Happy weekend everyone. Let’s get to the headlines.
First off, for anyone in the Carolinas, you probably won’t be reading this, but I hope that everyone will be safe. At the very least the storm became much weaker as it approached, but the flooding still causes serious issues.
We’ve got a few VR items to cover this week, but let me start with the disclaimer that I see these as attractions (like bowling, go-karts, laser tag, rope courses, etc.) and not some kind of total replacement for coin-op/card swipe video arcades. I’ve been seeing a lot of that lately and I think that we do standard arcades a disservice by positioning VR as a “replacement” and not as an “addition” to such amusements. I’ll have to make a new vlog getting deeper into that thinking sometime soon; we also might have a new podcast for you this week.
With that all said, to the news:
Cineplex Inc. & VRStudios Inc. Announce Partnership
Cineplex is a company we’ve seen in the news a few times recently. They are a Canadian operator/distributor who is responsible for a number of locations such as the Rec Room. For VRStudios, we first heard about them in 2013 when news about VRcade came about, and they have been going ever since. They currently offer “untethered multiplayer, free-roaming, room-scale and warehouse-scale commercial VR attractions. It features eight unique VR experiences in environments ranging in size from 100 to 2,400 square feet.”
From the press release:
Cineplex has recently installed a VRstudios attraction at The Rec Room in South Edmonton, Alberta, and plans to open approximately 30-40 additional locations across its theatre and LBE networks in Canada by the end of 2021.
The potential for expansion the US is also there, as Cineplex also owns P1AG or Player One Amusement Group, a distributor in the US.

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