Designing, building and growing a community around VR and sailing.
Sharing a story of MarineVerse and the approach we are taking to creating our apps and game for sailors.
68. Resources for VR
http://voicesofvr.com/
Slack (VR Creators, VR Developers, VR Australia)
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/ (Oculus and Valve presentations)
Ready Player One ( https://www.amazon.com.au/Ready-Player-One-Ernest-Cline-
ebook/dp/B005CVWWJY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469408761&sr=8-1&keywords=player+one )
Infinite Reality ( https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Reality-Avatars-Eternal-Revolution-
ebook/dp/B004CFA9WI/ref=pd_sim_351_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51EBL48QrLL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_OU01_
AC_UL160_SR106%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=0VTNM8B1NEVDFDFQXWC2 )
Meetups meetup.com
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/intro-vr/latest/concepts/bp_intro/
https://www.fishbowlvr.com
69. HTC Vive dev in 1h
https://unity3d.com/
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/32647 SteamVR plugin
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/64131 Steam VR Toolkit
Cardboard dev in 1h
https://unity3d.com/
https://developers.google.com/vr/unity/
Notas del editor
VR in practice.
Designing, building and growing a community around VR and sailing.
What’s your sailing experience?
What’s your VR experience?
MarineVerse is a start-up that brings sailing to virtual reality.
Our flagship products it’s VR Regatta - a game for HTC Vive that’s on Steam.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/468240/
VR Regatta game play
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHgjXsLFC9U
Our team: Greg, Olga, Nate & David.
We are getting feedback on YouTube, some of it we don’t understand ;)
https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=CAM%253D&q=vr+regatta
MarineVerse got a mention in Yachting World.
http://www.yachtingworld.com/yachts-and-gear/virtual-reality-sailors-new-specially-targeted-apps-77052
This presentation will be organised around this model, that we found roughly fits what we have been doing.
1. Finding the problem: Generate hypothesis
First step. Where did the idea come from in the first place.
http://blog.marineverse.com/sailing/3d/3dphotos/2016/01/10/sydney-to-hobart-yacht-race-finish-line-in-google-cardboard.html
Surely, people will love to learn about sailing in virtual reality. Let’s create a training application.
Step 1: Tweet about it :-)
Step 2 - build a prototype.
We started with Cardboard.
First iteration - very quick sketch in unity. Learn about “Points of Sail”.
We both joined a sailing course. First of all, location was amazing :-) But also great opportunity to interact with our potential users: instructors and people who want to learn to sail.
We discovered, that in that context VR wasn’t working well - people were interested in enjoying sun, drinking beer and socialising - not so much putting a bit of plastic box on their face.
They also expressed desire to sail in a boat in VR (rather then static experience we gave them).
We also suggested they try our app - by installing it.. But most of them had an iPhone - our app was on Android.
Maybe they will like sailing simulator more? That’s what they asked for?
But what about simulator sickness?
Great podcast: http://voicesofvr.com/
In one of the podcast Kent discussed a locomotion method - 3rd person view used in Lucky’s Tale.
We’ve build a prototype using 3rd person view.
Another way to test: asking for feedback on Reddit.
They said - we want to sit on the boat!
People liked the story in Sail to Freedom: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marineverse.sailtofreedom
They didn’t like simplicity of assets,
Performance was not good enough.
We created a version where you could sail with Stan. First person view. It worked fine (For most people)..
But our usage stats didn’t look that great.
Leaky bucket - our audience was not staying with us, mostly trying experience once.
What to do?
Planning what to build - The Service Designer in the room
Greg - The idea and vision
Olga - I can’t code but let’s use SD tools to think about it.
There’s still a client, they still go through a journey, it’s still good to understand the persona
Customer journey maps (camera) - discovering our apps
JM for within the game
Brainstorming ideas
Persona
Strategy
>>> insights
MarineVerse personas.
Helped make decisions in a strategic way
When you lay it all out it suddenly makes sense
Helps you think about other options and scenarios - especially for new things like sailing in VR
Let’s create a sailing game, for gamers. Trying use gamification techniques. Notice simpler environment (for performance reasons and due to lack of artist on the team). - Targeting GearVR.
MVP? Race around a course.
The first thing you see in VR Regatta.
We are using Unity to build our apps and games.
SideLoadVR is a great platform to deliver an app to users at that stage: http://sideloadvr.com/detail.php?id=10012
People don’t understand how to sail. Sailing upwind is confusing.
Extra insights from screen captures (people get lost).
You can use fishbowlvr to pay for VR user testing.
OK - let’s create something simple - collect stars and sail downwind.
Meetups in Melbourne have a great “small” community feel.
Greg - let me fly to Vision Summit next week Olga.. http://gregdmd.com/blog/2016/02/13/my-6-favorites-demos-from-vision-summit-2016/
Eyes opened - VR is a huge industry, 2000 attendees, VIP events (that we were not invited to :( ) etc.
But we got a free HTC Vive :-)
https://github.com/thestonefox/SteamVR_Unity_Toolkit
Great starting point when building for Vive.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/
Great resource for Unity content.
Check this https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1131-WSFG-3320 when publishing on Steam.
Great spike when launching, but then people moved on to different things. Can we make this graph go upward? (Daily users)
We are trying different things to make people stick, come back and join us for sailing. Multiplayer, relaxing sailing, more realistic racing. We are working on improving graphics (richer, more interesting environments, nicer boat models, etc)
But at some point we expect to go back to a drawing board. Still looking for a viable business model.
We are just starting, and hope the best things are still in front of us and our customers.