Expected to be worth more than $80 billion by 2025, the virtual reality (VR) marketplace is exploding in nordic nations, especially in countries such as Sweden which have already become powerhouses in the gaming industry.
Better, more efficient collaboration between remote game developers is one of the key reasons virtual reality is taking off in Northern Europe. Patric Palm, chief executive officer and co-founder of Favro, a new Swedish-based collaboration and project management solution that is widely used in the VR-industry, discussed with Information Age what was behind this nordic VR revolution.
Why is VR growing so quickly in Northern Europe, specifically Sweden?
The Nordics have a history of mastering new technology in the games space.
>See also: The future of virtual reality
VR is the new frontier and many developers in the north are attracted by the technological challenges and business opportunities of this virgin ground.
What business and commercial applications does VR have?
VR will be a lot about games. But 360 video and educational applications will also be important for the success of VR.
In China we are already seeing VR arcade halls and maybe we will see this in the West as well.
h3>In terms of your company, what do you do? What innovations have you overseen in the last year?
Favro is a new app from Team Hansoft in Sweden.
For more than ten years we have made software for project planning and collaboration used by innovative teams everything from game development to telecom.
>See also: How virtual reality is transforming the enterprise
With Favro we wanted to create a cloud based freemium offering that helps any kind of team embrace an agile way of working to become more adaptable to changing business challenges.
What are the virtual reality trends going to be in 2017?
VR developers face massive challenges. They need to be very innovative and handle a large amount of uncertainty when they venture into developing for VR/AR/MR.
In the workplace virtual reality will empower teams to own their own workflows, while aligning them towards the bigger goals.
