From Westword - Article by Gabe Fine

Lakewood entrepreneur Victoria Merchant wanted to create a fun, family-friendly alternative to late-night bowling alleys. In February, she had a lightbulb moment: virtual reality.
"VR has been on the back burner lately, I think," says Merchant. "Developers and makers wanted to go straight to consumers, but it didn't work as anticipated, because the equipment is still expensive."

Instead, Merchant saw virtual-reality arcades, where customers would be able to try out and enjoy the latest, most advanced VR technology, as the next step in VR entertainment – without the prohibitive costs.  



Read the full article here. 

New York Times, Laura Parker
June 22, 2017

LOS ANGELES — Before the end of this year, people will be able to play the popular open-world action game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in virtual reality. They will also be able to get their hands on virtual-reality versions of the first-person shooter game Doom, the post-apocalyptic game Fallout, and independent titles like Sisters, a horror game that explores virtual reality in an episodic format.
This flood of video game titles is an important marker for virtual reality. Even as the hype over the technology has outrun its actual adoption, the video gaming industry has continued to pour money and resources into embracing virtual reality, cementing its development and advancement — at least in the near term.
“The dream of virtual reality was born in our industry when we created the first virtual worlds,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and chief executive of the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group for video game companies. “It's only natural our industry’s passionate and creative innovators, who share that dream, would lead the way in the development of virtual reality.”

Read the full article here. 

After years in development and constant reassurances that no, really, it's going to happen, virtual reality is finally becoming a practical reality.The Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are now available, and PlayStation VR finally has a release date set for October of this year and the public will finally get to see that VR isn't just an elaborate prank by the tech industry. Soon it'll be common knowledge what separates VR from traditional gaming.

But the headset alone isn't enough to totally set it apart. When you're playing VR games with standard devices like Oculus Touch, the Xbox One controller, Vive controllers and PS VR Move, chances are you still won't be fully immersed in the experience. They're great devices but your hands are still only controlling digital hands.
That's a problem peripheral makers across the world are trying to solve, with controllers that add to VR gaming in different ways. While a few are still in the middle of development, others are nearly ready for prime time.

Continue reading.

We had little fun and created an animated Fulcrum virtual reality controller video. Check it out!

​We understand that the virtual reality revolution is well underway and not everyone is going to want to wait for the kinks in our design prep to be worked out. In the meantime, you can rig your own version of the Fulcrum virtual reality game controller with a balance board like the Reebok Professional Core Board or StrongBoard Balance. You can load a smartphone with an app that will allow your smartphone to function as a joystick/keyboard/mouse for PC games. There are a lot of different smartphone apps that can turn your phone into a gamepad or joystick. Make sure you find one that uses the tilting of the smart phone in order to make directional movements with the game pad.

Then, attach the smartphone to the center of the balance board, possibly by attaching velcro tape to a smart phone case. If you've set the smartphone up right, the smartphone will make directional movements in the game when you lean forward, back, and to each side on the balance board. You can find some example balance boards and app videos below.

Please be safe. Putting on VR goggles while standing on a balance board definitely has it's fair share of obvious risks. Using a partner to spot you wouldn't be a bad idea. 

Let us know what your favorite gamepad emulators, balance boards, games or VR experiences using the Fulcrum design with your phone and balance board.

Spoiler: This is exactly why Mean Monkey Sports is developing the Fulcrum full-body game controller.

Along with all of the exclusivity debates that have embroiled much of the talk surrounding virtual reality for the past few months, another discussion has been ongoing among gamers, developers, and onlookers: What’s the best way to get about in virtual reality?

Talk to Oculus VR and HTC and you’ll hear drastically different things. Oculus, with its focus on seated and standing experiences, argues for the idea of artificial locomotion, or using gamepads and controllers to handle your in-game movement — regardless of what founder Palmer Luckey once said. HTC says that real-world movement is the best option for VR, letting people walk around in their roomscale-tracked spaces.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/virtual-reality/vr-locomotion-movement-omni-hover-junkers/#ixzz4E2nReM3F 

It was a rainy February day in Eugene, Oregon. The year was 2004, but in my experience most February days in Eugene are rainy. Pacific pressure systems careen over the Oregon Coast drenching the Willamette Valley before dropping snow on the Cascade Mountains.

My body was in the library trying to get into the second semester of my first year of law school. My brain was freediving off the coast of Oahu. I tried to bring my thoughts back to Oregon, but they rested somewhere in the middle. Mulling over if there was anyway to simulate the experience of freediving over endless coral reefs teeming with life.

I took a break from studying, walked downstairs, out into the rain, and let the thoughts run. I imagined a flat-screen television on the bottom of an Endless Pool. Probably semi-doable, if you ignored the challenges of projecting images through moving water that had been oxygenated by jets.

I remembered watching the "Lawnmower Man," the epic virtual reality movie of the 1990's. While VR had died out for the time being, I guessed that it was only a matter of time, engineering improvements, and finding the right application before it reincarnated into a technology capable of replicating the floor of the ocean.​

The image of the virtual reality pool gave way to the soft cold rain. Contract law was waiting.

The beauty of the Fulcrum full-body virtual reality game controller is how many real-world experiences it can replicate. While originally designed to replicate the sport of riverboarding, the sky and sea are literally the limit.

For instance, Kymera Body Board has developed a really cool electric body board technology. The technology is just moving into production and the activity can easily be replicated in the virtual world with the Fulcrum full-body virtual reality game controller's leaning-based steering.

What electric body board games can you imagine? 

By Matt Kuntz

While there are a couple of points that could be tabbed as the beginning of the Immersion Athletics project, the first one happened on a clear summer day in Dahlonega, Georgia in the Mountain Phase of Army Ranger School. My Ranger School Class had completed training on Mount Yonah and we were marching down the mountain to catch a ride back to camp. My platoon was pulling up the rear. In standard military road marching fashion, the long line of soldiers was constantly tightening and then stretching our spacing. Leaving those of us at the back to play a game of hurry-up-and-wait.

I was carrying the 240B Machine Gun and a full rucksack on a full-sprint down a broken trail. The outer edge of my left boot caught, all my weight and the weight that I was carrying smashed down on the overstretched ligaments and tendons of my ankle. The structure of the ankle snapped and I hit the ground.

My squadmates helped me up. I managed to hope down the mountain on one leg. I continued on for three more days - dragging my useless left ankle. Eventually, my right knee gave out under the added pressure. I could no longer stand. My time at Ranger School was over and so eventually was my military career.

The injury had destroyed my career, but it also altered my identity and my sense of self worth. I'd been multi-sport athlete in high school, a college rugby player, and an infantryman who prided himself in an ability to jump out of planes and scale peaks in the Alaskan Range. After the injury, I was fortunate to slowly rebuild my mobility to the point where I could get through my daily routine at the 2-35 Infantry Battalion at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii without crutches.

The water was the only place where I was free to do the things that I wanted to with my body. I progressed from swimming laps in my condominium complex's small pool to freediving over the reefs off the coast of Oahu. 

Eventually, I returned to the mainland. Replacing freediving in Oahu with snorkeling and then eventually riverboarding the rivers of Montana. My ankle healed up to a degree as the years went on. Regular running is still a stretch, but I can make it up some of the mountain trails that ring the city of Helena.

I haven't forgotten how that immobility changed my life and restricted my view of who I was and what I could accomplish. What would my life had been like if I hadn't found the freedom that the water gave me? What would it have been like if I'd been injured bad enough that the water couldn't set my body free?