Factors influencing the mass adoption of VR video platforms

IN

DEGREE PROJECT

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING,

SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

,

STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2021

Factors influencing the mass

adoption of VR video

platforms

MYROSLAVA ZAIETS

Abstract

Despite the number of studies demonstrating the opportunities for the broad implication of virtual reality (VR) across numerous industry domains, including media, this technology has not yet made history, to a large extent, because of the bottlenecks that prevent it from becoming mainstream. A number of media houses, video production companies, and even VR equipment developers such as The New York Times, Disney, or Oculus invested into the creation of the VR video platforms and apps with 360-degree films and VR movies. However, their acceptance by a general public has been slower than many have anticipated. This paper explores the ecosystem of platforms serving VR video and identifies the factors influencing their development and adoption based on the insights from the previous research on the technology acceptance models (TAMs) of virtual reality and interviews with ten VR professionals: developers, content providers, and representatives of VR video platforms. This qualitative study reveals that VR hardware design and performance (degrees of freedom, rendered video quality, immobility, interaction with VR content, cybersickness), the price of VR headsets (which are monofunctional devices), limited socialization features in virtual environment, the lack of appealing VR content and issues with its production are some of the main components that hinder the interest towards virtual reality and VR video platforms by a large audience. These determinants, subsequently, may influence the VR users’ perceived enjoyment, usefulness and ease of use, essential for the emerging technologies diffusion. The paper presents the discussion on the bottlenecks and potential growth points that may become the drivers for the further development of platforms offering VR video and their adoption by the wider public.

Sammanfattning

Factors influencing the mass adoption of

VR video platforms

Myroslava Zaiets

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm, Sweden

zaiets@kth.se

Despite the number of studies demonstrating the opportunities for the broad implication of virtual reality (VR) across numerous industry domains, including media, this technology has not yet made history, to a large extent, because of the bottlenecks that prevent it from becoming mainstream. A number of media houses, video production companies, and even VR equipment developers such as The New York Times, Disney, or Oculus invested into the creation of the VR video platforms and apps with 360-degree films and VR movies. However, their acceptance by a general public has been slower than many have anticipated. This paper explores the ecosystem of platforms serving VR video and identifies the factors influencing their development and adoption based on the insights from the previous research on the technology acceptance models (TAMs) of virtual reality and interviews with ten VR professionals: developers, content providers, and representatives of VR video platforms. This qualitative study reveals that VR hardware design and performance (degrees of freedom, rendered video quality, immobility, interaction with VR content, cybersickness), the price of VR headsets (which are monofunctional devices), limited socialization features in virtual environment, the lack of appealing VR content and issues with its production are some of the main components that hinder the interest towards virtual reality and VR video platforms by a large audience. These determinants, subsequently, may influence the VR users’ perceived enjoyment, usefulness and ease of use, essential for the emerging technologies diffusion. The paper presents the discussion on the bottlenecks and potential growth points that may become the drivers for the further development of platforms offering VR video and their adoption by the wider public.

Author Keywords

Virtual Reality, Virtual Reality Ecosystem, VR Video, VR Platforms, Technology Adoption.

INTRODUCTION

The concept of virtual reality (VR) as an immersive technology is far from new to the market. However, rooted back to the 1950s with Heilig’s Sensorama, and re-emerged in the 1990s with 3D video games, earlier it failed to become a standard due to the poor graphics, price, and low processing power (Jones et al., 2018; Sachs, 2016).

Starting from 2014, with the Facebook acquisition of Oculus for $2bn, virtual reality has been experiencing increasing interest from the tech companies, investors, and media, being forecast to disrupt almost every industry in the long run (Mütterlein et al., 2017). VR was predicted to be potentially adopted as the next big computing platform after the PCs and smartphones (Ericsson, 2017; Sachs, 2016).

several times a week, almost 2/5 shifted a part of their video viewing to the VR experience (Ericsson, 2017). A few years ago, the interest in VR in the media industry was pretty high. In 2015, the New York Times launched its NYT VR app available on the smartphones and shipped a million free Google Cardboard headsets to their print subscribers. Since then, NYT released dozens of VR films and became one of the flagships in virtual reality journalism telling stories through a 360-degree audiovisual experience. In 2016 NBA announced the partnership with the VR firm NextVR, streaming the games in virtual reality app; two years later,_{​NBC partnered with Intel to} provide 50 hours of live coverage at the 2018 Winter Olympics _{​through the NBC Sports VR app. Large media} houses and film production companies invested in existing or created own VR platforms with computer-generated VR and 360-degree content, among which were The Guardian, MTG Tech, RTL Group, Dagens Nyheter, YouTube, Disney, etc. In this field, they competed with the VR hardware developers and producers such as Samsung, Google, and HTC. In 2016, Netflix, Samsung, Google, and Valve were top vendors offering VR content (Techavio, 2016).

But the interest from the users has been lower than forecast. In 2017, there were 43 million unique VR users worldwide. As the research firm CCS Insight reported,1 t_​he amount of smartphone-based VR devices sold globally fell by over 60% between 2017 and 2018 - from nearly 8 million to fewer than 3 million units. According to a 2 market analysis and consultancy agency IDC, between 2017-2018, VR gear sales dropped from 6.7 million to just a projected 4.6 million units. By the end of 2020, the company predicts the shipment of 6.34 million units of standalone and tethered HMDs as well as 0.39 million units of screenless viewers (smartphone-based VR headsets). Still, despite the positive trend, the shipment3

quantity is anticipated to be lower than three years ago. This had an effect on the investments in VR video production. For instance, in 2017, after two years of operations, Facebook shuttered its Oculus Story Studio even despite winning an Emmy for the short VR story “Henry.” Google shut down its in-house film studio Spotlight Stories in 2019​

.

Nowadays, most VR content is classified as gaming (Manis et al., 2018), which is driving most of the VR revenues. In 2019, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the Oculus Store (Facebook-owned VR game and app marketplace) had surpassed $100 million in lifetime sales, with 20% coming through Oculus Quest.4_{​“On Christmas}

Day, people bought almost $5 million worth of content in the Oculus store.” What is more, now, Facebook positions5 Oculus as “an all-in-one gaming headset.”

Besides people willing to invest more into the gaming content, there is a growing demand for an industrial application of VR. About one-third of VR devices are predicted to be purchased by enterprises. 6

Identifying and understanding the barriers to the adoption of VR technology and VR video platforms, in particular, is an essential issue for the VR devices and content suppliers, media houses, related businesses, and consumers. The specific questions related to the VR acceptance and use have been earlier addressed by scholars. Previous research studies focused mainly on the technical aspects (development and application), perception and adoption of virtual reality devices (_​Mütterlein et al., 2017; Manis et al., 2018;_​Lee et al., 2019), VR content such as gaming, sport (Kunz et al., 2019) and 360-degree immersive films (Serrano et al., 2017; Jones, 2018) or VR technology in general (_​Laurell et al., 2019)_​. The researchers also investigated the users' intention to use VR technology, with the help of technology acceptance models (TAM). Although these works bring interesting insights, research focusing specifically on the adoption and diffusion of VR video platforms as an ecosystem consisting of the above-mentioned components is limited. This study aims at providing an objective assessment regarding the likelihood of future use of VR video platforms and highlighting the possible points of growth for the businesses related to VR video.

of VR, that cannot be fulfilled by 2D video. Unlike over-the-air programming that serves scheduled programs, video-on-demand allows users to watch video content at their convenience, across multiple devices and platforms connected to the Internet. The streamed VR content should have higher resolution at reasonable bitrates than regular video and requires massive digital traffic.

To explore the barriers and opportunities of this issue, the research question was formulated as the following: What are the factors that influence the adoption of VR video platforms?

The main goal is to provide a general overview of the current state and to bring insights for future developments. The theoretically derived taxonomy of VR video platforms, applications, and content is presented, which can be used in future studies. The explored factors that affect the adoption of VR content platforms (gaming excluded) can be used in the other VR industries, enabling the ground for comparison.

RELATED RESEARCH AND THEORY

2.1 Virtual reality in the media industry: definition and taxonomy

Unlike augmented reality (AR) that merges computer-generated digital objects with the real world via the medium that enables users to engage with them in reality (e.g., smartphone and the Pokémon GO app), VR is a kind of immersive technology that puts users in an interactive virtual environment with the help of head-mounted displays (HMDs). These block out visual senses from the physical world and produce visual and audio stimuli overriding and simulating users’ sense organs (Suh et al. 2017).

Thus, VR is often defined as “the sum of the hardware and software systems that seek to perfect an all-inclusive, immersive, sensory illusion of being present in another environment” (Biocca et al., 1995). Some observe the VR system as the tracking-stimulation relationship between the physical environment, hardware, and a human organism (LaValle 2017).

Figure 1. VR systems (LaValle, 2017)

As no suitable classification of VR video platforms and its components is available, a thorough literature review has been done. The scope has been restricted solely to the topics relevant to the end customers - VR video viewers, excluding the examples of VR application in gaming, education, design, healthcare, construction, and so on. A taxonomy of current VR video platforms consists of a few key components (Appendix A). These are the hardware components, content (360-degree or hybrid VR video), software to produce and edit content, and distribution channels.

The traditional approach of classification of VR hardware lies in separation into two categories: input and output devices (Anthes et al. 2016). Hardware is usually classified as displays (output) - mobile- or computer-based headset; sensors (input) - physical controllers, eye-trackers, cameras to interact with the virtual content; computers to process inputs and outputs.

HMD plays a major role in the VR environment and is a distinct characteristic of VR technology. The headset completely obscures the viewer’s vision with the visual data presented on the screens within the VR device. VR headsets have gyroscope technology that creates an illusion of looking around in VR by tracking head movements. Besides, the high-end devices are equipped with the accessories - hand controllers for more interaction in VR. The VR headsets are either stand-alone or tethered to the PC. Also, there are independent smartphone-based VR devices whose popularity, however, is gradually falling.

2.2. VR in technology acceptance theories

Despite the numerous anticipations and studies on immersive technology demonstrating its disruptive potential, it is still far from becoming mainstream. One of the explanations is that unlike the invention of a new technology that often appears as a single event, the technology diffusion is a continuous process and its success often depends on the individual behavioral intentions of the end users willing or not to adopt the novelty (_{​Martínez​ et al., 2014; Davis, 1989).}

useful by the potential consumers and, thus, would influence the attitude toward new technology and its adoption. The validity of these constructs has been proved by many studies and they are considered as important variables. Since original TAM was limited to the workplace and did not take into account the hedonic and social influence on the adoption of new technology, it has been improved and extended with the additional constructs - general and industry-specific variables appropriate for the technology being explored to provide a more consistent prediction of the technology use (Taherdoost, 2017). Some of the examples of the extended constructs (influence factors) included personality traits, age, gender, learning opportunity, computer anxiety, presence, flow, trust, social influence, critical mass, personal innovativeness, playfulness, interactivity, empathy, embodiment, habit, hedonic motivation, price value, content quality, etc. (Rasimah et al., 2011; Mutterlein et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2019; Kunz et al., 2019).

Previous research deduced that the perceived usefulness of VR devices promoted the positive usage attitude towards them although it did not directly influence the intention to use VR HMDs. The easy to use is one of the essential VR attributes for the customers, however, even if VR provides the effortless experience, it does not necessarily mean that the users have a positive attitude towards VR. The intention to use is directly impacted by the _​perceived enjoyment: _{​a degree to which using technology is seen as} enjoyable on its own, apart from its performance. Regardless of the actual purpose of the VR hardware, the amusement has a significant impact on the intention to use VR devices meaning the customers “consider VR to be for pleasure rather than usefulness” and see it as an entertainment medium (Lee et al., 2019).

Lee et al. (2019) added to TAM such variables as _​social interaction and strengths of the social ties. While perceived enjoyment was defined as the key belief variable, social interactions, and strength of the social ties increase perceived enjoyment, which has a higher effect on the intention to use than perceived usefulness. Social interaction in VR as the degree to which the user can interact with other people in the virtual environment can play a significant role in the invigoration of the perceived enjoyment. It was previously confirmed that in augmented reality, social presence (the ability to recognize other users in AR) indirectly increases user satisfaction through the feeling of togetherness. The strengths of the social ties on a VR device is the degree of communication between the users and their acquaintances.

Manis et al. (2018) developed the virtual reality hardware acceptance model (VR-HAM), extending TAM for VR

hardware with key antecedents (variables): age, past use, price willing to pay, and curiosity. It was found that there is a negative relationship between the VR users' age and perceived ease of use, meaning the older the consumers are, the less likely they will find the VR hardware easy to use. Past use has a positive influence on behavioral intention and actual usage. Inherent curiosity (the desire to seek and obtain new information) was named one of the most powerful predictors of the VR hardware usage, although it needs further assessment whether the simulated curiosity can speed up the technology adoption.

When it comes to the intention to adopt VR headsets, Herz and _​Rauschnabel(2018) argue that consumers “expect to experience both a strong sense of virtual embodiment (the sensation of being another person) and virtual presence (the sensation of being at another place)”, and having only one of these requirements fulfilled may cause a negative effect. Users do not tend to consider VR technology functionally valuable, but those that do, tend to favor VR devices more. Those users that think that VR devices are comfortable react more positively to the technology; thus, a good design can be seen as a trigger for the adoption. Health and privacy risks lower the adoption rates, while psychological and physical risks do not (Herz and Rauschnabel_{​, 2018). The standalone value of VR} technology does not necessarily result in higher diffusion. To be accepted by the mainstream audience, the technology value should exceed the technological utility, install base, and the available complementary products (Laurell et al., 2019).

Regarding the acceptance of VR content, people tend to experience it rather than watch (Ericsson, 2017). Jones et al. (2018) researched the 360-degree film enhanced with the external stimuli. They found that heat and elements related to smell improve the immersive experience and create a sense of interaction and embodiment that traditional (spherical) movies are missing. Thus, adding the multi-sensory input (visual, auditory, thermoceptive, and olfactory) may impact the overall VR experience. However, the stimuli and their intensity need to be controlled carefully to maximize the effect, which does not seem possible with the current technological developments.

METHOD

The research consists of a few constructs. First, the factors of acceptance of VR were outlined, supported by the academic literature on VR adoption, industry reports on the current state and development of immersive technologies, including virtual reality and the VR industry news. Together, they formed the theoretical foundation for further interviews. The literature review emphasizes the sources investigating virtual reality, not traditional technologies such as 2D films.

The empirical part consists of qualitative research in the form of in-depth semi-structured interviews aiming at deepening and broadening findings from the literature. Then, the results are triangulated and explained, implications are discussed and limitations identified. Together these three elements provide an understanding of the current state of VR video platforms and define the most critical factors necessary for their further adoption. The qualitative method has been chosen since it is appropriate for the situations when the topic is understood partially, and there is a need to explore it in-depth. Semi-structured interviews allow us to validate the findings but also identify and fill in the gaps in the existing research.

Figure 2. Research strategy.

In total, ten VR experts, developers, and VR producers from Sweden, the US, and France have been invited to participate in the interview, namely two executives at Swedish VR distribution platforms ViaReal and DN VR (mobile and Oculus apps that deliver 360 video, VR video, and live streams); managing director from Swedish VR industry organization, a professor from KTH VIC Lab, five VR developers & content producers (Sweden, France, USA), one game developer (Sweden). Each interview lasted from 30 to 60 minutes. There were five open-ended questions with follow-ups regarding the stage of the VR technology maturity; main problems with the mass acceptance of VR technology; the factors that prevent the adoption of VR video platforms; possible drivers for the VR video platforms’ development. The questions were based on the technology acceptance constructs, although

the focus was shifted towards the specific problems in the VR industry to provide as targeted and applicable information as possible. The interviews have been recorded and partially transcribed with the main statements presented as the quotes.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Based on the literature overview and the interviews with the industry representatives, the adoption factors of VR video platforms have been identified and structured based on their nature: technology, content, social (individual beliefs). Only those factors were highlighted if at least one of the interviewees signified their influence.

Technology-related factors

Cost of VR hardware. A too high price may limit the user base. According to the survey by Greenlight Insights, in 2015, 71% of consumers were willing to pay more than $200 for VR hardware; in 2016, this fraction reduced to 42%. Such a trend may indicate that for consumers, the cost of VR HMDs is more important than the benefits of VR usage. However, it may also be possible that consumers put more emphasis on the hedonic aspects of VR hardware utilization (Manis et al., 2018).

“Cost of VR hardware is reasonable for the developed world, but it can’t be expanded to developing countries” - VR Content and Marketing Lead.

interface of the VR systems may not be intuitive for the users (although the stand-alone VR systems are easier to use). The navigation inside the VR environments is uneasy on mobile devices, although it's improved on the HMDs with the usage of controllers. Easy to set up, budget mobile-based headsets require the smartphones with a high display resolution (for the convenient visual experience), appropriate processing power, motion trackers, and a long-lasting battery. On the contrary, the tethered headsets are bulky and “awkward to wear,” they limit users’ movements due to the wired connection to PC, are dependent on the PC processor being able to render video at high speed, and, in addition, they create a safety hazard since the user may get caught and fall (Lai et al., 2019). "Cables are horrible. Future lies in wireless VR" - VR Content Producer.

Rendered video quality. Video quality is named to be one of the most significant hurdles in the VR industry. Even if the 360-degree video is shot with the help of _{​4K Ultra HD} (4096×2160 pixels) cameras_{​, ​at the moment, the VR} hardware and software are not able to deliver the 4K quality in VR. _{​Nowadays, nearly every VR headset has a} horizontal field of view of about 100 degrees and a resolution of around _{​1440×1600 pixels. The users can still} see the pixels, and the text in the small font is hardly readable. _{​For a more immersive experience, the human} vision should be raised to at least 210 degrees, which will also multiply the number of pixels and the angular resolution (_​the number of pixels within a unit angle) _​. The fundamental problem is that the headset with a field of view of 200 degrees and twice as much of the angular resolution will multiply the number of pixels sixteen-fold. Currently, no GPU on the market is able to process it. 7

The problem can be solved by eye-tracking and foveated rendering when only the area where the user is looking at is rendered in a high resolution. The VR HMD's makers have already announced the devices with the built-in eye-tracking technology: Oculus Quest enabled developers with a Dynamic Fixed Foveated Rendering (FFR) feature that renders the peripheral of the lenses at a lower resolution than the central area. _​HTC manufactured its

aimed at the commercial clients _​Vive Pro Eye VR headset at the market price_​SEK 12 499 - the price tag that may be seen as too high for the mass-market consumers.

Network speed._{​The size of VR video files is another vital} component. Much higher quality would be needed for a fully realistic experience than what is currently accessible in even high-end VR systems. Since mobility was one of the key reasons for the smartphones adoption, high-speed

7_{​https://uploadvr.com/foveated-rendering-matters/}

wireless connection (5G) would enable the transmission of gigabits of data “over the air interface for a large number of users … in the most radio resource efficient manner” what could contribute to the VR technology adoption (Prasad et al., 2018).

Low-latency 5G network, combined with the distributed cloud, and eye-tracking that enable foveated rendering, could impact the user experience in VR, contributing to the quality of the content without the need for wired connection to PC. 5G connection may enable VR streaming and contribute to the wireless VR adoption. Degrees of freedom (DoF). The numerous researches prove that the HMDs with 6DoF provide a higher sense of presence than the ones with 3DoF. The sense of presence directly impacts the user's view and inclination of using a tool, from the point of both usefulness and ease of use (_​Chandrasekera et al., 2019).

Some VR devices (such as smartphone-based) allow only three degrees of freedom (3DoF) when the users can view in any direction by simply rotating their heads. However, the body movement in the real world does not lead to the move in virtual environments. On the contrary, HMDs with 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) allow them to reflect the moves of the users in the real world in VR. _​In modernized VR environments, the 6DoF is achieved by the room-scale VR with the headset or controller triangulated in the clear playspace. For many VR HMDs, the tether is still required due to the limitations in the processing power as it helps to run more complicated programs smoothly and provide a better graphic rendering.

Hand tracking_{​. VR limits the physical movement of the} users. To move objects and teleport themselves in a VR environment, people use controllers. Some headset makers require external tracking devices and cameras. Facebook announced the hand tracking as an early consumer feature with the help of the built-in cameras in its Oculus Quest in 2020. It will allow users to interact in VR directly with their hands, without Oculus Touch controllers. Not only will the feature bring a new layer of interactivity, but it will also require the development of a whole gesture-interaction system.

tracking and haptic feedback require the language to be developed - just like for smartphones and touchpads. “Regarding the haptic feedback: it is necessary to build a language for that” - VR expert.

Health issues_{​. Some known ​}side effects _​of the VR technology use include motion sickness (also called cybersickness) closely related to the latency issues; eye strain as the result of _​vergence-accommodation conflict_​, when the eye tries to focus on the pixelated objects in the distance while they are just a few centimeters away; nausea; physical discomfort such as _​muscle strain in the neck and shoulders as the result of prolonged use of VR _​; cognitive overload and distracted attention. The long-term consequences of VR usage are also not researched extensively yet. There are concerns that regular use of VR could accelerate the development of short-sightedness (myopia). Research by specialists at Leeds University found that only 20 minutes in VR could influence the ability of children to _​absorb the distance to objects. _​It is advised that the VR users take breaks frequently to avoid nausea.

Content-related factors

Content offerings. The chicken-and-egg issue is a well-known phenomenon in VR/AR when consumers (individuals or enterprises) are hesitant to purchase hardware without a wide range of content or apps, while content developers are not eager to invest in VR/AR without the user base.

“We introduced technology without anything to see. Content is the key” - VR Producer.

To use VR, customers heavily rely on visual content. In the analysis of the social media posts, Laurell et al. found out that about ⅔ of the users who tried VR were concerned about the stand-alone value of the VR HMDs (tech specifications) and the network externalities value (content offerings). That means that while the VR hardware functionality can be improved considerably, the VR industry should create more content to simulate the usefulness of VR (both hardware and technology in general).

Cost of VR content production. Some larger players such as Facebook, Google, Sony tried to bridge this gap by investing in both equipment and content or software (Sachs, 2016; Ericsson, 2017). However, the price of content production is still too high.

“For us, creating a new VR content costs $100-200 thousand. It takes about $1 million to develop a VR game,

and it’s the same scale as making movies” - VR Content Producer.

360 video (or even VR 180) has a lower relative creation cost than VR content due to the more affordable equipment’s price. The cheapest 360-degree cameras can be bought for under $100. With such a price tag, even including the pre-production, shooting, and post-production, the creation of 360 videos for VR platforms is more affordable, faster, and easier than VR videos.

“High-end production costs 10,000 SEK per VR [360 video] piece.” - VR Lead

The production of VR content is also a time-consuming task that significantly delays the release of VR movies and updates to the existing content.

“To throw someone off the roof in VR, it took us five people and two weeks of a full-time job to find a perfect speed.” - VR Producer.

The very lack of standards in content creation is taken to be a reason for slower VR growth. Adapting VR experience for different platforms also requires significant resources.

"We spent 3-4 months per year full-time, 2-3 people just to adapt the software to go from Steam to Oculus, and on each platform, we have a different HMD" - VR Content Producer.

Not all content providers believe in the potential of VR video platforms. Traditional VR video still lacks interactivity, which makes people more interested in VR games rather than VR movies.

"People stick to the platform if there are constant updates" - VR Content Producer.

Some platforms hook traditional video users with VR. For example, the NBA broadcasted games in VR as part of its League Pass subscription package rather than a unique offering.

Storytelling._{​The way the audience consumes content in} VR is different from the consumption of traditional media. The distinguishing part of VR video, whether it is movies, TV, or live events such as concerts and sports, is that the VR user is not a passive observer but rather a participant of the VR story. The viewer can choose where to look, where to move, and which objects to explore. While the traditional flat films are mostly plot-driven, in VR, there is no guarantee that the user will see any of pre-planned events or actions.

“We are moving from storytelling to story living - it’s a different way to explore VR.” - VR expert.

“It’s easy to watch Youtube or traditional video, but in VR, it’s harder to navigate users.” - VR Developer.

Conversion of the two-dimensional multimedia content into a three-dimensional space requires a new approach. VR films are different from traditional movies. Motion pictures are comprised of a wide range of camera shots, typically taken at altogether different times and scenes, split by cuts. In post-production, the filmmakers heavily rely on the so-called "continuity editing" - the system to edit and maintain these shots together to create an illusion of the coherent sequence of events for the viewers. While the scenes can be linked by other techniques such as fade-in, fade-out, dissolution, about 95% of editing boundaries are cuts (Serrano et al., 2017). According to the observation by Serrano et al., in traditional cinematography, the action discontinuity (when the sequencing frames are not related to each other, with the complete change of the venue, time, and scene) is the least frequently used while in VR movies they are the most common. One of the possible explanations is that due to the higher level of immersiveness, the continuity edits limit the opportunities of the free exploration of VR environments.

In VR, audio is often used to guide the viewer throughout the narrative. VR video is sometimes compared to the theatre: the scenes are staged.​The Walt Disney's creators of Myth: A Frozen Tale enhanced visual effects: the scenes built as an inverse theatre, the focus moves around a user in a circle, and the scenes out-of-focus desaturate and gradually deem.

Content duration. _{​The VR, storytelling is characterized} by a slower tempo and shorter duration. Shorter experiences work better with VR. While games aim at around 20 min in VR at a time, the consumers of VR 360 video news spend, on average, 6 min per session. VR films created by New York Times typically do not exceed 10 minutes. One interviewee said that he easily spends a few hours in VR daily, but his case is rather an exception than a common trend.

“VR is a short-term device. Even in video production, attention span shortened from 30 min to 10 sec.” - VR Producer.

“We can sit in the movies for 90-120 min. But in VR experience, 20 min is solid for now” - VR Producer. Since VR offers a more immersive experience, some types of content may not be appropriate for the mass audience. For example, it's harder to consume news in VR in the same way as in traditional media - the scenes of war or violence may seem too traumatic for certain categories of users.

Social (individual) factors

VR paradox. Among the challenges the industry faces, Ericsson (2017) defined the so-called VR paradoxes of mobility, isolation, and integration. Customers can travel anywhere in the virtual world, but their physical movements are limited; VR makes possible communication and socializing inside the virtual space (e.g., games or social VR) but isolates users from their physical surroundings; those who experience challenges in their everyday lives are more likely to be more active in virtual reality.

“Social is a factor that is holding VR back” - VR expert. Despite it being possible to watch media with friends in VR rooms such as Bigscreen or AltspaceVR, the technology is more disconnecting from the social perspective. VR is still a personal thing: in a VR environment, the user feels lonely and isolated; the interaction and emotional feedback are not available, the user can’t share the joy with the other participants. Facial expressions and body language are not tracked; hence the VR avatars remain distant and indifferent. The use cases such as streamed live sports events in VR haven’t driven the adoption the way many have expected.

world in 2020 . In 2017, Microsoft acquired social VR 8 platform start-up company AltspaceVR. Mozilla introduced WebVR Hubs - a virtual room available in the browser. 9

Audience interest. Interest in video games, live events, and video entertainment is entirely driven by consumers (Sachs, 2016). For many production companies, the hype around VR did not result in orders; for many, it was a one-time order, with the low user retention rate. Unlike the traditional forms of video content, such as movies and TV series, VR remains a one-time experience, which makes it more difficult to market it to the end users. Besides, VR is often associated with gaming rather than with TV, cinemas, or video streaming services. For many users, VR is seen as a cultural, intellectual experience and, thus, too complicated.

"People do not know what VR is, they can’t imagine it, but their experience is different after they try it" - VR expert. Location-based VR, such as arcades or VR installations in the museums, helps to introduce technology to the users. Traditionally being more popular in Asia due to the developed internet cafe culture, VR arcades also expanded to the Western world. They provide for the users an opportunity to experience VR on the high-quality VR devices without the necessity to invest in the hardware. HTC Vive changed its marketing strategy and started targeting arcades with its software platform Viveport Arcade.

Famous brands can drive users' interest in the VR content platforms. Platforms like Viareal offer virtual house tours into Paradise Hotel or online visits to Tivoli park. AR, as another type of immersive technology, may help to promote and democratize VR for the wider population. Install base. VR platforms are working with a limited user base. Even though mobile phones are ubiquitous, mobile VR has limitations described above, while the spread of VR HMDs is limited by their price. Also, the users may not see the other ways to use their VR headsets.

"Smartphones are multifunctional devices, while VR devices are monofunctional, and there are no extensions to their functionality. To be successful, VR should be an essential solution instead of a supplementary one,"- VR researcher. 8_{https://www.oculus.com/blog/introducing-facebook-horiz} on-a-new-social-vr-world-coming-to-oculus-quest-and-the-rift-platform-in-2020/ 9 https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/30/microsofts-altspacevr-social-space-hits-oculus-quest-on-september-12/

In a nutshell, the VR industry is experiencing several hurdles that prevent users from adopting this new technology and consuming VR content on video platforms on the everyday basis. They are discouraged by the price and design of HMDs, their limited performance, mobility, and interactivity (restricted degrees of freedom, hand tracking and haptic feedback), insufficient screen resolution and the negative effect on the viewers’ well-being (motion sickness). It’s nearly impossible to socialize inside VR, and the experience cannot be shared with a wide audience due to a limited user base. The VR video currently available on video platforms does not seem to be a significant reason for purchasing the VR device, while the nature of it (duration, navigation, storytelling) does not suffice the investment decision into content creation by VR studios. Subsequently, the opportunities for the monetization of VR video are limited, especially taking into account its high cost of production and low user awareness and retention.

DISCUSSION

The goal of this study was to explore the factors that influence the mass adoption of VR video platforms. The challenge of this task was related to their complexity. Not only do they need to host VR videos to attract and retain users, but also, the viewers must own VR headsets to be able to experience immersive visual content. Besides, the industry indirectly depends on the software providers to produce the computer-generated VR content as well as on the state of technology and infrastructure for it, such as network speed. Each of these components has its distinguishing characteristics that can have a significant impact on the attitude of the end consumers towards VR video platforms in general. Thus, a complex evaluation was applied.

Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have been considered as two basic constructs in the new technology acceptance. However, for VR, perceived enjoyment is the key to mainstream adoption since the users see it as the hedonic medium. In the case of video, people watch it mostly for entertainment and less for work or educational purposes.

intertwining of the factors that directly influence the attitude of the end users towards VR and the factors that impact the industry players (VR studios and platforms). The obtained results suggest several implications.

First, the lack of compelling VR video is one of the main factors that hinder the general customers’ acceptance of the VR video platforms. These findings correspond with the previous publications. For example, the limited content proposition was named one of the biggest obstacles to the mass adoption of VR technology ( _{​Perkins Coie, 2020). The} reasons that hold up VR studios from investing in the production of immersive movies root in two realms: initial costs and a limited user base. Significant financial expenditures, human resources required to create a computer-generated video, the time needed to produce and adjust VR video to various platforms, and the platforms’ revenue split compromise the chances of VR creators for the desired investments return. The fact that _{​VR is a} short-term medium (meaning the customers spend a rather little time in VR daily) deteriorates the value of the technology in the eyes of the end consumers and thus narrows down the opportunities for the video monetization via advertising or subscription for the video platforms and content developers.

Second, although constant content updates are indispensable for the video platforms’ user retention, due to the so-called "chicken-and-egg problem", it is hard to tell whether content development will become the driving force in the VR industry since the price of the mounting headgears plays one of the key roles in the consumer decision process (and that’s something that neither VR platforms nor VR content producers have much power to control, apart from giving away cheap cardboards at the exhibitions or trade-shows). Especially, taking into account that VR glasses are monofunctional devices that can barely be used for other private purposes but gaming. There is a positive correlation between the cost of the equipment and the immersive experience it delivers. On the one hand, the more affordable VR glasses are, the more people can purchase them and thus get acquainted with VR technology in the domestic environment. On the other hand, the research done by Manis et al. (2018) demonstrated that people who are willing to pay a higher price for the VR hardware tend to enjoy it more than those willing to spend less. This can be explained by the more top quality of visualization, interaction, and telepresence in the high-end VR HMDs. The smartphone-based gears may remain the first-contact VR device in the developing markets for a while, but they will not be able to communicate the actual value of immersive video. Without the prevalence of inexpensive HMDs able to deliver decent

VR experience and, thus, impact the perceived enjoyment from their usage, the success of the VR video platforms is doubtful.

Third, this study’s results also indicate that to be accepted by a wider audience, the VR glasses’ design and technical characteristics should be considerably improved. HMDs should be standalone, more interactive, and provide a better video quality, which together may mitigate experienced by many VR users cybersickness. It is worth highlighting that technology characteristics have been addressed in great depth by every interviewee what makes us acknowledge their high importance. The 5G infrastructure and built-in eye-trackers have been named some of the few improvements that may contribute to the individual human perception (UX); however, it’s too early to evaluate their potential impact due to the limited research amongst the larger user groups.

Fourth, the significance of the communication in virtual reality within the VR platforms should not be neglected as it directly influences the enjoyment and indirectly - the intention to use VR (even though the nature of VR requires complete isolation of people to increase immersiveness and the feel of presence). Unfortunately, social interaction is not yet possible in VR, although there were attempts to bring the elements of socialization as the other users' avatars. But without proper face and hand tracking, it does not seem possible yet to reflect in VR the people's emotions in real life. This might get changed with the introduction of face tracking which is currently being developed by some of the largest producers of VR hardware, such as Sony and Oculus.

Finally, the interest in VR video platforms is mostly fueled by marketing and media coverage. Most consumers are aware of VR only through indirect experience, mainly from TV and online media such as social networks, YouTube, etc. Thus, advertising and investments into VR arcades may be a way to stimulate the curiosity of the potential adopters. It corresponds with the past use construct - people who already tried VR favor it more. Another solution may lie in the partnership between the VR video platforms, VR hardware providers, and content producers, resulting in the subscription packages, especially, if the access to the VR platforms and HMD is offered as an upsell to the traditional two-dimensional video content.

uncertainty in the future. This topic requires further investigation to evaluate risks and possible outcomes. As with the majority of studies, the chosen research method (combination of literature overview and semi-structured qualitative interview) has potential limitations that should be borne in mind. Literature review is important for setting up the theoretical basis for any research, hypothesis formulation, knowledge development, and, potentially, generation of new ideas and directions. Nonetheless, conducting it and evaluating its quality can be a challenging task for the situations with limited or no prior research. The lack of the comprehensive research of VR video platforms became a reason for the following assumptions: 1) VR and traditional video platforms have similar operational principles (apart from the necessity of HMDs), with content being one of the key elements; 2) the known TAM constructs relevant to VR technology and VR hardware can be applied to the VR video platforms too. Also, the data presented in the literature can be outdated due to the time needed to review and publish the findings and the fact that the VR industry is rapidly evolving, with new VR-related inventions being constantly patented. Because of the nature of qualitative research, the number of interviews was limited. It was hard to utilize a random sample approach. Only two managers working with the VR video platforms agreed to be interviewed, thus, the scope of VR platforms was narrowed to Sweden and did not include the global players such as Netflix or Youtube whose participation would add on to the research quality. Since the transcription is the researcher’s responsibility, there is a risk of misconveying what the interviewee meant. While semi-structured interviews are considered more reliable than unstructured ones, still the given answers could have been influenced by the way questions were delivered (Alsaawi, 2014). Thus, the received results should be interpreted with caution and supplemented with the additional data.

CONCLUSION

This paper presented an overview of VR video platforms as a complex ecosystem of the hardware, software, and content and introduced the challenges that the industry is facing based on the research of the user intentions and the position of the VR professionals (business perspective). By bridging the gap between the previous findings of users' perception of VR and the problems that the industry is struggling with, the research aimed at giving the better understanding of the bottlenecks in the technology and provided the VR industry practitioners with the ideas of

how they can make their VR video platforms more attractive and useful for the consumers.

The research shows that the adoption of VR video platforms depends on several factors, which can be presumably divided into a few categories (individual, technology- and content-related). The inability of VR devices to deliver the low-latency, high-quality video with the advanced level of immersivity, combined with limited VR content offerings, and relatively high price of the hardware that will only be used for the one-time experience adversely affect the perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment and therefore negatively impact users’ attitude towards the VR video platforms. The lack of socialization feature in VR as opposed to the group viewing of films or sport events also hinder adoption rates. VR video as a new medium has not reached the appropriate readiness phase yet. Unlike the 2D films, the storytelling of the VR movies isn’t standardized (meaning the best practices are still in development). Often, the navigation in a VR environment is complicated (thus influencing the perceived ease of use) while short video duration and narrow monetization opportunities make this type of content less attractive for financing by the producers of the immersive video. Since video is a key part of any video platform, the content construct is considered a vague factor for its adoption.

From the considerations mentioned above, it can be concluded that the VR technology and VR video platforms are not mature enough to become mainstream but the steps the platform stakeholders are taking are pointing in the right direction. Removing the bottlenecks in the VR hardware and content proposition, as well as adding social interaction to the VR experience, open up opportunities for the broader acceptance of the VR video platforms and, as a result, create the network effect multiplying the number of customers and devices.

hardware and content providers, as well as VR video platforms.

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APPENDIX A