VR Society is a new industry group officially launching today with members including some of Hollywood and Silicon Valley’s most influential companies. The group is tasked with providing research, hands-on seminars, and recommendations for best practices to help increase the overall quality of VR content.
The group is a new division of the Advanced Imaging Society, which formed in 2009 as a collective effort of companies like Disney, Warner Brothers, DreamWorks and Sony to advance stereoscopic 3D content. The list of society members now includes Intel, AMD, the Virtual Reality Company, Starbreeze and others.
“Virtual Reality is a medium that enables anything we can imagine come to life, but also feel completely real,” said society board member Guy Primus, CEO and Co-Founder of The Virtual Reality Company, in a prepared statement. “While that opens up enormous new creative opportunities, there are quality standards, best practices and techniques that need to be addressed for those experiences to properly meet the high demands of the VR consumer. The VR Society’s central purpose is to help create, support and facilitate those standards throughout the creator community.”
The group’s first survey of 1,000 consumers found at least 70 percent of adults under the age of 44 are “excited about experiencing VR.” In the 45-60 age group, 62 percent gave the same answer. Additionally, 65 percent reported that they are more excited about VR than they were about HDTV or 3D content when those innovations were still early.
“For some time, our members and industry colleagues have indicated a need to prepare for and build virtual reality’s potential”, said AIS Chairman Mike DeValue in a prepared statement. “As with any new content platform, we will need a collaborative and sustained industry-wide effort to meet the ‘premium experience’ expectations of consumers.”
AIS president Jim Chabin will also serve as the president of VR Society. Mark Lieber will be the organization’s new head of VR. Additional staff includes Nick Urbom, SVP Marketing and Awards, Irena Cronin, Editorial Director, and AIS SVP Karen Tobin.
