As you’re reading VRFocus you obviously know about virtual reality (VR) and may even be passionate about the technology and its potential. But its still very much niche when looking at other devices such as smartphones, PC’s, consoles and tablets. Even with big marketing campaigns from the likes of Oculus VR, HTC, Google and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), there’s always going to be people who haven’t heard of it or just don’t know what this new wave is all about. So companies have conducted market research to find out how well VR has penetrated the public consciousness. The latest comes from the Nexon Computer Museum in South Korea – a country on the cutting edge of most tech.
Nexon Computer Museum conducted the survey as an extension of a festival it’ll be holding called VR Open Call later this year. The museum surveyed 303 museum visitors and SNS members about the perceptions of VR, with a total 89 percent of respondents answering yes to having heard of VR, and 68 percent of them experiencing VR.
Of those who had tried VR around 61 percent of them had tried it 3 times or less, but 27 percent of the respondents answered to having experienced VR 5 times or more. Of the 11 percent who had no experience of VR, 81 percent did say they would be interested in trying it.
The survey also looked at the type of genre’s most favoured by visitors. These were split into Game, Travelling, Movies/Drama, Cultural Experience, Other. The ‘Game’ genre was the most dominant with 58 percent, while ‘Travelling’ was next with 13 percent and ‘Movies/Drama’ with 12 percent. Which genres were picked also had a correlation with age, as 70 percent of teenagers and young adults in their 20’s picked ‘Game’, while as the age increased respondents in their 40’s and 50’s picked ‘Travelling’.
Yunah Choi Director at the Nexon Computer Museum commented: “VR is an uprising technology which can expand the scope & boundary of experience in reality to infinity. We conducted this survey to see the status & perception of VR, which is one of the core ICT technology, as we prepare to proceed the upcoming future.”
While a survey of this size can’t give a truly accurate representation of how well VR is progressing in South Korea, especially at a computer museum where visitors are highly likely to have an interest in IT, it still shows a lot of respondents at least had an interest in VR.
Back in November 2015 Greenlight VR and Touchstone Research released a survey of 2,282 Americans, on a similar vein. It showed most did have some knowledge of VR, with Generation Z the most passionate.
For all the latest news on VR, keep reading VRFocus.
