VR Remake

Virtual Reality is cool. It’s always been cool. It was going to be the next big thing in the late 90s and then it just disappeared. There was even a movie called The Lawnmower Man about how VR in the wrong hands, along with a little bit of Stephen King magic, could turn it into the ultimate killing machine.

Flash forward to today and VR is making a very strong, and very real comeback with things like Pokemon GO. Companies like Google have latched on the technology to make interesting uses for it. Just recently some programmers at Netflix created an old fashioned video store in VR that you could browse current titles in VHS form and even throw the tapes around. I’m sure Blockbuster loves it.

This got me thinking about what other older software could be turned into VR mega-franchises if the right company got behind it. Sure, you could go the pop-video game market and chuck a Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty but I wanted to go deeper.

What if a developer made it so that you could enter the retro world of the 80s arcade? We got a glimpse of what it might be like in the Disney film Wreck-It-Ralph but imagine playing Pac-Man where you are Pac. Running around a maze, eating pellets, looking out for ghosts and then you look around and see someone with a mullet looking at you through the arcade cabinet glass.

Are they controlling you? Are you controlling yourself? Would you ever be able to look at the other 80s classic Frogger without thinking you’ll never kill a cane toad again? It’s an experience that hasn’t been created and it is one that I would like to try out. It’s a billion-dollar idea just sitting here ready for the taking. But if you do take it….I will accept at least an idea finder’s fee.