The Reality of Virtual Reality at VRLA

In 1895, one of the very first cinematic shorts was being shown to a small audience. Train Pulling into a Station was the name of the short movie (at least the translated version), and the nature of the technology at the time struck fear into the audience. It's fabled that some individuals had run to the back of the theater to avoid the "oncoming" train. Such is an example in history where technology surpassed what people accepted as the truth; it was given that people cannot view an oncoming train inside of a theater house, and yet with the developing nature of cinematic theory the world was proven wrong. Henceforth, a new form of entertainment was introduced to the world and we were infants to understanding its reach.

This summer's Virtual Reality Los Angeles (VRLA for short) was a foray into a similar technological experience. The con was small, but the implications were far from what the show floor could virtually hold. Every booth was showing off some different form of entertainment, whether it was a 360-degree video, an Oculus-driven video game, an interactive hand-gesture demonstration, or even a full solipsistic immersion into self-propelled flight. Music videos, 3D-animation flourishes, interesting narrative panels, and other similar expos were about the floor. One such booth that had a lot of attraction was Reload Studios featuring their game World War Toons.