You want to get started with opening a VR venue and you are wondering what kind of audience you are going to be able to accommodate. Your VR venue will not be the meeting place for just one type of customer. On the contrary, you will be the place of discovery of a very large market. You will therefore have the choice to specialize or, on the contrary, to offer your services to a very large segment of the population.
Access to virtual reality PC headsets is expensive, and the space required to play together is generally greater than the surface available to customers (office room, living room), reality is struggling to conquer the mainstream market. Autonomous headsets (Oculus Quest, Pico Neo ...) allows the general public to recently access virtual reality and democratize it, but the issues of space and multiplayer experiences remain present.
Thus, the professional market for virtual reality rooms (also called Location Based VR or LBE, LBVR) is booming all over the world. Different types of structures, small or large, open every day offering different games and experiences (static boxes, free-roaming on small and medium-sized areas, warehouse arena over several hundred square meters.)
Location-Based Entertainment VR in France
Indoor leisure has been around for several decades with the well-known laser game or escape games. The leisure market has experienced strong growth for several years in France. Indoor sports and leisure have become real places of life and sharing in France. To quote the FunFairCity article: “According to a study by Union Sport & Cycle in 2020, there are nearly 10,000 retail sports and leisure establishments in France, for 17 million adult and child customers per year. This is a sector that is little talked about, but which is developing and changing rapidly, particularly in the management of the structures and the various services set up by the operators. "
The turnover of indoor leisure in France represents 7 billion euros in France. Indoor leisure innovates to attract customers looking for innovative experiences and emotions.
Virtual reality rooms are a revolution in the indoor leisure market because they allow customers to live non-reproducible experiences at home, access ultra-immersive technology, and make the space occupied by workstations modular. VR has multiple experiences and universes at the same time.
The target audience of a VR venue
You probably imagine that video game fans will be the first to have an appetite for virtual reality. However, they are often far from being the majority in a VR room. Indeed, most customers are not used to video games and do not know the virtual reality.
According to a study carried out by us last November, the age groups that come the most in VR gaming rooms are 12 - 15 years old and 30 - 40 years old. The representations of the sexes are 50% for women and 50% for men.
In terms of the composition of the groups that go to the VR venue, there are groups of 4 to 6 players. Among friends, the ages are generally the same, while with family, groups come with members of different ages.
This data can vary depending on the type of content offered in your catalog, the layout of your room, its location, but also the ease of access of the games to its audience.
Don't overlook the general public, virtual reality has a huge advantage that it can be tested (and approved!) by everyone. Even for beginners. Your target market is therefore unlimited! Family, players, neophytes, companies, couples, friends ... The types of clients of virtual reality rooms are varied, the content offered in it must therefore also be to meet the different ages, tastes, and desires of your clients.
Indeed, the mechanisms are different from traditional video games since the gestures must be performed in real life. The public, therefore, has no blockages or apprehensions related to the use of controllers. The best arcade VR experiences are meant to be simple, with few buttons, and accessible to everyone.
In your market study, it will therefore emerge that virtual reality experiences are accessible to the whole family, its market is therefore similar to that of cinemas, escape games, or traditional leisure spaces.
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A potential market for VR: young people, only young people?
Before starting to market your virtual reality space, you wondered if this activity was intended only for young people. Thanks to its ease of access and the speed of its handling, virtual reality is accessible to all audiences.For a more senior audience, virtual reality offers the possibility of making beautiful virtual tours or small games.To reach several target audiences and therefore a larger market, the experiences offered in a virtual reality arcade must be fun and entertaining.
Another market for VR venue : companies
Businesses are an ideal target for your business. They are always looking for new team building activities to offer to their employees.To attack this market for your VR venue, choose games that are doable in a professional context. In addition to shooting and zombie experiences (which are the most popular ones) also offer cooperation games. It would be a shame for your virtual reality gaming business to miss out on this market because the games available in your venue are not available to everyone. Indeed, companies, looking for new activities that change laser games, want to make games achievable in complete safety.
Define the target audience for virtual reality games: children
Children are part of the market for your virtual reality playroom. Indeed, an outing in a VR venue is an ideal family outing and many games can be offered to children. However, focus on target audiences over 11 years old. Below that age, a child cannot differentiate between the real and the virtual.Regarding the dangers of prolonged exposure, it is advisable to do less than an hour and a half of virtual reality for young children to meet their specific needs.Don't miss young children in shaping the market for your virtual reality space. They have a very rapid adaptability allowing them to quickly learn new technologies such as tablets or even VR masks.
Market study and parity in VR
Contrary to popular belief, parity is almost respected in VR venue. In the target audiences of your VR arcade, consider adding hen parties. It is very frequently found in virtual reality game rooms.Another target to add to your market research: couples. In duels, they are often formidable opponents!
How do I choose the right virtual reality experiences to reach my market?
To reach your market, you will need to choose experiences that match your target audience and that suit all tastes.It is generally advisable to offer about ten experiences in a VR space. It is rare that more experiences are played, even if about twenty games are offered.Depending on the market you want to reach, the experiences may be the same, it will be the marketing around and the way you talk about it that will be different.
VR room market: the importance of replayability
We cannot repeat it enough, it is always more expensive to acquire a new customer rather than to retain those already acquired. In your market, if your games allow it, a significant portion of customers will be regulars. So favor replayable experiences. Many players will want to come back to discover new places in a game or to beat their scores. To retain your market, you can also create a loyalty system to reward the best players.
Conclusion
The market for a VR arcade is therefore very large and vast. Virtual reality reaches a very large audience, so we find these different profiles in a game space. To reach these target audiences, a VR space operator will offer experiences for all audiences.
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