Hello, fellow Operators!

thenexusvr

Just wanted to drop a topic where we could introduce ourselves and get to know each other!

I am the owner of The Nexus VR Arcade in North Myrtle Beach, SC and we have been open since mid April 2018. Things have been up and down so far with the summer being INSANE and the fall bringing a slump that all the businesses in a tourist area feel before the ramp up during the holidays.

To get a little more personal, I am a branding nut. Most of my free time is spent studying and researching social media marketing, content creation, branding, and marketing psychology. Much of that ends up getting poured back into my business, so it's hard to call it a "hobby" but it's still something that relaxes me in my free time.

I am also a serial binge watcher! While I am doing my research and busy work I will always have either The Office, Parks & Rec, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, or Breaking Bad playing on one of my workstation's screens!

Anyway, sorry for the long post! Perhaps none of you care about having that amount of info about me, but I figured I'd start off strong! Jump in below and keep this going with whatever you feel like sharing about yourself or your business!

jonlukeSBVR

Thanks for sharing, Jeremy! Great stuff.

As a brand and marketing guy, I can totally relate. It's my job, but it's also something I love keeping up with and incorporating in my every day life (for instance, I looooove commercials). Where did your love for marketing originate, and what have been some of your more successful strategies?

thenexusvr

jonlukeSBVR

I have been interested in using social media for promotion for as long as I can remember! Back in the days of MySpace I was finding ways to design my profile to push people to the content I was creating on Google Video and Vimeo at the time. I loved creating video content and actually built up enough of a following to do it as a living for a little while right out of college as a YouTube Partner (back in the days when you had to apply to be one).

I backed off of that channel for a number of reasons, but it was largely so that I could start taking my experience to other people and using it to help them. So I started a marketing business back in 2013 and still run it on a smaller scale today as I am working to build The Nexus.

As for winning strategies, one of the main services my clients brought me on for was my knowledge of video content. That being the case, one of the best strategies I have seen is "documentation vs. original content" strategies. Helping clients develop an easy way to focus as much as they can on documenting their business, and then throw up original content as the ideas come has worked well in numerous cases. Far too many people fail to post anything for months because they "couldn't think of anything worth posting." They could just be getting on Facebook or Instagram and posting the daily in's and out's without giving out anything valuable or doing anything terribly unprofessional and it puts them in the minds and in front of the eyes of the people they are targeting.

jonlukeSBVR

thenexusvr

That's awesome. You're right on with the "documentation" marketing--especially in this space. Since a lot of Arcade customers have never tried VR, there can be some hesitation simply because they're not sure what to expect. By documenting the daily in's and out's of the operation, it allows for these potential customers to become familiar with VR before ever stepping foot into the Arcade.

Showing this type of activity also helps build trust with customers, which you have to earn before they will ever choose to book time to play VR.

ArcticSunVR

Hello, My name is James and I am the owner/operator of Arctic Sun VR. We are a small arcade located in Fairbanks, Alaska. We currently have 5 stations at the arcade (4 standard and 1 premium) as well as 2 mobile stations. We have been open since March of 2017. We are hoping to move locations here in the next few months and expand or operation.

thenexusvr

ArcticSunVR

What games have you found are the most popular in your arcade?

Also, what is the difference between "standard" and "premium" in your arcade?

ArcticSunVR

thenexusvr

Elven Assassin, Beat Saber, Superhot, Arizona Sunshine, Downward Spiral, Job Sim, Space Pirate Trainer, Cowbots & Aliens, and Dragonflight are all very popular.

Currently the difference in our standard bay vs premium station is the room scale space, number of games offered, price, and the premium bay is in a private room. We also have a nintendo system in the premium bay for players to use while they are waiting for their time.

jamiebaker626

Hi everyone, I own Space VR in Solvang, CA. We have 9 stations an our experience is much like Jeremy's beginning post to the thread. We live in a tourist town with summer being the best. U think our demographic is 12 year old boys, hipsters who come here for the wine industry and the military personnel at the nearby base. We get a fair share of elderly participants who really like the relaxing VR experiences as well as the exploration adventures. I have 2 elderly gentlemen come down and golf in VR because they can no longer walk the course. We also have begun having school field trips and partnering with our local parks and rec for coding and development classes. For us, the more education bent content the better as we feel this is where our long term growth will become consistent

KeithJ

Hello. My name is Keith Johnston and i am a co-owner of the Parnell Plaza location of Spectrum Virtual Reality Arcade here in Fort Wayne, IN. We have been in business at this location for just about 2 months now and loving it. My passion for gaming goes back to the days of the coin-op arcades and the fact that we(my now business partner and i) were spending most of our hard earned money on the arcades. Decided to open one then to save money, but never actually did(childhood pipe dreams). Who knew 35yrs later we would be doing a VR Arcade. I love technology and all things technology. So working on computers and the likes has been something i have done for almost 20yrs now. Was looking at a PC repair business, but noticed that most of them are fading, even the good ones! So, this seemed like the next best thing...and happy that we did it! It is so AMAZING how far this stuff has come in the recent years, and where they are looking to go. Our experience so far has been about the same as everyone else above. Richie's and Arizona is probably the 2 biggest, but Creed is actually a big hit here too!! One of our top 5 actually. One of the things i think we are going to be looking into is VR for the Realtor. Have talked to a few of the local realtors and they have all said that if they could offer VR tours of homes, it would be amazing!! So that is one direction we are looking at. Education is another, but just got started, so still feeling the waters. Glad to see this community become a thing and look forward to talking with you all...have a great day/night.

ArcticSunVR

KeithJ

Hey Keith,

I have a buddy who did vr for realty a couple years back. He used the Matterport camera and software and it went great for him.

Spectrum_Waylon

ArcticSunVR

Matterport is definitely the best from what I have seen. There is a market for this for sure!

KeithJ

ArcticSunVR

yep. that is actually what we have been looking into as well. With the cost of living here where i am being as low as it is, people are buying up real estate locally. And the city is trying to make itself more "modern" for the new generation of money and it's spending. Really think that once the arcade starts going, this will be our next venture for sure.

thenexusvr

I own a Matterport camera and the workaround to get the tours into a Vive headset is a bit clunky. The scaling is way off currently. It almost feels like you're the size of an ant looking around a giant's house. I am hoping they improve it soon because that's what I have been waiting for to really start marketing house tour partnerships with local realtors. I want to give them a rate to allow their clients to come in and tour a bunch of houses in VR, but I don't want to do that until the experience is actually passable for the real thing.

KeithJ

thenexusvr

agreed and thanks for the input. we have been looking at this since we started looking at doing the arcade business and really want to get this going. But really dont want to do it till it is a really good experience. Really thankful for your insight and will be looking forward to future updates!!

VREX

Hey all, little fish by the big pond here, James Brown from VREX Virtual Reality Experience on Vancouver Island. Blowing minds and taking names with VR. We operate a small 6 station arcade in Comox, a small town of 15000ish. We just had our 1 yr anniversary Oct. 27 and its been quite a ride. Loving it, VR is the future for a lot of things, not just entertainment. Good luck out there, keep your stick on the ice!

thenexusvr

VREX

Hey @VREX! I would be really interested to hear how you get a solid customer base in such a small market. I am in Myrtle Beach, SC and we do REALLY well in the summer when there are 18 million tourists flooding through the place, but we are still fighting everyday to capture the attention of our locals.

VREX

thenexusvr

Hey @thenexusvr. Its the usual suspects, social media presence, customer service, upscale ambiance, and game content. We try to specialize in multiplayer games. People may have 1 vr hmd at home, but not 6. Hooking up groups to team up or shoot each other is big. Parties are huge, birthday, group and work. We are busy on the weekend and quiet during the week. The white paper thingy by Springboard is pretty accurate. You have to find the right price point for the locals to return and have new/different stuff once in a while for them to come back.

VREX

thenexusvr

One thing I should mention, I just did a quick google on MB, SC and it appears you have a lot of competition for amusement dollars. I would say you would have to try to stand out from the crowd, using the novelty and sheer awesomeness of VR.

thenexusvr

VREX

Thanks for the tips! Yea we do have plenty of competition in the amusement space and until recently had two other VR arcades in the area (they just shut down in the last month or so). The frustrating thing in the amusement space here is that the locals generally stay far away from any amusement because they are viewed as tourist traps regardless of the price point. We have definitely been doing well on the weekends, but we really want to get some kind of "after school" type customer base going, too. We have been considering a membership program that includes educating kids on technology, applications, and the VR industry. Market it to the parents as a "play & learn" type experience that kids could come to after they get off school during the week.

colincentrevr

Hi All, I am Colin Parnell, founder and MD of Centre VR in the UK. We have a 1,100sqft VR Centre with 6 x Vive Pros and 4 Samsung Odysseys in a prime new multiscreen cinema complex in the centre of our town. We opened in August and are profitable after 3 months of being open. Its going great. We run an awesome game called Tower Tag (dealers for it in the UK now) and what we call "Your Choice", which is Springboard on two of our stations. We run Project Cars 2 on 3 GT Omega racing seats and Aerofly on the 4th one. We are building our bigger Centre VR in the same town, 2 minutes walk away, in 5,500sqft cheaper premises :slight_smile: with 30 VR headsets (able to accommodate UK classes which we have organised). We also produce and sell business VR software to the local business.

We have just signed up for Tapmango, and I would ask fellow operators to look at it and see if you agree with me that Springboard could work to incorporate it with Springboard to take care of loyalty and membership programmes. I think they are clearly going to take a very long time to ever get that done in SB, going by the rate at which features are forthcoming. They did not create a payment system, and used Square, so I would hope they could work with Tapmango (linked with Square already) to incorporate all their brilliant features, and perhaps negotiate for all arcade owners a healthy pricing option due to the bulk numbers they might attract.

I think we are all trying to create a community of regular VR players (we certainly are), and a decent loyalty and membership programme is crucial to getting the returning customers, I feel. After quite a bit of research, I found the Tapmango offering to be really good proposition and highly recommended online.

If you research it and can agree with me, it would be great if you could let the SB team know to look at it.

gameovr

colincentrevr

Hey Colin,

Sounds like an awesome setup! I am curious how you find the Samsung Odyssey headsets for commercial use compared to the Vive Pros.