Extended Realities Opening New Doors for UK Businesses

As businesses further seek to capitalize on the technological advancements made each year, many are being put on an almost certain collision course with the scene of extended realities. These cover mixed, augmented, and virtual reality applications, all of which seek to put the user in a space that’s more immersive and informative than looking at the world through our eyes alone.

The key underlying trait that’s making extended reality tech so appealing is the added immersion. When people are immersed in an offering, they tend to become much more receptive and may even learn more from teaching experiences. Above all, in the current market, having an extended reality offering easily makes a business stand out as being particularly tech-savvy and almost futuristic.

Extended reality is, well and truly, catching on, with innovative applications in the UK alone proving the scope and reach of the technologies.

Developing the immersive digitally-enhanced experience

Immersion is the aim of the game right now, and nowhere has that become more apparent than in the iGaming sector. As a big business in the UK, online table games have long featured RNG variations and several live casino games. For a time, live games like Quantum Blackjack Plus Live were seen as the pinnacle of online card play immersion as they beam the games to the player in real-time, and they get to play through the convenient UI.

Now, however, there’s a new game that taps further into the driving force of extended reality tech. Featured among blackjack online for real money games, Blackjack First Person takes the immersion to a new level. In this digital game, you enter the room, can look around, and interact with the chips and cards on the table through the first-person point of view. Without any hardware required, it’s like you’re sitting at the digital table yourself.

It’s the kind of product that blurs the lines between RNG and virtual reality, putting more control and a greater experience in the hands of the player. Ultimately, it’s the step towards totally immersive extended reality tech for those who aren’t overly enthusiastic about the tech required for such fully-fledged alternative reality experience. A similar move can be seen with the rise of virtual tours, where companies like Immersive Tours use 3D cameras to scan and process venues into digital formats that can be explored by users.

Having said that, AR and VR are expected to become more prominent. In Europe, the virtual and augmented reality ecosystem alone was estimated to have a market size of €7.1 billion with double-digit growth forecast through to 2026. In the UK, a very similar rate of adoption and growth is being seen. Across the forecast period of 2019 to 2025, just the virtual reality market was tipped to hit a compound annual growth rate of 33.3 percent, with 29 companies involved in VR tech development at the time of the report.

Extended reality experiences taking off for UK businesses

One of the biggest recent success stories from the UK has been Immersive Gamebox. The London-based business signed €91.5 million worth of franchise deals in late 2022 to expand its offering around the world. With these funds, Immersive Gamebox will set up its digital smart rooms that use 3D motion tracking visors and touch screens across Germany and Ireland, with two also in the works in the UAE. For the 2018-founded UK business, it’s clear that a boom in interest and adoption in extended reality products has arrived and only looks set to grow.

Another UK startup is delving into the world of special interaction technology solutions. Ultraleap focuses on the haptic module of virtual and extended reality applications, which can be integrated into hand-tracking devices to deliver accurate, near-zero latency feedback from a virtual touch. Further development into this field has led to the creation of TouchFree, which enables the user to use gestures without any form of touch to interact with the software-powered screens.

While not everyone’s ready to invest hundreds in virtual reality headsets, or even wear the sometimes disorientating hardware for long spells, extended reality as a whole boasts a tremendous amount of appeal. Be it as a product, the center of a business plan, or to enhance business operations like training, extended reality applications will only continue to grow and provide even better immersive digital experiences.