Virtual Reality, the “Could Have Been” Solution to the New Normal

It has been about 8 months into the lockdown of the pandemic in the United States. Many businesses have come to accept the pandemic as the new normal and find ways to save money with the companies slowing down, including saving on real estate, turning employees to either partial hoteling or full-time remote working. This has a direct reflection on the local businesses that are publicly open. With city mandates that are everchanging, people are heralded as heroes by staying home and minimizing most social and public activities.

Previously, being able to work remote was a perk that some works offered. However, people are working remotely not as a digital workplace transformation of a greater project pushed out by the CTO, but only due to the pandemic. Those affected not only had any choice in this decision, but the pandemic also extends to life outside of work, which is why people feel locked up in their homes. It is emotionally draining and being in isolation that starts as weeks to months, and now to year, people are showing symptoms of claustrophobia, anxiety, and depression (Gupta, 2020). 

There is a small sector in the gaming industry called VR, or Virtual Reality, where there are several mediums such as Facebook’s standalone Quest 2 or HTC’s Vive Cosmos that requires a PC and wire connection, that can be utilized to let users access a whole new world. Beyond gaming aspects of VR, there are apps where a user can do various activities, such as attending virtual concerts, movie theaters, or hanging out with others in a virtual location of choice. Virtual reality location could be a lovely beach with a sunset, an urban penthouse with a beautiful evening city view, a baseball field to practice swinging the bat, or a bowling alley without the worry of being contaminated. There are exercise and meditation applications that use pictures taken from all around the world (even Mars!), traveling applications that took 360-degree videos of challenging travel locations such as Nigeria, or popular tourist locations like Paris and Moscow. It is an escape from quarantine into a virtual reality that introduces the users to a new frontier, being in places where they only dreamed of, and interacting with others live-time than mere virtual happy hours over Zoom, a depressing reminder in itself. 

The technology is here. The pricing point has come down significantly, where it is no more expensive than a typical gaming system ($299 for Oculus Quest 2), and it is widely available. Yet, not many have heard much about it. By looking into the number of followers of popular VR channels on YouTube, it shies several ten-thousands from 200,000, showing that the VR community is relatively small compared to how long the technology has been out and evolved. Some companies solely focus on taking advantage of marketing communications through VR, such as an online travel agency VResorts, creating virtual tours of hotels and resorts that users may use to have a 360-degree experience as if they were there checking out the property. Bigscreen is another VR company that lets users hang out with their friends, attend live events, and watch movies together (Skinner, 2020). 

In 2019, a whopping $19 billion was spent on virtual and augmented reality products, focused on educational, healthcare, and automotive industries (Skinner, 2020). One company views by 2030 that nearly 23.5 million jobs will be done in virtual or augmented reality, composed of jobs like customer service to having work meetings and training (Skinner, 2020). The line is becoming thinner, where reality is starting to blur into virtual reality. Real estate companies, such as RedFin, are now providing a 3D rendering of the homes’ external and internal layouts, offering a much more authentic and pleasurable experience as if you called to check out the house in-person. Ecommerce, also known as online shopping, is now available where companies like Obsess are developing virtual stores enabling users to have the same experience as if users were in the store, looking at products on shelves. 

The question remains as to why there is no stronger marketing communication push for these virtual reality systems. There are positive testimonies of users in hospitals that encouraged VR solutions to get through the pandemic. Companies like Facebook that look to dominating the VR market should have presented the pandemic quarantine survival issue and tie it with virtual reality as a solution. Even Facebook’s Reality Labs consulting CTO John Carmack states he’s “kind of embarrassed” Facebook’s lack of ownership in creating social apps that can be vital for families and friends, which were picked up by third parties (Feltham, 2020). Vaccines were announced not too long ago, yet looks like another good minimum 6-months before COVID is no longer a threat to the population. There still are ample opportunities to market VR as one of many solutions coping with the baggage that the isolations bring. 

References:

Feltham, J. (2020, September 19). John Carmack says he’s ‘kind of embarrassed’ over Facebook’s social VR during pandemic. VentureBeat. Retrieved from https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/26/5g-and-edge-computing-help-retailers-work-smarter-behind-the-scenes/

Gupta, A. (2020, March 16). COVID-19 lockdown guide: How to manage anxiety and isolation during quarantine. ADAA. Retrieved from https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/covid-19-lockdown-guide-how-manage-anxiety-and

Skinner, O. (2020, September 3). Virtual Reality in 2020: How life went virtual during the pandemic. Voices Inc. Retrieved from https://www.voices.com/blog/virtual-reality-pandemic/