Tim Bieber: XR Immersive Tech Is a Virtual Reality and Immersive Entertainment Studio

XR Immersive Tech is a virtual reality and immersive entertainment studio. Our team designs, prototypes, develops, builds, and installs custom hyper-immersive experiences, attractions and software products that empower a global network of VR arcade operators and entertainment centers.

Our aim is to create novel experiences, hardware and software solutions that elevate the potential of virtual reality and immersive attractions while highlighting the impressive potential of modern technology.

Tell us about yourself?

My passion has always been in building ideas into marketable products that offer insight into the opportunities and the possibilities that technology offers. In many ways I have always pursued this manner of vision and approach to work.

With a lot of time spent in the startup industry, I quickly found myself in precisely the sector I wanted to be in.

One could say that it’s practically in my blood, with my first media startup launching a globally syndicated TV series which ran from 2001 to 2007 and was broadcast in 65 countries, and, over the years enjoying success with 6 further media and tech-related companies, developing them from their early days to successful exits when my work with them was complete.

I have held various C-level and have built, managed or worked alongside sales teams for some of the largest companies in the world (IBM, Google/YouTube, CBS Interactive, BBTV) selling everything from digital media to SaaS to green-tech solutions in countless different industries.

All of this experience has led me towards where I am today, in the VR sector, having previously founded a startup at the very beginning of VR when the industry was just getting started.

As CEO of XR Immersive Tech I have the opportunity to work with talented and skilled colleagues with big visions and, fortunately, the resources to elevate VR to new heights.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

I feel the advice I would offer my past-self is rather simple: don’t stress about the things you cannot control. Focus on what you know you can have a positive impact upon.

What problem does your business solve?

The modern location-based entertainment industry is one that lingers and lags behind the potential that technology can offer partly due to high-costs and difficulty for installations, staff training, and novelty of experiences.

These out-of-home entertainment organizations seek out opportunities to reward their audience with fun, innovative, and engaging experiences and XR Immersive Tech’s catalog of games and VR attractions aim to address this by offering highly-immersive experiences that are easy to operate, compelling for players, and have strong financial models for incentive.

More than this, UNCONTAINED Hyper-Immersive VR’s impressive technology and features proprietary technology and software that will impress even diehard VR enthusiasts.

Whether it is the UNCONTAINED platform, Player X’s free-roam VR structure, or the SynthesisVR network, XR Immersive Tech has a wide portfolio of solutions for entertainment centers around the world.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

Prior to our development of UNCONTAINED, XR Immersive Tech was a company focused on experiential games such as escape rooms.

Understandably, when the Pandemic began our ability (both professionally and in the world as a further generalization) to create in-person experiences was heavily impacted.

That being said, however, our team’s ability to create these highly-effective and technology-first experiences was sufficient that we had confidence in moving towards new horizons, with VR as a clear potential.

We had had experience, as well, outfitting shipping containers with proper air filtration and various other safeguards for ease of launch and saw the opportunity of going a step further and implementing VR along with 1:1 mapping of the internal space with devices, consoles, and environmental features to create something that has never been done before.

While these traditional technologies and attractions do have their place and their purpose, their rigidity means that operators are, by definition, limited. Virtual reality and Metaverse experiences allow for fluid, near-limitless opportunities for content and gameplay expansion.

In addition to the practical considerations, the connectivity and social potential of these out-of-home locations has only just begun to be explored, and will aid in creating a relationship between the players, the experiences, and, ultimately, one another.

What is your magic sauce?

We want to build upon and improve VR in a way that addresses player immersion beyond what it immediately available on the platform.

In this way we have taken direct action to connect with with companies like HTC, Ultraleap, DTS Audio, as well as acquire the VR Cafe/Arcade platform SynthesisVR, and grow our vision by expanding our skills, our understanding, and our ability to elevate VR to new heights.

The heart of what makes XR Immersive Tech such a great place to work is how well our team comes together to solve problems and innovate.

Had we remained on our previous course with a focus on location based entertainment experiences we would have likely continued on a similar, if not entirely parallel path as we are now, albeit, without the virtual reality component.

Ultimately, we would not have had the chance to connect with the VR industry professionals that we have on our board now, nor would we have had the opportunities to be part of defining the principles of bridging virtual reality and physical reality in the way we have now.

The investments that we have received to charge into this incredible industry would never have presented themselves and our team would never have grown to include some of the top-talent in VR as it has in this timeline and on this path.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

Our vision for the next 5 years is fairly straightforward and is partially based on improving the accessibility cost of hyper-immersive and hyper-realistic VR so that it can be experienced by more people and with even greater degrees of technological innovation and player engagement.

Even at this stage our confidence in what we have created, as well as the feedback we have received from players and operators alike, has indicated that there is a clear desire for taking VR from a digital-first experience into something that elevates it by using immersive environmental features and the ability to literally feel your surroundings without feeling limited by visual and audio and controller-based interactivity.

We also strongly believe that while the foundation of the Metaverse is in its infancy that when it realizes its potential that the massive opportunities for experiences like those we are creating will be able to further engage with players.

We want to be a part of this next step and inspire and amaze players and developers alike to go bigger with what they can expect out of VR technology and beyond.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

The primary hurdles and challenges that presented themselves at the very beginning of this momentous shift in both company ideology and development were related to recognizing what we could bring from our location based entertainment design and development process into this new direction. Identifying what team members we were lacking as well as what new pieces of technology, partnerships, and research that would be required for the hard pivot we were undertaking.

Where other companies like ours were prepared to ‘wait and see’ what was going to happen when the world had just started with the pandemic we were invigorated by the chance to learn, grow, and adapt.

We quickly came to set ourselves on a path to fill in the gaps where we identified them and experiment and iterate towards a product we could be proud of.

This included raising money and bringing our company public with a challenge of inventing technology we knew we wanted to utilize to make something no one has ever seen before.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

For those interested in what XR Immersive Tech is doing, we invite you to check out our website and join our mailing list to get updates on what we’re up to and where UNCONTAINED and our other products are heading.

Beyond general interest, we are always open to speak with location-based entertainment centers, amusement parks, and other similar venues with interest in adding VR to their locations.

Adding to this, for existing VR-equipped locations who have interest in hearing about our software solutions for operation and licensing experiences and adding, beyond games, other experiences to their VR library such as for corporate training and educational purposes, our SynthesisVR platform is yet another piece of XR Immersive Tech’s solutions.