CONTEXT

New World Rides is a virtual reality startup based out of their location, the Center for Alternate Reality in Tallahasee. Their mission is to “use our motion platforms to provide full-fledged motion experiences that are designed to have a more memorable and meaningful impact”. Their founder, Nick, is an FSU alumni who originally contracted our team (Arcvale) to develop a flagship virtual reality game for his novel Rotoloco device. In his own words, “The Roto Loco is a rotational, virtual reality motion platform that bridges the gap between arcade games and amusement rides for conveniently accessible indoor or outdoor entertainment venues.” Basically, it’s insanely cool.

The game we created is called Shuttle 39 and can be played at the Center for Alternate Reality (you should do so if you ever get the chance). You can read more about the game and how our development team created it here, https://arcvale.com/products/shuttle-39/. While the development of that game was a really sick project, this particular piece will focus on what came after. After the Shuttle 39 deployment, Nick and his team started offering limited access at the parking lot of Fun Station (an arcade in Tallahassee).

THE THING WE DID

After this initial launch at Fun Station, the arrangement with their management ran its course, and Nick and his team were looking to grow the business and expand operations. This is where Arcvale stepped back in. Our strategy team partnered with New World Rides to help reach these goals and support the growth of their team and product. Our team approached the case with a couple key targets: develop a scalable GTM strategy, establish NWR’s digital presence, and expand the NWR team itself.

We began the engagement with initial discovery to get a sense of their existing business model, strategies, and operations. The bulk of the work during this period included competitor research and scouting opportunities for raising capital. As we got into the thick of this, our team and NWR began to pivot the initial strategy of franchising the Rotoloco device to a more direct to consumer focus as a location based entertainment center (LBE for short). During this pivot, Nick and his team set up shop at Rail Road Square Art District in Tallahassee.

While the original purpose of the space was meant to serve as both device storage and a workshop for repairs and R&D, it became clear that the shift to an LBE model made much more sense. Once this direction was set, we began to build out the foundations of what the operations of that strategy would require and planned their launch. Leading up to opening, we launched their website with a scheduling portal for customers to reserve times to ride the device and integrated booking software to optimize scheduling and payments. We also scouted other 3rd party games to add to the location’s offerings, so that they could have clients on both the Rotoloco device and other games at the same time (as you can imagine, this massively increased their capacity and monetization potential).

At the same time, we also developed the digital presence for NWR and their new location across several platforms in order to increase their brand awareness and client base. We worked on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn and grew their following across this portfolio from the ground up, going from reaching 4 people on FB and 4 on Instagram (monthly) to 3,108 on FB and 1,902 on Instagram (monthly). We also went from 0 LinkedIn followers to 105. On top of this, we also supported their recruiting efforts on ZipRecruiter and other job boards. During our work with NWR, we helped them launch their ride operator team and hire and onboard two new team members.

My role throughout the entire project was both strategic and tactical. I served as the delivery lead for the strategy team as well as “managed the account”, which mostly meant hopping on calls with Nick and his team on a weekly basis to make sure we were executing according to plan. I did the hands-on research, analytics and diligence work around discovery, modeling and pricing leading up to launch. Following their launch, I focused on business development as well as general project management for our social work stream and web development work. I worked with a great group of product managers and strategists, including Schuyler aka Sith, Nona, and Jordan aka Squidchop on this project and our outstanding VR engineers and 3D artists on the game dev side of things, including Kara and Ethan aka Spike amongst many others (you can read more about that project on our site linked above)

At the end of the engagement, our team was proud to say that we helped support the launch of Tallahassee’s first ever virtual reality location based entertainment center as well as worked with one of Tally’s most exciting start-ups in both game development and product strategy. We still continue to collaborate with NWR across other functions like 3D and 2D art as well as promotional campaigns. The Center for Alternate Reality is currently running throughout the week at Railroad Square and you can book online as well as call their team directly. If you’re ever in Tallahassee, I recommend stopping by, you can find them at https://newworldrides.com/.

PRESS // REFERENCES