Our Product: Surprise factor: Imagine starring in your own real-life computer game, running through scenes gun in hand, as you take on your enemy & solve the clues. Surrounded by your friends the comfort of your local Hollowcorp location. You and your friends don’t even have to be in the same physical location but will have the same experience! This is a fully immersive customer experience that throws you into an ‘80’s feel’ gaming experience from the moment of booking but using QR codes, facial recognition software & advanced CRM & programmatic IP targeting to blow the customers mind. Hollowcorp want to set up 5x custom-built warehouses and multi-player, multi-level VR games using the latest in VR technology for free roam LBE gaming across the UK. It is something new, never been done before in the UK and is the next level in VR gaming and social entertainment. Purpose factor: Our live VR LBE venues will deliver new opportunities in the way people play & socialise together. Covid19 has meant caution in group gatherings, and an increase in home-gaming, often tethered or limited free-roam VR. Our warehouses will provide a Covid-friendly maze of opportunities to safely walk/run through, hide behind, interact with, complete with 4D sense stimulation of smell, heat, cold and touch as a series of characters so you can repeat the experience as someone new each time. It’s the modern-day equivalent of a VR laserquest. Disruptive factor: We think the ramifications will be global; having multiple people play together in identical warehouses across the UK (and globe) is original and the future of gaming socialisation. Our vision and experience mean we can adapt our gaming model to different countries in other languages, as well as adapt from B2C to B2B. As for the gaming warehouses, the more locations we open, the more people can play together worldwide, bring families/friends together creating the opportunity for secret leagues and VR gaming credits for in-game purchases (called the Hollar-Dollar). Transforming the way people socialise & play together in Post-Covid times. Cross-sectoral impact and/or opportunity for global collaboration: LBE and the vision for Hollow Corp Ltd does have the opportunity to deliver true creative sector/technology partnerships collaboration across sectors and industries in the UK and worldwide (education, hospitality and tourism/heritage) as briefly mentioned above. We have started to explore this with a few worldwide brands that include English Heritage (tourism and heritage) and Molson Coors (hospitality) to see how they would use this technology as part of our market research. Commercial impact: The innovation is only just far enough along to be able to offer evidence of likely commercial viability based on non-LBE VR experiences & their customer numbers (which is what we have based our projections on). We are in the process of raising the funds for our proof of concept through the support of the North East LEP high potential growth accelerator programme where we have developed our business plan and projected growth targets. We are currently working on raising investment for first prototype and proof of concept. Start: Adrian & Shaun started the business in early 2020 but it was put on hold through the pandemic, new partners (Vicky & Brian) were introduced in summer of 2020 who brought a commercial and education background to the offer. In 2021 we started talking to investment capitalists for growth funding and have been working on this ever since. We have applied for funding to get us to proof of concept with our first customer (lined up) and are looking to launch our first warehouse in 2022. Potential is global, each warehouse has almost the same running costs and can be set up identically across the UK. We have a target of 10 sites in UK and any more will be franchised across Europe and US. The games can be changed to accommodate seasons inc horror games at Halloween and Christmas experiences as well as birthday parties etc expanding the market from hardened gamers. Corporate clients are also growing in interest, especially in hospitality and heritage bringing tech to a new audience entirely. CIC Createch One to Watch 2021 is a huge opportunity for us as a start up, the credibility this award brings will help thrust us into the spotlight, help us generate an interest in investment, get our name out there as we work to sell the brand HollowCorp as much as the games we offer. *Video footage includes some Void footage which is not ours for representational purposes.
