Two years ago, when we first launched our Marketplace, we were desperate to get as many titles on our platform as possible, as quickly as possible. Over time, more and more VR content was being made, and our approach to adding content (fast and loose), had some negative consequences. Before we knew it we had over 300 titles on our platform, most of which we hadn’t had a chance to play… much less test in an LBE setting.
Around the same time we started hearing complaints from many of you that our Marketplace was oversaturated with titles and that several of them were leading to frustrating experiences all around. Spending time downloading titles only to find that they aren’t useable is a frustrating experience. Worse is when your customers get into a title that makes them nauseous and having them ask for a refund.
Our goal is to offer amazing content that works great in your VR Arcade.
Over the last 9 months we’ve invested hundreds of hours into playing every single title on our platform. Doing so we learned that many of our titles were either in very early beta… and/or were not very usable in an LBE setting.
To that end we spent an incredible amount of time creating a standardized process of curating content optimized for the out-of-home space.
Furthermore, stepping back to ask the question, “what makes for great VR?” also led us to start building a larger vision for the potential of VR and to look for content that was beyond the traditional entertainment genre. Looking at the data we noticed that operators were using titles like Nature Treks as much as some of the popular “arcade” titles.
We have a growing number of locations reporting that their primary revenue is actually non-traditional sources. After school programs and field trips, corporate events, safety training and more.
Using our new Content Guidelines, we are going to be actively sourcing a variety of content ranging from meditative titles like Nature Treks, curated art pieces, health and fitness, all the way to educational titles.
Our hope is to give you access to the best VR in the world, for you to give your customers incredible experiences, and ultimately to help your business thrive.
With that as context, after extensively reviewing our entire library we’ve decided to be a little more selective going forward. To that end we are currently talking with developers and hope that this can be a positive step forward for the whole industry.
If you want to learn more about our process please read our full Content Evaluation Process.
Practically what this means is that a number of current titles on the platform won’t be invited to upload their content to the new distribution system. We’ve agonized over making this decision… but after talking to many of you… we think some level of curation is the best way forward.
We won’t be removing any titles right away, and will give you advanced notice before a title is removed from the platform. Some titles may be accepted as they come out of early access and/or make necessary changes.
Our hope is that you as the operator would have more confidence that if something makes it into our marketplace, it’s going to be a good fit for use at your location.
Please email me at @springboardvr.com">content@springboardvr.com if you agree/disagree or want to share feedback… as always I want to know what you think!
Although we believe this is the best way for us to move forward together, this is definitely a learning process for us. If you have any questions, concerns, or recommendations, please email us at content@springboardvr.com. We'd love to talk.
