Recently, U.S.-based “IMAX” formally declared its intention to give up the VR business. Its flagship stores in Los Angeles, Bangkok, Toronto came to their end in the first quarter of 2019, while four other VR stores in New York, Shanghai and Manchester were closed before the announcement was made. At the same time, an U.S. entertainment & catering company “Dave & Buster's” positively set offline VR projects in 2017-2018. With the addition of VR simulation, the company’s sales increased 1.5%. Also, land-based VR store ILLUCITY in Paris plans to open 100+ chain stores throughout the world within 2 years. Why is it that one company chooses to give up, while others start to expand their VR business and grow? How can the offline VR experiencing store survive in 2019?

Dave&Buster's successfully captures the needs of home users. It offers a one-stop service - food, drinks and amusement to customers. Positioned as a leisure & experiencing restaurant, it features overall experiences of catering, amusement and film. In the past year, the VR business was actively developed by Dave&Buster's and has been covered in 120 chain stores. Equipped with a VR experiencing store, the restaurant enriches its profit pattern – a restaurant integrated with games.

Though there is no fixed pattern of success, experienced insiders pointed out that one of the successful factors to operate a VR store is the multi-player interactive experience. It can bring players together with special fun and interaction, which other amusement activities cannot provide. Based in Paris, ILLUCITY uses the theme park style profit pattern. It is very popular with young people in Europe for its advanced equipment, various VR projects, reasonable pricing and multi-player interactive entertainment. It provides a unique entertainment venue thanks to its four categories of premium VR experiences: Hyper Reality Experience, VR Escape Game, VR Arcade and VR Film. Most of the experiences support between 2 to 6 players. In the future, ILLUCITY plans to develop the diversity of cinema through a VR theme park and Dave&Buster's plans to explore more possibilities of catering + VR experience.

At present, the VR offline experiencing store in mainland China is also meeting three difficulties. Firstly, there are many single experiences and a lack of regular users. Secondly, there exists a contradiction between users' expectations and the current situation in the industry. Thirdly, the VR equipment has improved very quickly and the products’ value is very hard to maintain. On the one hand, after several years of experience, many VR offline stores have figured out the needs and concerns of users, which can effectively improve the re-experiencing rate and users’ loyalty. On the other hand, in terms of game platforms, the service for VR offline stores is also continuously improving. With these two sides, VR offline stores will be able to continue to operate in 2019. In addition, the development and changes of the industry also push the growth of VR offline stores. For example, the VR equipment keeps being upgraded, high-quality VR content springs up continuously, and so on.
※The article is published in the GTI Magazine Issue No. 174 in April 2019