Page 32 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

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Consumer interest in immersive content is increasing. Hardware sales are expected to reach €2.4 billion in 2017, according to the virtual real- ity consulting firm KZero. For software, which is mainly videogames at this time, KZero estimates sales of more than €28 billion euros for 2018.
Facebook paid €2 billion for Oculus VR, mainly because of its ability to apply virtual reality to games, which has prompted a debate about what role virtual reality will have on social media in the future. By contrast, Google has issued the specifications for a simple cardboard VR head mount (Google Cardboard).
Even with all these new applications already on or emerging on the market, however, content and immersive technologies can be difficult to explain and, in some respects, difficult to accept.
It seems obvious that immersive games will lead to massive acceptance of these technologies by consumers, and that competition in the gaming sector will generate new hardware with greater capacities, which will quickly improve the value and lower the price for the end user. Live, Samsung Gear, Oculus Rift and Sony’s Morpheus are examples of some very promising products.
Both content and immersive technologies will have a major impact on the economy if they can become differentiating factors and provide competitive advantages.
Immersive and interactive content and technol- ogy are expected to spur growth in various EU industries thanks to:
• The opening of new markets for ICT players: an open and secure pan-European immersive environment offering developers the opportunity to create a wide range of innovative applications.
• A rapid response to new sustainable market opportunities based on convergent business
models between the content, telecom- munications, broadcasting and consumer electronics industries.
• An increase in business opportunities for creative SMEs. Small and medium enter- prises represent almost 95% of companies in the creative sector in terms of employment, and around 70% in terms of turnover, demonstrating a competitive advantage over large companies in terms of efficiency, productivity and competitiveness.
The open environment advocated for technical developments linked to immersion will allow the creation of creative ecosystems in which SMEs can thrive, based on the quality and diversity of the players, and with a focus on multiple mar- kets. The most obvious example is the increas- ingly extensive use of design in the automotive industry, which allows adding value to products, services, processes and market structures.
Both content and immersive technologies will have a major impact on the economy provided they are based on solid business models in which they can become differentiating factors and provide competitive advantages.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Immersive technologies are becoming one of the greatest technological challenges in the content ecosystem. Advances in the creation of 3D vir- tual and augmented reality services, the gradual emergence of a variety of inexpensive 3D devices (glasses, 3D screens, etc.) or the possibilities for using holography, give us an idea of how rapidly immersion is taking off.
Improvements in VR head mounts, which are currently designed primarily for virtual reality video and 360o video games, are moving con- sumers toward free viewpoint video. The con-
IMMERSIVE CREATIVITY, CREATIVE IMMERSIVITY · JOSÉ MANUEL MENÉNDEZ AND DAVID JIMÉNEZ BERMEJO
Digital Trends in Culture