brand new opening. Um 16 facilities at the moment. I get the feeling that by this time next year they'll be up to the high 20s.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I would uh I would agree with that. Um, and interesting that they've added in the you know Crazy Darts alongside Laser Tag. I mean, it feels a you know a little bit like trying to grab at a bunch of different things, but uh Crazy Darts is a is a is a fantastic product. Um my guess is their LaserTag is also probably Lasertron. Um so it'd be interesting to see if they've formed a longer-term you know partnership together in at least as far as those types of attractions.

SPEAKER_05:

As with the time zone, uh as with uh the 810, it is now becoming very difficult for me to define these purely as bowling uh entertainment facilities. They are now mixed-use uh leisure entertainment sites, no matter how much some people will kick at uh kick at the table for that description. Uh the next one is our Gaigo moment, as I stated, uh yet again uh you know another run-of-the-mill roller. I don't mean to insult it, it is a formula that is obviously working for them by the number that they're rolling out. I wish we'd had the size of the facility rather than just the number of amusement. And then we have uh yet again another uh facility brand new going in. We get a better idea of the number of cranes uh and the prize machines and the amusement, but again, it is a formula that is working well for them, as well as including in this particular case the inclusion of their ban-ban uh karaoke chain. And we will be talking about uh Pico, sorry, uh Gaigo's investment in other secondary components to their entertainment market in the Japanese sector, which we can expect to see in the Western side. Uh and then we come to the end with uh Spanish chain. I've talked about Illusion Space before. Uh they have about 30 facilities dotted around Spain and Italy. They offer uh what is the closest we have in that market to an FEC, a family entertainment sector, though they are going very heavily on secondary attractions next door to the amusement that they offer. So, you know, you could call them a uh a mule light uh in in comparison to the others, but it is an example of how a local area market, a local territory, is now applying itself to entertainment mix. Moving on to the openings and the shuts and punch bowl social. Well, is this an example of uh a facility finding it difficult to operate in a particular locality? Is this an example of a landlord putting the prices up uh and making it difficult for the facility to operate, or is this uh an example of a more uh systemic problem within the uh punch ball social operation? They have 15 facilities out of here. Uh I am not seeing the other sites suffering, but it was revealed that there was some uh legal uh action taking place that led to the eviction of this particular Illinois, uh Indianapolis facility uh being closed down. I was led to believe uh from the filings that were made available that it was a relatively successful facility, but there was a dispute. So again, we don't have enough data or datum to work out what's going on here with this particular example, but we're keeping a very close eye on the chain to see if it is reflected anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, this is a new company that came in and bought the Circle Center in early 2024. So you know, new company comes in. Um, but at the time they hadn't actually uh owed anything uh when the you know when when it was when they first took over. So this was this is new, this is uh definitely racked up since about the early summer of this year um in unpaid rent. Um so my assumption is that uh you know when you kind of read some of the numbers in in the uh some of the the news covered here, it does seem to be that like they just weren't able to generate enough capital internally to pay you know the the back rent in time.

SPEAKER_05:

Um and uh I got the feeling that they already had proof, but uh or it's for they had problems already uh and they were exacerbated with the new landlord coming in. Yes the snapshot for us, uh you know, us amateur slews, is that at least we know what two years worth of rent uh at this location uh actually cost uh from uh the back rent. We we also get a snapshot that this um this is an example of new landlords uh the churn that is going through these kinds of venues with new landlords coming in. Uh I don't know if uh this is not the first example that we've seen of a new landlord coming in and everybody panicking around that or finding it difficult, and then this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. But again, I'm keeping a very close eye on Punch Ball Social uh just to see how the other uh 14 facilities are going to act uh within this infrastructure. Um news that was given to us just uh as I was getting off the plane uh in Orlando, our sources revealed to us that DNA VR in the UK had uh fallen into uh liquidation. Uh this was you know the information was it was coming from members of staff from the four facilities uh that the uh that the operation had as they were looking for new jobs. For those of you that aren't familiar, DNA VR was one of the earliest of the VR arcade approaches to the market. You know, you open up a facility, you have a number of bays where you could put on the tethered VR systems of the day, play a selection of the games, uh, tanning salon for the brain, as I always used to call them. It was a traditional approach and has now been gradually superseded by the free roam arena style approach to VR using the latest technology, excuse me. And my concern was that DNA VR hadn't moved quickly enough with the times, though they had started to parachute in uh tanning bays, as well as uh some space set aside for four-player free roam arena experiences. All that said, you know, they had stalled at four facilities where you were, you know, we we needed to see more facilities to see an ongoing uh business. This is now the second London-based VR arcade style operation that has fallen into liquidation. It's actually the third. There's another uh company that's gone through a major change, and they actually found a buyer uh to take over their operations. This is systemic of what's happening with the older style VR arcade approach. Uh, you know, revolution, if you don't move with the times, then you're going to get run over. Uh, and uh it's a problem for me now to track uh all of the older VR arcades because uh sometimes their websites stay active and their trip advisors stay active, and you need to find out through uh staff leaving or full liquidation closure to see how how many of these uh operations are still viable, especially in North America. But treat this as a line in the sand regarding the viability of the traditional VR arcade approach and how what we saw at ILPA, everybody needs to up their game.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, DNA DNA VR is a great example of what you just said. Uh, you go to the website, and there's no indication on the website whatsoever that they are closed unless you go to the actual Google listing, and then the Google listing does say permanently closed there. Um their booking component is is suspended, so you can't go and actually book. So thankfully, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_05:

At this time of the year, that would be very disappointing to make a booking only to find out.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I mean, that would lead to litigation for sure, um, ultimately, if that if that really began to happen. Um, but you know, again, if they're in liquidation, what uh what what expectation would you have of you know getting your money returned? Um but this is uh you know, this is what we talked about. This is differentiation. You need to be differentiated if you're doing something in VR, and the traditional VR arcade experiences just aren't differentiated enough from what you can get in home.

SPEAKER_05:

I I would argue that they could have offered a much more compelling experience, but they didn't want to because they had a formula that they felt was perfect. Uh and uh they weren't prepared. You know, they they created this new version of their logo uh a couple of years ago, which I found abysmal, but you know, that they uh they felt was uh uh satisfactory. I'm hearing stories now about unpaid license fees from the content that they were using. I'm hearing stories about staff being put into obvious difficult situations. For me, if you're going to do VR now, you have to learn from these lessons. Uh I'm not going to claim that we have all the answers, but definitely there are a lot of lessons to be learned from uh DNA VR's departure, as well as uh the other world VR that I commented uh about in London and their departure. Though for some in the industry, it's better to just brush this under the carpet rather than learn the lessons from the previous uh developers that have gone before them. That kind of wraps it up uh for uh this particular episode. Um, please, if you have any information regarding uh changes or restructurings within operations, hit me up on the LinkedIn or give me an email. Uh I'm always uh we will keep it on the uh down low if uh the information needs to be given in confidence, but I think it's important that at least we chart what's happening in our sector, especially with the changes that 2026 is going to bring to the table. Indeed. Indeed.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Well, Kevin, uh stay warm and enjoy your time in Belgium for the uh the upcoming AWE event, and uh we will see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_05:

See you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01:

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Brandon Willey

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