It was nearly three years ago that Facebook announced its $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR. At the time, Mark Zuckerberg said that, âOculus’ mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences.â
The deployment and adoption of virtual and augmented reality (AR) had its genesis long before Facebookâs massive purchase, but the social giantâs move certainly pushed the technology into mainstream consciousness.
Since then, the promise and practicality of the sub-sector has steadily increased and worldwide revenues for the still nascent industry are forecast to reach $162 billion by 2020, according to IDC, a market intelligence provider.
SNAP has its Spectacles. Google has its Daydream. And PokĂ©mon Go certainly brought AR into the limelight. But what can give VR/AR a giant leap forward? Whatâs the biggest barrier to mainstream adoption? Whatâs in store for Vancouverâs VR market?
âIt’s only going to grow from here. Seeing a ton of investment in Vancouver is going to be exciting.â
Archiact is a VR studio that, like BCâs overall technology industry, has seen significant growth over the past few years. In under 12 months, theyâve nearly tripled in size from 35 to 90 employees, launched a stealth robotics arm, raised a round of funding from Asian investors, and hosted a sold-out VR conference attracting over 2,800 attendees.
Dan Burgar, director of business development, explains that while the VR sector is ripe for growth, the responsibility is on VR/AR companies to develop game-changing content and applications to really push the technology forward. We asked the brains at Archiact Interactive Inc. for their take.
Archiact bills itself as a VR studio. Can you tell us a little more about what that means and where you would position yourselves in the growing VR/AR/MR (mixed reality) marketplace?
âArchiact started as a VR gaming company, and thatâs kind of been our bread and butter the past few years…but what weâre really looking to do next is build our enterprise and B2B solutions,â Burgar said.
âWeâre really starting to see that in the next few years, the enterprise space is where VR application can actually be solving a problem and where itâs totally going to change and disrupt a lot of companies.â
Being known for creating really amazing content is important, but itâs the real-world use cases solving problems that will really help push the technology along, he explained.
âYou know some companies are coming out with fancy demos and things that are fun for a few minutes, but whoâs really going to pick that up again?â he says. âWeâre finding that with VR, there isnât that application that has blown everyone away yet. We want to be able to come up with that solution or piece of content that really blows people away and is a profound enough experience for different companies and people.â
As early as last month, many news outlets reported that Best Buy was closing nearly half its Oculus VR demo stations because of lack of interest. Is true consumer VR here? What will get us to that point?
âThereâs definitely a barrier to entry with VR and mixed reality because the headsets are very expensive, theyâre big, and can be dorky looking,â Burgar said. âAnd for that to completely change, itâs going to be through mobile VR.â
The Google Daydream platform and Samsung Gear headset, both designed to work with mobile phones, will be critical to driving adoption, he said.
âRight now, where weâre at â people arenât ready to put themselves in a headset for a really long time; so what needs to change is the form factor. It has to get smaller, the costs have to go down, and the applications have to be something that people will gravitate to,â he said.
âTo grow this industry, itâs going to be the applications that pull people and businesses in, and weâre still waiting. As a content company, the onus is on us to build that.â
Less than a year ago, Chinese mobile game developer and publisher 37Games invested more than $3 million in Archiact. Can you share what that investment has meant for you?
âWe have an office in Shanghai and the funding has really given us room to grow â not only in Vancouver and North America, but globally,â Burgar says.
The Chinese market is significantly more mature, with hundreds of types of headsets and trips to VR cafes a regular occurrence for a lot people, says Burgar.
âThatâs why that investment is so big to us, because weâre actually able to get our feet on the ground in China as well as other Asian countries and make revenue. A lot of other VR companies in North America arenât making money yet because their channel for revenue is probably two to three years down the road,â he said.

I understand that a new V/A/MR cooperative is in the works for Vancouver? Will you be involved and what should we be excited for in VR over the next year?
âThereâs a lot of companies out there that are looking for space, but they just donât have the money to pay these large rentsâespecially in Vancouver, right? So, I think this new co-operative space that [Work at Play CEO] David Gratton is working on is a great idea,â Burgar says.
âJust the creativity of all these companies under one roof, kind of working togetherâyou donât really see that in too many industries.â
And what can we expect from Archiact and VR over this next year?
Thereâs real potential to grow the community, Burgar says, and thereâs excitement around the provincial governmentâs recently announced tax credit for augmented and virtual reality entertainment products. âThatâs a huge break for companies looking to get into the space,â he says.
âThereâs a ton of companies popping up right now. At the VR/AR Association of Vancouver, we have about 30 members who are not specifically in VR, but who are looking to do business in the VR/AR space, so weâre seeing huge growth on that side.â
Thereâs a huge talent pool, he says. âTalent from the gaming and VFX industriesâitâs all bleeding in to these VR companies.â
âHaving companies like Microsoft and other large companies in Vancouver and really helping the community is key,â he says. âItâs only going to grow from here, and seeing a ton of investment coming into Vancouver is going to be exciting.â
âWhen apple announces its new iPhoneâsupposedly AR equippedâitâs really going to be game changing. Weâre just going to see a ton of local and global companies come out with content for platforms and headsets.â