Inside game image of Immersive Tech’s hyper-immersive 5D 6-Player VR Attraction that is hoping to ... [+]
The last year has not been too kind to many VR location-based entertainment franchises. Now a Canadian attractions manufacturer called Immersive Tech is looking to make a dent in the market with plans to fill the gap in immersive entertainment left by franchises like The VOID.
The virtual reality industry has been on the verge of the mainstream for years. MarketWatch predicts virtual reality will be a trillion-dollar marketplace within five years. With that in mind, Immersive Tech is launching its flagship product, UNCONTAINED. A plug-and-play hyper-immersive 6-player experience housed inside a 40-foot shipping container.
The company promises a hyper-immersive experience that uses advanced physical effects for a 5D sensory entertainment experience for groups who visit family entertainment centers, stadiums, shopping malls, or other facilities. The containers are 40-feet in length and take up only 5 spots within a parking lot.
Jeremy Dalton, author of Reality Check, called them in a LinkedIn post,”ready-to-go containers that can be dropped wherever needed and will offer a more scalable model for VR location-based entertainment.”
External image of UNCONTAINED. Immersive Tech’s self-contained multi-player VR attraction
Immersive Tech was founded in 2014 with a mission to create engaging and immersive experiences. Immersive Tech’s release of UNCONTAINED comes at a time when the company is filing for IPO in Canada. They worked on past partnerships with eBay, Intel, APEX entertainment, Family Entertainment Group, Kalahari Resorts, and CapitalOne. Led by Tim Bieber, who has over 20 years in the Entertainment & VR space, the company has deployed over 64 non-VR interactive experiences globally.
To prove how serious Immersive Tech is to make UNCONTAINED a success, they brought on Steven Dooner as Director of Franchise Development. Dooner served as The VOID’s Executive Head of Development and occupied previous executive roles at Disney. They also announced the addition of out-of-home interactive entertainment consultant, Kevin Williams and co-founder of Club Penguin, Lance Priebe to their strategic advisory board.
“I am approached by countless companies looking for my support in launching their new and standard endeavors in the market - but there are occasions when an opportunity comes along that pushes the boundaries of entertainment, which I can not ignore and need to be involved with. Immersive Tech’s UNCONTAINED is one such innovation, and I think the commercial XR entertainment industry will be the richer for their entry into the scene,” said Kevin Williams, founder of KWP Limited & Technology Director at Spider Entertainment.
Immersive Tech’s end goal is a system of interconnected containers, allowing for scalability for customers with a low venue footprint. The integrated containers create a virtual open world of hyper-realistic, uncontained experiences from gaming content and eSports to corporate training or music festivals. The containers can also be used for pop-up activations and even team-building and simulation exercises. The containers can also be branded and customized for brand activations.
Immersive Tech will also be making a content play by licensing their IP. While Immersive Tech will make the first games for UNCONTAINED, they plan on releasing an SDK to open content creation to developers on Immersive Tech’s own store.
The containers use a broad range of haptic feedback and virtual reality to immerse players into the experience. Teams of 2-3 players, to a maximum of 6 players, experience heat simulation, physical interactions with the unit, motion floor, and a backpack-free, wireless VR player-backed story.
The shipping containers take up no more than five parking spaces even with its awning staging area open. The attraction has been designed with COVID safety in mind including UV sanitizing lights installed in each of the game arenas as well as multiple other COVID safe measures. When units arrive on site they require only minimal setup including basic 120v power to activate and are operational in under 24 hours.
While UNCONTAINED is currently in prototype with a plan to roll out units in North America starting August 2021, the company has seen strong demand and recently secured its first client with an option on 10 units.
For example, indoor go-kart racing company, Autobahn Indoor Speedway, plans to add multiplayer VR to each of their 10 locations and has chosen UNCONTAINED.
"Autobahn Indoor Speedway is excited to enter into a Letter of Intent for up to ten UNCONTAINED VR units. We love UNCONTAINED’s unique combination of unmatched hyper-immersive player experience and its scalability, allowing us to rapidly add units inside or outside our locations with no operational disruption. UNCONTAINED will give our customers the next level cutting-edge experience that they have come to expect from Autobahn Indoor Speedway.” said Bill Harris, Director of Development at Autobahn Indoor Speedway.
This is possibly the closest we can get to experiencing the Oasis in real life today and opens up the opportunity for family entertainment centers and all sorts of brands to have their own physical branded gaming world on location.
Operators, brands, and enthusiasts will be able to demo UNCONTAINED at this year’s IAAPA Expo in Orlando this November.
Full disclosure: Cathy was recently appointed to Immersive Tech’s advisory board, but the genesis for this article started before that.
