Justin Kan may be partially responsible for this ;) The rise of Twitch has shifted the participatory culture around gaming. I look at the community building ar

Justin Kan may be partially responsible for this ;) The rise of Twitch has shifted the participatory culture around gaming. I look at the community building around Nintendo's Super Smash Brothers Ultimate for the Switch. A game that doesn't even come out until November mind you. And I see an industry that is designing LAN party style experiences into gameplay from the get go. Obviously much trickier to do in VR. Games, and star players, even have their own fandoms, just like popstars. There are cosplayers. Memes. Entire startups built around the transmission of short-form video "headshots" from live replays. For VR, an intrinsically solitary experience. It feels like swimming against the tide. Some colleagues of mine started an actual bricks-and-mortar style VR Arcade at a large suburban mall. They even have the full sensory deprivation pods for total immersion. And while they get quite a lot of foot traffic from curious spectacle seekers willing to experience the shock of the new. Its a completely different customer base than the old school PC cafes of yore. Where teenagers would rent a tower and 24" CRT monitor for hours to play Counter-Strike or Starcraft. One interesting historic event for VR coming up on the horizon is the debut at SIGGRAPH of Disney Animation's first foray into the medium. Disney Animation’s First VR Film, ‘Cycles,’ Set to Premiere https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/disney-first-vr-film-cycles-animated-1202879437/ https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/disney-first-vr-film-c...