immersion 2014: virtual reality no longer just a hollywood dream

!!

Morris May CEO, Specular Theory

@speculartheory

!The Real Business of VR:

No Longer Just A Hollywood Dream, But A Medium That Can Transform Nearly Every Industry.

My background

• 25+ yrs working in VFX for Hollywood.

• 30 + films, including 2 Academy Awards: Spiderman II (Best Visual Effects), and Happy Feet (Best Animated Feature Film).

• Augmented Reality

• Virtual Reality

• Immersive Media - Specular Theory

Why I’m excited about VR:• It’s a new medium.

• VR is the most immersive form of entertainment.

• We are finally at a place where the technology and businesses can thrive from it.

• Hollywood is no longer just a dream, but a reality.

I went from working on virtual reality as a dream to working on it as a reality.

Why you should get excited about virtual reality…

1) IMMERSIVE MEDIA: The future of entertainment; an opportunity to

be immersed in entertainment and to learn new ways of interacting in virtual worlds.

!for business: an opportunity to learn new ways of interacting with consumers.

!!

2) STORY-TELLING: VR brings together the perfect combination of

cutting edge technology, virtual effects and storytelling. !

for business: VR tells the best stories, making it the most effective way to share content.

3) MIND-BLOWING: It’s not often we come across things that we are

experiencing for the first time which really blow our minds. !

for business: also known as the purple cow or ‘wow’ factor that every business wishes to achieve.

!!

4) NEW REVENUE STREAM / MEDIA CHANNEL: an opportunity to

share/own new content thru VR. !

for business: a new revenue stream, new jobs

“There aren’t many things that have the potential to be the next big computing platform…Oculus Rift has the potential to be the most social platform ever. Immersive, virtual and augmented reality will be part of people’s daily lives.”

-Mark Zuckerberg

!

The power of presence.

Why will virtual reality be a success?

• Evolution of Media.

• VR story-telling

• we know were you look and what you doing

• How to make VR: • Game engine • Live action filming • Lasers

T H E R E A L B U S I N E S S O F V R :

Estimated unit sales: in 2014: 200,000 (as the market begins to emerge).

in 2015: 5.7 million unit sales by 2018: 23.8 million unit sales.

!Estimated annual software revenue: in 2014: $30 million

in 2015: $947 million by 2018 $2.8 billion

The VR Marketplace

Total cumulative units sold from 2014 to 2018 estimated at 56.8 million devices.

“Virtual reality devices will become a bigger phenomenon than smartphones. I think there is a potential user base of billions.”

Tim Sweeney – Founder, Epic games

H O W V I R T U A L R E A L I T Y C A N T R A N S F O R M I N D U S T R I E S .

• Gaming

• Travel, virtual field trips

• Real Estate Architecture

• Medical

• Teleconferencing

• Film / Entertainment

• Education / training

• Journalism / news

• Sports / live events

“What will revolutionize gaming, and interactive content in general, is putting people inside the digital world.”

John Carmack – Co-Founder, Oculus

Movies• IMAX ---> the high-tech movie system that uses surround speakers and

a five-story-high screen to put us inside experiences like a Rolling Stones concert.

• Star Wars ride at Disney World ---> where we're strapped into seats that lurch forward and pitch violently

• Star Wars on the big screen ---> tries to convince us we're in a spaceship

• 3-D ---> makes the content pop out in front of you, adding new visual layer but no real immersion

• VR --- > you ARE in the movie, literally. Jaws example

Education

hack-a-thon

Journalism“This is a new medium for storytelling.”

Danfung Dennis Director/Photojournalist for Oscar-nominated “Hell and Back Again”

Sporting Events

Social “VR will be the most social media ever,”

Michael Abrash, Oculus Chief Scientist

• Gaming

• Travel, virtual field trips

• Real Estate Architecture

• Medical

• Teleconferencing

• Film / Entertainment

• Education / training

• Journalism / news

• Sports / live events

“What will revolutionize gaming, and interactive content in general, is putting people inside the digital world.”

John Carmack – Co-Founder, Oculus

VR Jobs

• Hardware, software companies

• Engineers

• R&D - still many problems that need solving

• New departments

Thank you. !

!

For more information, or to contact me:

Morris May

Specular Theory

www.speculartheory.com

@speculartheory