Things are changing in the world of online entertainment. Emerging trends in technologies such as extended reality, spatial audio and real-time rendering are paving the way for interactive experiences that pull the viewer in from the screen. Rather than simply sitting there watching what’s unfolding on the screen in front of them, viewers are starting to be pulled inside and included as an integral part of the scene itself.
From passive viewing to active participation
Formats such as immersive roulette highlight how these developments are being applied in practice. By combining cinematic visuals, real-time interaction, and responsive interfaces, such experiences demonstrate how digital platforms are moving beyond static content toward something more dynamic and participatory. Written for CNN, this piece examines a growing trend in the virtual reality tech space. More and more companies are using this new format of technology in order to change and even better the way consumers interact online with their brands. Real-life engagement is seeing a dramatic increase via these types of platforms and is spreading quickly across industries, such as those of media and commerce.
The infrastructure behind immersive online worlds
Creating the metaverse and other associated technologies will need coordination from hardware vendors, software companies, and other standards bodies. IEEE brought up some of the technological hurdles that need to be addressed when making XR the seamless and high-quality technology it needs to be to achieve the metaverse and reach global markets effectively by minimizing latency and reducing and potentially eliminating some forms of an XR experience in order to have sufficient quality, bandwidth and detail for what will be a immersive global interaction platform. The absence of widely agreed standards across XR technology will exacerbate the risk of the experience being fragmented across different platforms.
This was also highlighted by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. The ENISA technology report on the security risks of immersive tech points out that the increase in the amount of behavioural data that is collected by the virtual, augmented or mixed reality platforms used increases the probability of privacy breaches and identity-related incidents. This needs to be taken into account when designing the security architecture of these platforms in order to ensure that the users’ experience is not compromised by potential incidents.
A global audience reshaping its expectations
Adoption is still patchy and speeding up. The demand for interactive content is increasing across Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe. Partly because 4G has rolled out across more regions, and partly because younger people have higher expectations for how they interact with technology. That the VR use cases in live sports and music have engaged the audience suggests people will pay attention to the screen if they have an experience that is dramatically different to something they have ever seen on a TV.
What this means for the future of digital platforms
Immersive technology may not be a trend, but rather the culmination of many technological advancements. Practitioners are currently working with platforms that treat immersive technology as a legitimate design challenge as opposed to a marketing tool. It is important to note that this field is highly competitive and the longer-term engagement that audiences have with an experience is often directly related to the quality of the experience, with competition expected to escalate as the costs of the technology decrease.
