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Horror has long been one of the most profitable genres in entertainment, but is the LBE industry tapping into its full potential? With Universal Studios making major investments and new technology pushing the boundaries of fear, the future of immersive horror is here. Read beyond the news in this week’s One Big Thing below.

There's nothing to fear but fear itself

New Developments

FECs and Arcades

Rilix’s New President: A Coin-Op Amusement Route Veteran Ready to Expand
Rilix has appointed a new president with deep roots in the coin-op amusement industry, signaling major expansion plans for its VR attractions. Read more

The Resurrection of Ctrl V Arcade: A Post-Pandemic Comeback
Ctrl V Arcade is making a strong post-pandemic comeback, bringing its popular VR gaming experiences back to life with renewed energy. Read more

Will New Investors Change Immersive Gamebox from Failure to Success?
With new investors stepping in, Immersive Gamebox could be on the brink of a turnaround, aiming to redefine interactive gaming experiences. Read more

A New Free Roam VR Arcade Is Opening in Pelham, AL—Here’s What to Expect
Pelham, Alabama, is getting a brand-new free roam VR arcade, promising high-energy multiplayer experiences and the latest in immersive gaming. Read more

Museums and Science Centers

Experience the Fusion of Art, XR, and AI at Santa Barbara’s Sensory Museum
Santa Barbara’s Sensory Museum is pushing the boundaries of creativity, blending art, extended reality, and artificial intelligence into an interactive experience. Read more

Putnam Museum Teams Up with VictoryXR for Groundbreaking VR Museum Experience
The Putnam Museum is partnering with VictoryXR to create an immersive VR museum experience, bringing history and science to life like never before. Read more

Art, Music, and Culture

Rise of Immersive VR: Transforming China’s Cultural Consumption
China’s cultural landscape is shifting as immersive VR experiences redefine how people engage with history, art, and entertainment. Read more

Flight Over Renaissance Florence: A Unique VR Experience at the Da Vinci Exhibit
Step into the world of Leonardo da Vinci with a VR flight over Renaissance Florence, offering a breathtaking perspective of history and innovation. Read more

VR Arcade and Attraction Summit

Is Augmented Reality Ready for Prime Time?

Snap Spectacles joins the expanding roster of sponsors at the VR Arcade and Attraction Summit for the first time. They’ll be showing off their newest augmented reality glasses and announcing a new location-based AR Toolkit for creators.

Enklu, makers of Verse Immersive, are also newcomers to the Summit, and will be sponsoring the Augmenting Reality: Engaging New Audiences with AR Technology panel on Monday, March 17, at 4:00 PM.

Augmented and Mixed Reality are still in their early stages, but some implementations have already proven successful in attracting and engaging audiences. This session explores the blending of physical and virtual worlds, highlighting how these technologies can enhance attractions, increase interactivity, and create new opportunities for guest engagement. Don’t miss this exciting new development in the world of extended reality and LBE.

Meta’s Make or Break Year

Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth says 2024 is the defining year for the metaverse. Is this really the moment that makes or breaks the future of VR and AR? Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) breaks down the leaked Meta memo and shares his expert insights into what this means for the industry. Hint: They got it mostly wrong. Watch my take.

One Big Thing

What Are You Afraid Of? VR Horror Is Ready—But Are Operators?”

The Haunted House Industry: A Hundred-Million Dollar Powerhouse

In the United States, haunted attractions generate between $300 million and $500 million annually in ticket sales, with major theme parks contributing an additional $150 to $200 million. Top haunted houses attract over 40,000 visitors each season, with general admission tickets ranging from $30 to $50. However, these attractions require significant investments in props, set designs, and labor, all tailored to a single location. Lovecraft understood that horror’s effectiveness is not merely in physical spectacle but in psychological dread, a factor that modern haunted houses attempt to replicate through intricate set design and storytelling.

Horror in Hollywood: High Returns on Modest Investments

The film industry mirrors this trend, with horror movies often delivering impressive returns on investment. Despite relatively modest budgets, horror films have achieved remarkable box office success. For instance, the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s “It” grossed over $700 million worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time. Similarly, “The Sixth Sense” (1999) garnered approximately $673 million globally. These figures highlight the genre’s profitability, especially considering that horror films often have lower production costs compared to other genres. Lovecraft’s essay highlights how the best horror stories evoke fear not through grotesque imagery but through suggestion, an aspect that successful horror films masterfully employ.

Moreover, horror films have demonstrated a high probability of profitability. Studies indicate that horror has the highest chance of returning its initial investment and offers the best opportunity for a breakout success. This is attributed to the genre’s ability to thrive with minimal resources, often not requiring big-name stars or extensive special effects. As Lovecraft detailed in Supernatural Horror in Literature, the best horror is not reliant on spectacle but on an unsettling atmosphere and a creeping sense of the unknown.

Universal Studios: Investing in Immersive Horror

Recognizing the lucrative potential of horror, Universal Studios is expanding its immersive horror experiences. In 2025, Universal is set to open “Universal Horror Unleashed,” a permanent, year-round horror attraction at AREA15 in Las Vegas. This 110,000-square-foot venue will feature multiple haunted houses inspired by iconic franchises, including Universal Monsters and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Additionally, Universal Studios Orlando is developing a new monster-themed land called Dark Universe, further solidifying its commitment to immersive horror experiences. This follows Lovecraft’s notion that horror thrives on a sense of expanding dread, something that immersive attractions can amplify through interactive elements and VR.

The Science Behind Horror: Why We Seek Fear

The paradox of horror’s appeal—that people actively seek out disturbing and frightening experiences—has long perplexed scholars. However, research on the psychology of fear and morbid curiosity reveals that engaging with horror, whether through movies, haunted attractions, or VR, serves an evolutionary function. Studies suggest that experiencing fear in a controlled environment allows people to build coping mechanisms for real-world anxieties.

Scientific American’s research on scary play explains how humans, much like other species, inspect threats in a safe space to better understand and manage fear. This concept, known as predator inspection, is common in the animal kingdom—just as young gazelles carefully observe cheetahs to assess danger, humans engage with horror stories and simulations to prepare for real-life uncertainties. Haunted houses, horror films, and immersive VR horror experiences provide an opportunity to test emotional resilience, helping people build psychological endurance against actual fears and anxieties.

The Synergy of VR and Horror: A New Frontier in LBE

Virtual reality (VR) presents a transformative opportunity for the Location-Based Entertainment (LBE) market, particularly within the horror genre. By integrating VR into horror attractions, operators can create dynamic, immersive experiences that are both scalable and cost-effective. Unlike traditional haunted houses, which are confined to physical locations and require substantial annual investments, VR-based attractions can be developed once and deployed across multiple venues. This scalability reduces overhead costs and allows for consistent, high-quality experiences for guests worldwide. Lovecraft’s work consistently explores the terror of unseen dimensions and cosmic horror—ideas that VR can uniquely bring to life in ways no traditional medium can replicate.

Furthermore, VR enables the creation of environments that transcend the limitations of physical space, offering guests personalized and varied experiences with each visit. This adaptability not only enhances replay value but also deepens the psychological impact, as VR can craft scenarios that tap into individual fears and heighten the sense of the unknown—echoing Lovecraft’s assertion about the primal nature of fear in Supernatural Horror in Literature.

Beyond Zombies: Expanding the Horizons of VR Horror

Many of the most popular VR arcade games have historically been zombie shooters. Titles like Arizona Sunshine, Zero Latency’s Outbreak, Sandbox VR’s Deadwood series, and Netflix’s Army of the Dead: Viva Las Vengeance have dominated the market. While these games have been undeniably successful, they have also drawn criticism for their overuse of the same horror tropes—endless waves of undead enemies.

However, horror offers far more than just zombies. Lovecraft’s writing reminds us that true horror lies in the unknown, in the unseen terrors lurking at the edges of perception. VR can bring to life supernatural entities, psychological mindscapes, cosmic horror, and interactive ghost stories that evolve based on player choices. The genre has yet to fully explore the vast potential of fear beyond the living dead, and the next major VR horror hit may not feature zombies at all.

One company pushing the boundaries of immersive horror is Banijay Live, which is currently developing a free-roam VR experience based on Black Mirror for release later this year. While Black Mirror is often classified as science fiction, many of its episodes contain strong psychological horror elements—exploring themes of technological dread, existential fear, and human fragility. A VR experience based on Black Mirror has the potential to create deeply unsettling and thought-provoking horror that moves beyond traditional monster scares, instead delving into dystopian paranoia and the fear of losing control in an increasingly digital world.

Conclusion: Embracing the Future of Immersive Horror

The convergence of VR technology and the horror genre offers a compelling proposition for the LBE market. By leveraging the inherent profitability of horror and the immersive capabilities of VR, operators can deliver unparalleled experiences that captivate audiences and drive sustained revenue. As Universal Studios’ investments indicate, the future of immersive horror is not only promising but also poised to redefine the landscape of location-based entertainment.

In embracing this evolution, LBE operators have the opportunity to tap into humanity’s oldest emotion in innovative ways, offering experiences that are as thrilling as they are transformative. Lovecraft wrote that true horror is found in the vast, unknowable forces lurking beyond human perception—a vision that VR horror experiences are uniquely positioned to realize.

With love,

Bob Cooney