This Is Not Your Father's LBE
VR's Road to Fruition One of the most interesting aspects of the VR arcade is that not
much room is needed; a passable arcade containing all three levels
of VR gaming can be placed in a 5,000 square foot area. A high-end
VR arcade allowing for free-range movement could be placed in a 20,000
square foot structure. Even in a major city, the rental overhead would
be reasonably low and profits exceedingly likely. Kinney Aero (based
in Lake Forest, California) built a VR-LBE facility called FighterTown
where participants enjoyed simulated flight missions in F-111, F-104,
F16 and F-14 jets. FighterTown reports 100% utilization capacity and
repeat customers are estimated in the 65-70% range. Within a year
of opening, this endeavor was able to expand from four to ten aircraft
pods, each one upgraded with more realistic motion technology. This
is only one story; Virtual World Entertainment (VWE) boasts BattleTech,
a futuristic war game which has been continuously running since 1991.
Since opening in Chicago nine years ago, VWE now has 17 LBE centers
in the U.S., 4 in Japan, 3 in Canada and one in China. The images
may be CG but the money is real.
This field of entertainment, which dates back to the early 1990s,
has only begun to reach its full potential. The penultimate goal of
the best VR programs is to have events unfold in the closest possible
approximation to "real time," and with recent breakthroughs
in fast-frame rates and motion sensing technology this goal has been
"virtually" realized. Companies such as Virtuality, Magic
Edge, Virtual World Entertainment and Kinney Aero have set up, or
served as advisors and suppliers for, VR arcades. These businesses
have developed products that seem more suited to intergalactic exploration
than amusement centers; the SG Onyx Reality Engine II, the interactive
Tesla System, and the Intertrax Real-Time Motion Sensor HMD are just
a few of them. Other players in the high-tech market have also developed
VR gadgets that work in support of games; the Sony Glasstron, for
example, is a 35-degree field display monitor that can handle most
of the output from more advanced 3D authoring tools and texture mapping
programs. Writing as a technology-challenged individual who believes
that his washing machine obtains water from a troll named Mordac the
Wet, I refer my readers to VR technical manuals in order to learn
how these marvels are achieved. When everything works as it should,
the participant can gambol among underwater reefs (GreyStone Technologies'
Reef Explorer, Mercury System), traverse the Grand Canyon (Ferris
Productions' Grand Canyon Adventure, CyberUnit XLR8 System),
or even take their place in the squared circle (Virtuality's Virtuality
Boxing, 2000SU System).
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