San Francisco-based authoring, publishing and analysis company InstaVR, Inc. has been announced as the virtual reality content producer for the Sanrio Puroland theme park, per a new agreement with Sanrio Entertainment Co., Ltd. The first VR app for the Hello Kitty-centric park was unveiled at Sanrio Expo on Feb. 6, with InstaVR planning to start on more experiences this spring.
The VR app is part of Sanrio Puroland’s expanded sales promotions efforts aiming to increase visitors from overseas using original content to build exposure worldwide in an engaging way. Created for Gear VR, the app allows viewers to experience a guided tour of the park with Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters, or watch the popular character parade.. Gaze-based navigation makes the app easy to use and well-suited for reaching multilingual audiences.
Sanrio stated: “Due to the high productivity of InstaVR, production of mockups usually taking 2-3 weeks were completed in one week. By being able to mock up at an early stage, we were able to take more time to fill out the details, and we were able to improve the quality. As for the final cost and delivery time, production was completed at half of our initial cost estimate, and actual delivery date was realized in 3 weeks, from beginning filming to app delivery.”
Sanrio plans to use InstaVR’s point-of-gaze heat map functionality, which will allow them to see areas where app users are looking within the theme park. The company can then analyze VR visitor behavior data and leverage this to guide VR content development, such as adding interactivity to the app with hot spots and navigation.
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