Last week the organizers of the Virtual Reality Developers Conference debuted the second annual VRDC VR/AR Innovation Report, which is jam-packed with insights from 600+ professionals involved in the development of virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences.
If you’re working in VR/AR/MR or are curious to learn more about it, this report offers you some useful perspective on the rapidly-expanding, diverse and hard-to-measure VR/AR/MR industry – from sustainability of the market, to practical challenges, platform popularity, funding and more!
For more information and to check out the full report, download it for free here!
Today we’d like to highlight an especially interesting bit of data gleaned from our survey in order to give you a better sense of what’s contained in the full report.
Given that augmented- and mixed-reality technologies are often talked up as being more commercially viable than virtual-reality tech, we thought it would be interesting to survey industry professionals about the issue.
Turns out, a majority of them agree! When we asked survey respondents whether they thought AR or MR would win greater market share than VR in the long-term, 77 percent said yes.
“I worked in the AR industry for a while,” added one respondent who said yes. “It’s a much easier concept for clients to grasp, and instead of being a platform in and of itself, it can be seen much more easily as a tool to make existing platforms better. I always pitched AR as a visualization tool rather than a new platform. New platforms scare people. Tools, on the other hand, are greatly appreciated.”
Another opined that “Mixed Reality is the end-game for VR. It will take more time to do it right than VR-only experiences, but offers much more to users.”
However, one respondent who didn’t believe AR/MR would become more popular than VR commented that the question was “Apples and oranges. VR is better for storytelling. AR is better for integration with real world.”
You can find lots more input from VR/AR/MR devs about what they’re up to, how they’re funding their work, and what platforms/experiences they’re targeting, within the full report. Did we mention it’s free? It’s totally free.
This year’s report comes in advance of the next highly anticipated standalone VRDC event, VRDC Fall 2017, which will take place in San Francisco from September 21-22, 2017 and will bring together creators of immersive experiences of all kinds—including games, entertainment, brand experience, healthcare, training, design, and more.
For more information on VRDC Fall 2017, visit the show’s official website and subscribe to regular updates via Twitter and Facebook.
Gamasutra, VRDC and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.
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