This Industry, Still In Its Infancy, May Be Poised For Serious Growth — Companies That Build Foundational Tech Could Reap Rewards

Photo by Lucrezia Carnelos on Unsplash

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Fans of “Ready Player One”  should be familiar with OASIS, a reality constructed entirely in digital space that players inhabit. The line between the physical and digital worlds is blurred, and for some, the distinction becomes lost. This reality seems even more plausible in the wake of Facebook rebranding to Meta Platforms Inc. FB, ushering the term “metaverse” into the popular lexicon.

These visions of a digitally mediated reality, whether it be virtual (VR), augmented (AR), or mixed (MR), all fall under the umbrella term of extended reality (XR). XR is still a relatively nascent industry, but the market was already valued at more than $25 billion in 2020, according to research firm Mordor Intelligence. It’s expected to grow at a top rate of 57.91% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach $397.81 billion by 2026.

One of the major markets likely to drive this growth is VR gaming. Gaming is a massive industry – valued at roughly $160 billion in 2020 – that still has room for innovation and disruption. VR seems to be a natural progression as deeper immersion has long been one of the most consistent desires of gamers. 

Many companies – Sony Group Corp. SONY, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, NVIDIA Corp. NVDA – are investing heavily in the technology.

In gaming, one of the most lucrative business models is the creation and licensing of development tools, which are licensed and used by other companies to create their own software. 

The game engine Unreal, for instance, was created by Epic Games in the late 1990s. Since that time, the engine has been used by third-party developers – who pay Epic a cut of their sales – to create hundreds of games, some of which are the most successful and award-winning games in history.

Those companies that do the same for XR may be well-positioned to take part in the exponential growth of the industry.

Chicken Waffle, the VR gaming company behind Baby Hands and several other award-winning titles, has created a suite of development tools for XR that it hopes will help the industry grow. The tools can be licensed by developers working on a broad range of applications, from VR games to MR military simulations.

If you’re interested in learning more about Chicken Waffle, check out https://www.startengine.com/chickenwafflevr.

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