Gamescom 2018 Day 1: World of Tanks VR, ThermoReal lets you feel hot and cold in VR, and much more

The Gamescom has officially begun, at least for us of the press. It’s strange for me to say the word “press”: I still feel like a random guy that writes random words about his passion on a public website, but ehi, for someone I’m a member of the media. And for sure I won’t try to convince them of the contrary…

I was quite scared of taking part in such a great exhibition, but actually, things went pretty well. This is all VR-related stuff that I’ve experienced today. We made a lot of video interviews, so if you’re interested in a topic, be sure to watch the related video to discover everything about it.

Scott of Road To VR

Well, of course, Scott is not a VR experience, but he is a very well-known Virtual Reality journalist. I’ve been able to meet him yesterday evening and again this morning. He is a very pleasant person and we’ve exchanged a lot of opinions on virtual reality and how is VR at current Gamescom. It seems that from the VR standpoint, it is maybe the worst Gamescom of the last few years. Last year there were great companies like Ultrahaptics and Tobii, while this year there are only a few nice companies. I think this reflects this moment of virtual reality, where the technology is taking more time than expected to become widespread and so people have started doubting about its potential. If, as predictions say, VR will start taking foot next year, this will be just a momentary phase, but we have to accept the fact that this is not the best moment ever for VR.

Valve

When I wrote the post announcing I was going to attend Gamescom, I wrote that I was excited that I was going to visit Valve stand, that maybe showcased the fantastic Valve Knuckles. Well, no. Valve stand is very little at this Gamescom and there are absolutely no Knuckles. I’m so sad about that.

Wargaming.net

I’ve talked with Wargaming.net because I heard some rumors regarding a VR porting of World Of Tanks. Interviewing a member of the company, I discovered that actually it is not a rumor, it is already a FINISHED PRODUCT. World of Tanks VR is not launched on Steam yet and the company has not revealed me the release date and price, but it is already available in selected locations in arcades across the USA and Russia. That’s a very cool news.

Regarding AR, the company has developed an “AR spectator mode”, so that every person can watch a World Of Tanks match in AR as if the battle was happening on his/her table. I tried it on an Apple tablet and I found it very cool: the graphics were majestic and being able to zoom on every single detail just by moving the tablet was great. I loved it, I think that it is a great feature for people wanting to watch a match in a more realistic way. It has been developed with ARCore 1.5, so the tracking was pretty stable. At the moment there’s no way to actually play a new match in AR, though, because the company thinks that the interface of World Of Tanks doesn’t fit well in AR. And it is only available for Apple devices because you can’t use tablets with ARCore. I didn’t know that: Google has still to coordinate with OEMs and so at the moment there is no ARCore-compatible tablet. Anyway, when there will be, World of Tanks AR would be available for Android too.

I’ve asked about future plans for AR and VR and they told me they can’t say anything… and this means that they’re for sure working on something behind the curtains…

TEGway

TEGway has been one of the coolest companies that I’ve met today. It is a Korean company working on a device called ThermoReal that can make you feel heat and cold sensations.

This device can be put inside the cover of your VR headset or inside some gloves or arm cushions or in a full body suit so that you can feel hot and cold all over your skin. I’ve tried it and it is impressive: the hot was really hot… my skin felt like burning, and the cold felt real as well. It was weird using it because from one side I was excited by the technology and I wanted to continue using it, while on the other side my instinct was trying to avoid the unpleasant sensations of freezing/burning.

According to TEGway the advantage of its solution wrt the ones of competition is that the device is not rigid, but flexible so that it can be built to adapt to any shape and so fit the body of the user and then it has fast response times.

The company told me that the refreshing feature, set at a minimum power, could also be used to let people wearing an audio or VR headset without sweating a lot.

I really loved it, it worked like a charm. I can’t wait for this thing to be implemented inside VR games to enhance immersion. And it can also be used in training experience to simulate extreme situations (think about firefighters training, for instance).

Reality MagiQ

Reality MagiQ is a game studio from Korea. It is developing various little VR experiences mostly tailored for arcades. I’ve tried two of them: one was an FPS and the other one an e-sport game. The FPS experience was interesting, but needed refinements (it was confusing sometimes): I anyway enjoyed its use of the haptic vest by bHaptics, that made sure that every time I died, I could feel a rumble all over my chest that made more realistic the fact that I had been shot.

The e-sport one was really intriguing. It was basically like a VR pong where my hands were paddles and I had to try to score against an AI having two paddles as well by hitting a ball. It was interesting because there were many levels and every one had a different visual setting and different difficulties and power-ups and power-downs present in the environment. So the game was made by very fast matches, and every match was different from the previous one, so it was challenging and never boring. I guess that one-vs-one in arcades with friends it could be very funny.

This company also gave me some cool insights into its plans and the Korean VR ecosystem, where VR arcades are becoming popular. They’re not huge arcades like The Void, but mostly little and medium-sized ones.

VRillAR

VRillAR is another Korean game studio working on a zombie wave shooter VR game both for arcades and for home entertainment. The home entertainment version should feature a story mode with not only action but also storytelling for 5 hours of fun, while the arena version is directed at arcades and it is more ta-ra-ta-ta-ta of continuously shooting zombies. The game was good (apart from some problems with UX), but I admit I am not a huge fan of zombie shooting games in VR because there are too many of them on the market.

Speaking with me, the company has confirmed what Reality MagiQ had already told me, that is: the Korean VR ecosystem is growing. And in Korea, most people are not interested in buying a VR headset to use at home but are more interested in experiencing VR inside arcades. That’s why VRillAR is targeting arcades with its games.

Anyway, its game is coming out on Steam at the end of the year, so if you’re into zombie shooting games, it can be worth giving it a try.

Nathie VR

At Gamescom, I finally met the most popular VR Youtuber out there: Nathie. I met him and his brother David and they were both super kind and was fantastic talking with them about VR and about our experience at Gamescom. I’ve discovered that we started working in VR in the same year, that is 2014. Ah, the glorious DK2 times!

I’ve asked him how to become a successful VR Youtuber and he said me that one of the best advice is to find what you want to do, to do what you like, whatever it is: reviewing VR games, reviewing VR movies, playing VR games, reviewing hardware, etc… And then you have to publish a lot of high-quality content: if you manage to publish something every day, this is the best because Youtube rewards who publish a lot of content.

Publish something that you like and your audience will like it as well.

Enter VR

Enter VR is a French company working to create a complete VR entertainment experience. The system consists in a VR Treadmill (that actually is a slipping pod), very similar to a Kat VR, and a VR action game.

The system is currently at demo stage and they’re looking for investments to perfect the walking detection algorithm, the treadmill structure and in the end to transform their complete vision into reality. The vision is the one of offering an LBVR experience in France where Enter VR is in charge of everything, from the location to the hardware not to mention the software. In every location, there could be eight VR stations, where eight players can play together by running in place and shooting each other (or playing whatever games the company will offer). The idea is to open a franchise so that more locations in the world can be opened and players from all over the world can play together. For sure it is an ambitious project.

It has been the first time I’ve tried a VR treadmill and the experience was mediocre. The setup was long and complicated: someone had to put Vive Trackers on my legs, then secure me to the treadmill; I had to change shoes to wear some slipping ones, etc… The time was too long. Then the walking detection didn’t work very well and the walking movement didn’t feel completely natural: someone described it a bit like walking on ice and I think that he’s right. Walking was also very tiresome. The game was actually an experience made to train France army forces, so it felt more like a military training than a game and I found it hard to play.

But at the same time, I loved playing with a rifle that resembled a real one: the weight was right (it was not light like all the plastic ones that I’ve tried until today!) and holding it in the hand was very realistic. You also know my passion for full body VR and walking emulation (we did that at Immotionar), so of course I love the idea of moving my using my own feet. Then I was amazed by the fact that this company is going to produce all the main software and hardware components by itself so that to be able to produce an optimal and coherent experience. And the plans for the future are also very ambitious, with the possible addition of haptic suits.

I think that the company has potential and the passion of the founder speaks for itself, but I also think that it has to fix the actual issues of the system and especially understand what it is the real scenario where the product can express its potential: I think that it is more suitable for Chinese arcades (where experiences are currently low quality) or for training professionals (like the army) in the Western world than for an LBVR experience in France. But that’s just my opinion.

And that’s it for today! As you can see, I had a very interesting VR day here at Gamescom! And if you liked my cool videos (thanks to Max for them), please subscribe to my Youtube channel!