Starting up a site

Not sure how to go about setting up your own VR arcade? Or looking to upgrade from Standalone to PCVR. This is the place to learn. Please note we are not affiliated (beyond our games only being available on Spawnpoint) with nor receive compensation from any recommended hardware companies.

Step by Step Guide

Step 1: Location

Everyone has heard of Location, Location, Location right?

The most important aspect will be making sure the space can fit the size and nature of the VR arenas you need, then it will be a balance between cost vs visibility.

Step 2: Headset

This is a critical decision as once you dedicate yourself to a brand it becomes very expensive and time consuming to change.

Be careful at this stage, some advice you may see around potential cost savings will hurt you down the line.

Step 3: Computers

PCVR requires a gaming computer for each player. This is to ensure a premium experience without restrictions on lighting, shadows and scope of scenes.

This doesn't need to break the bank however. We have suggestions to help!

Step 4: Networking

Players need to have a smooth and stable experience. There are few things worse than a laggy VR game! You will make players sick if nothing else. Make sure you are cheosing the right hardware and setting it up correctly.

Step 5: Software

All the business essentials of course. But when it comes to a VR arcade you will want a series of systems to manage your network, your headsets and your computers. We have some clear recommendations.

Location

The actual location will very much depend on what is in your budget. The more visibility and walk-by traffic the better, but that usually comes with associated price tags.

The most important part is that you have enough space for your arena/s. The most common size configuration for experiences on the market is 6 X 6 metres (20 X 20ft), with 4.5m2 and 6X9m2 being the next two. You want to have free unobstructed space in your arenas so people can move around.

One of the most important bits of advice is that try to find a space where you can start with two rooms/arenas. Data has shown locations with two rooms have 250% more bookings than those with one. You can cater to larger groups and parties. There is also practical advantages where in some cases one staff member can run two rooms.

Headsets

In the current market we can really only recommend two types of headsets as a realistic option for commercial offering in the Virtual Reality market.

Those are the HTC Vive Focus Vision, and the PICO 4 Ultra Enterprise. There are many reasons for this and you can find some excellent write ups and details from our friends over at Spawnpoint from the button below (and access to some special pricing deals!).

Warning: You may have some thoughts or suggestions from people to consider the Meta Quest range given the price tag difference. Please don't, these are not consumer devices and forums and feedback are littered everywhere from people who have had significant concerns, ranging from loss of tracking, forced firmware updates that break systems, through to a simple lack of any map sharing mechanic.

Learn More

The Computers

PCVR are powerful experience with incredible graphics, lighting, particles and sound. As such they need a gaming level PC for each player.

This does not need to break the bank however. Keep in mind you only need the core case, no peripherals such as mice, screen, keyboard etc is required. You should be able to fit a dozen computers in any standard set of hardware shelves.

We recommend purchasing a setup with a card somewhere between a 3070 and 4060, you will want at least 16gb of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

There are many websites/stores that will provide pre-made options for you delivered, or if you have the skillset to make your own just use a site like PC Part Picker.

You should not need to spend more than $1000USD/EURO on a new machine, quite a bit less if you build yourself.

Example PC

Networking

Choosing the right type of network router is essential. With PCVR you are streaming a lot of data over your wi-fi and things can easily go astray.

For the Focus series you need to make sure to use a 6e supported router, for the Pico Wi-fi 7. You want to make sure that it allows for 4X4 MU-MIMO (this is basically how many devices can be concurrently using the router for streaming).

This does mean you should have 1 router for every 4 headsets you plan on using. Your total number of headsets will depend largely on the size of your room.

Make sure to be aware of your local regions restrictions on Wi-Fi channels or bands. You want to have a seperate channel allocated for each router. Please note that means in some regions you may run into practical limitation of number of headsets in an area.

Whilst not mandatory it is best practice to have your router in the same physical room as the headsets it will be linked to.

Depending on the complexity of the networking at your location you may want to have your server, player computers, and routers on a standalone network. That's up to you.

Wi Fi Channels

Software

There are a number of core systems you will want to have. The first is a way to remotely access your player computers, there are a variety of options ranging from the in-built windows remote desktop, through to systems such as TightVNC, RustDesk, and Parsec. We use Rustdesl but find which one is comfortable for you.

System management is important. Luckily in addition to offering games Spawnpoint covers a wide variety of system management tools. Including voice chat, tracking your hardware, map sharing, firmware and software updates for your fleet.

You will need a range of practical business software you will need which we will not cover as that it not our expertise, the only thing e would add is to make sure your booking system is very user friendly and intuitive to use.