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Africa gets new virtual reality multiplayer arcade
VRCade, a graduate of the Venture Lab Incubator run by MTN and the UCT Graduate School of Business, has launched a virtual reality arcade in Cape Town. Over the next three weekends, a pop-up arcade will be run in Workshop17’s events space before VRCade permanently opens its doors on 25 August, 2016. A launch event will be held on the last weekend of the month, from 27-28 August.
This permanent arcade follows on the enthusiasm that met the VRCade concept during its debut at the CTICC’s recent Electronics & Gaming Expo.
Zach Joubert, MD of VRCade says: “Above other single-player experiences that are already available locally, we’re adding another layer of play with the first multiplayer arcade experience, which I have to say, is incredibly fun and intense. Right now we support up to four players in the same virtual environment simultaneously, but we plan to increase that to six within the next couple of weeks.”
He adds: “We’re excited to help virtual reality take off in South Africa by making the experience increasingly accessible to players through growing resources, especially for co-operative and competitive team play. We’re also happy to push the experience to the limit by having green-screen virtual reality displays, which lets audiences watch and record their friends inside of the virtual environment, as if they were in a film – the effect is really magical.”
Joubert adds that VRCade also wants to make video gaming social again. “Before consoles, friends used to hang out in video game arcades. It was a social experience where people had shared experiences and a lot of fun. We want to bring that back.”
The plan is to do this in the following ways:
- Multiplayer VR gaming and VR experiences. Networked VR rigs let gamers enter the same virtual environment together. See this Star Trek Bridge Crew trailer. Currently, there are four rigs with plans to scale these up.
- Watch friends play VR from the player’s perspective. Each rig is connected to a TV enabling people hanging out at the VRCade to watch what’s happening from the player’s perspective.
- Mixed-reality green-screening: Even more compelling than watching from the player’s perspective is merging VR with the real world using green screens. In about two weeks VRCade will allow audience members to watch their friends inside of the VR environment. See this video of what it looks like.
Joubert says the most popular game at the Expo was HordeZ, a zombie shoot-em-up, which is one of the latest, greatest and most immersive games available. “Everyone over the age of seven is welcome to come and have fun at the VRcade,” says Joubert. “No prior gaming experience is required, although your gaming friends might have an edge over you at the start.”
VRCade is running promotional prices for August, with an additional 33% discount for anyone who books in advance. Qualify for a further 15% off with user-generated content by posting your gaming experience at VRCade to its Facebook and Twitter pages.
VRCade will inform consumers about new games as they come out, tournaments that it hosts, specials, subscriptions, and more here.
Staff Writer
