Landmark Entertainment talks VR at GDC

March 2016 – At GDC San Francisco, theme park ride pioneers Landmark Entertainment spoke on the key points for developing a VR project and their new VR offering. CEO Tony Christopher spoke on the history of the company’s experience, since formation in 1988, in the creation of interactive and immersive experiences. These have largely been in the area of theme rides, as the leading provider and inventors of interactive ride films, and have also included full interactive resort properties such as the Forum shops at Caesar’s Palace and the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Their knowledge base is from the analysis of trends and experiences from the over 100M visitors to their attractions.

The company was started with the concept and enthusiasm towards their own products, however, in the 1980’s the technology was neither advanced enough nor cost effective for mass deployment. This is no longer the case, and the company has returned to its roots and is making their own branded experience, this time around VR. To test this concept, the Spiderman show, which was a 5D experience, has been shifted to a VR experience.

This brought Landmark Entertainment to the realization that now is the time to develop a ground up VR property. The new project is called the Virtual Worlds Fair. The VR portal is designed to bring 4 VR worlds together into one overall experience and allow developers from different end goals and monetization plans to participate. The portal is platform agnostic supports systems from cell phones with Google Cardboard through OSVR and Occulus Rift units.

The Virtual Worlds Fair has 4 lands or areas inside :

• DataLand – this is age specific group experiences for children
• Intencity – this a commercial & retail Branded experiences
• PassPortal – these are country sponsored experiences for virtual travel and culture
• Tower of Humanity – These are experiences that are provided by and supporting humanitarian causes and charities.

All of the models include embedded monetization models that are managed by the portal.

They also highlighted their 10 commandments of VR creation –

1. Create an experience that tells a story, not a story that creates and experience
2. The soundtrack is 50% of the success of the experience
3. Create a monetization plan
4. Create a distribution plan
5. We are natural explorers, let us explore the new worlds
6. Quality design is important
7. Use light, sound, and action to direct the attention in the 360 experience
8. Make it emotionally engaging
9. Brand it with compelling characters
10. Observing patterns creates experiences