Exploring the Future of Immersive Play

In recent years – with the proliferation of immersive theatre, Hollywood blockbusters and gaming, not to mention experiments that invite audiences into immersive text-based stories through the daily interfaces of their mobile phones and Twitter feeds, as well as site-specific theatre experiences that transform everyday environments into performance spaces – immersive entertainment has blossomed at break-neck speed.

VR can make the experience of being in the casino as authentic as possible, pulling in sights such as flipped cards or clinking chips. In parallel, VR can allow researchers to conduct studies of gambling behaviour in a controlled virtual environment.

The Future of Immersive Play

Among their various applications, immersive technologies offer manufacturing companies a unique approach to train staff in new and innovative ways while easing the transition for companies investing in new machinery.

Immersive experiences dissolve the barriers between fact and fabrication, they take participants out of their ordinary lives and into fantastic worlds that demand full commitment. The puzzlers who solve the rooms of an escape room, or the socialites who compare notes and watch each other’s backs at a Prohibition-era speakeasy – such activities involve real people and real relationships in a way that simply can’t be experienced on a backlit screen.

VR has also proved to be a popular way to experience gambling. Playing in a real casino against other individuals can cause its participants to become distracted by ambient noises or physical sensory elements. In VR, on the other hand, participants can become fully absorbed in the single virtual environment they experience – sensory responses included, such as card shuffling or virtual chip clinking for immersive gambling.

The Future of Online Gambling

Thanks to the internet, online gambling has grown into a global industry which reaches players from all over the world. With the simple push of a button, people can now play their favourite games at home and bet on them. VR technology promises to provide this globalisation on steroids, with an experience of the game that is deeper than ever.

Virtual reality casinos combine the latest technology with the oldest of vices to immerse players in fully realised virtual casino settings. Stereoscopic 3D offers each eye a barely different image, recreating reality.

So while virtual reality gambling is still fairly new, mechanical horse racing versions for the virtual reality casinos will send the sector into overdrive becoming a new norm as users expect their real money, mobile-optimised applications and social promotions; headset costs currently still an entry barrier, but that certainly will change if technology continues to follow any trend at all.

The Future of Virtual Reality

VR is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in recent years. This is because users can be immersed in an environment and interact with it in a way that is almost as real as if they were in the real world. The tech is also rapidly evolving and each year we’re seeing lighter and more powerful headsets.

Another area where VR technology is gaining a foothold is in educational or training settings, in which students can use VR to learn a variety of topics using environments they would otherwise find difficult, costly or dangerous to reproduce in the real world. As if by magic, students can find themselves virtually immersed in Rome, Athens, the Amazon rainforest or any virtual place that the teacher wants them to experience. Just as gloriously, VR can bring cultures closer to each other and can also help to bridge empathy between them.

For example, VR could be used to make gambling research closer to ‘real life’ by creating a more realistic representation of gambling behaviour (an increasingly important concern given that most gambling research is conducted under laboratory conditions). VR simulations can make them more realistic (and therefore with a larger degree of ecological validity), while facilitating an understanding of the drives and characteristics that can make gambling problematic in ‘real life’.

The Future of Mixed Reality Gambling

Virtual reality is one of the casino industry’s latest game-changing technologies. By creating a realistic experience where players feel like they are inside an actual casino, VR games offer many benefits for players, including socialisation, customised games and increased playtime.

VR can make gambling feel much more real while also helping to minimise the potential for harm. Experimental studies have shown that VR can help to reduce gambling cravings and aid in recovery by allowing participants a ‘safe place’ in which to gamble, but also by helping to reduce cravings.

And while it might have some of its own unique issues, VR is nonetheless set to be even more popular over the next few years. As it becomes cheaper and more widely available, it could provide the user experience which finally becomes a must-have add-on for online gambling, possibly piggybacked on augmented reality, which presumably occupies the space in-between.