Episode 49: Enjoying the Journey to New Horizons of VR - Kyle Riesenbeck

Kyle Riesenbeck is Operations Manager at UploadVR, the #1 virtual reality news outlet. In his previous lives, he has been a VR developer, a training consultant, and host of the "Rev VR Podcast".

Audio Title: Ep49 - Kyle Riesenbeck
Audio Duration: 01:02:10
Number of Speakers: 2

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Heroes of Reality Podcast, a podcast about the game of life and the hero's journey we all experience. Let's jump in with our host, Dylan Watkins, as he introduces today's guest.

[00:00:17] Dylan Watkins: Welcome, young adventures, Dylan here. And on today's podcast, I have a very famous man in the area of virtual reality and augmented reality, Kyle Riesenbeck. I formally know him as Rev Kyle, but he is the operations manager, editor-in-chief over at Upload Studios, a podcaster, old friend of mine in the space of VR. We shared many good times at many conferences. And I am very excited to introduce my friend, Kyle.

[00:00:47] Kyle Riesenbeck: Hello, everybody.

[00:00:50] Dylan Watkins: Hey, thanks for joining me today, man. It's so good to see your face.

[00:00:53] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yeah, absolutely. It's fun to be on the other side of a podcast, as not the host, you know?

[00:01:01] Dylan Watkins: I remember one of my first stints of actually connecting with you.

I was on your podcast, and it must have been five years ago or more. We’re just launching our meetup group, Orange County VR with me and my friend, Mish Dhal, who's in stem cells now, and doing very well. But, it's really good to see you, man.

[00:01:23] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yeah, I know, it's fun to have any level of conversation at this point, with anybody, since none of us have been to any expos or shows, GC, CES, all of those things, we didn't have those, this year. So it's fun to have conversations elsewhere.

[00:01:41] Dylan Watkins: I miss it, dude, I miss it. Going to the conferences and coming across like old friends and like seeing you, it's like an oasis in the desert, right? You come across it and all of sudden you're like, oh, there you are, what are you doing? Yes, let's get it –

where's the party at? Let's go grab a drink, you know?

[00:01:59] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:01] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, yeah. Do you think that's going to be coming back now that all the vaccines are out and about?

[00:02:05] Kyle Riesenbeck: You know, we've had this conversation. The upload VR team has been discussing whether or not there's actually going to ever be shows again, exposed to go to. And I think the short answer is, yes, but the long answer is, how long is it going to take for us to get there? How long is it going to take for things to be well, safe, for everyone involved? I mean, I think it might be another year before we start seeing actual shows again.

[00:02:36] Dylan Watkins: I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, the one thing that's been holding me over a little bit is, I don't know if you've gotten involved in clubhouse at all?

[00:02:43] Kyle Riesenbeck: I have not. I've seen several people post about it, but I have not jumped in on it yet.

[00:02:49] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. If you need an invite, let me know. But it's like one of those things that, it's like going to a conference where you come across old people, but you go on stage and you chat and that stuff, it's been a bit of a stop gap, but it still doesn't replace the whole, you know, us being in the virtual reality space, like we all advocate super hardcore for, you know, virtual reality, but the same time, there is that piece of the human connection that we're still waiting for VR and other technologies to surpass that. I don't know if it's quite there yet.

[00:03:20] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yeah. I'm not sure how long it's going to take before we feel like we're getting exactly what we got at the shows in VR, but we're getting closer to it every day,

I think.

[00:03:31] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. Yeah. So, how's it been over at Upload with you? And I know you've been working that. Talk to me a little bit about that.

[00:03:38] Kyle Riesenbeck: Sure. Yeah. Upload has been fantastic. I took over in, what was it, 2018, I guess. And since then, the site itself has gone under several renovations. We're very happy with the display and how it looks now. Upload has grown almost exponentially. Our traffic is up, our presence, pun intended, is definitely there. And I think the big thing for us is, being that outlet that people say, oh, I need to know more about this, better go to uploadvr.com. I mean, that's really the gist of it.

We've done a lot to grow our YouTube presence and our social media presence. I mean, the team is kicking on all cylinders right now, trying to get stuff to be where we need to be, to service the VR community at large. And that's really what it is, is we're offering this service of what's good, what's new, what's exciting, what's worth your attention. And I really think we're doing a fairly decent job of it. We get a lot of good feedback and obviously our traffic indicates that people like what we're doing.

So I think it's got plenty of room to grow still, too, yeah.

[00:05:00] Dylan Watkins: It's really interesting because you cross compare, you know, the Upload, and the media house that it is, compared to traditional paper, newspaper medias and things like that. And you consider the complete juxtaposition, I know that like, when you go into some of these like Wall Street Journal, these other places, which is like, subscribe, go in here, can't unlock this to get in there, it's such a different feel, it feels more like Upload is a part of this rising tide, because as more people – I mean, we were evangelists for it back in the day, but as more people get into it, it just gets more into the mainstream and Upload becomes more of like a namesake in like inside people's like, vernacular of like, virtual reality, and Upload.

So, how big has it grown? What's the scope of all the moving parts of Upload?

[00:05:50] Kyle Riesenbeck: You know, we have – it's interesting that you ask that question right now, because we just updated our media kit for 2021. And, you know, I can remember when I first started with Upload, getting 500,000 unique visitors a month was a challenge, and now, we're hitting 2 million, 2.5 million a month.

And you know, between that, and plus we do a podcast as well, on YouTube, called the VR Download, that has been a big driver as well, because we've developed our own in-house virtual studio and we've got a great guy on our team, David Heaney, who designed it, and has been tweaking it, and making it better and better at each show. It's really fun to watch it grow naturally, without having to push it too hard, you know? I mean, yeah, sure, we’re like, oh, like subscribe, but not really as much, you know, we're not YouTubers where we're trying to get a whole bunch of people to like, and subscribe. We just want it to be there if somebody wants it, it's there for you. And that's really why we look at it as providing a service, as opposed to being like, oh, give me your hits, give me your ad revenue. It's not just about that. I mean, it's about staying alive, but at the same time, it's also about providing the service to the community.

[00:07:16] Dylan Watkins: Well, yeah, and you're not just one medium. One of the big, scary challenges of being a YouTuber is, there is one point of failure. If you get demonetized or something happens in that situation, like, all the cookies crumble and you invest everything on this one thing, versus there's multiple venues. And then in terms of like, you know, subscribers and followers and other people, it's beyond just one medium, which to me, adds a lot of resilience.

And, and I know when I'm looking for things like, oh, what happened with App Lab, what happened with this, what happened with this? You know, it's like, it pops right up and just, you know, copy-paste, send to somebody, like, they're like, take a look at this, go and look at these things. So, you know, it definitely, for me, it's synonymous with like news and VR or the VR news, to say.

[00:08:01] Kyle Riesenbeck: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are several mainstream, I guess I would say, well known mainstream media outlets out there that are reporting on VR, sometimes, when they feel like it, but they're not actually focusing on it. See, that's where we offer that focus. That, if you come to our site, you're going to hear about VR, VR gaming, XR, AR, all the Rs, you know, we got them covered.

[00:08:31] Dylan Watkins: I know it went from virtual reality, augmented reality, to extended reality and XR. And it's like, everyone's trying to coin a new term to try to throw it into the bucket, you know, and it's just like, it's like, I don't know what it is, but I enjoy it.

So what– like, I mean, you've been in the space, I think, long – definitely longer than I have, and you are absorbed in it. So what excites you, still, what are the things that you – because to me, there's these moments where I kind of get, you know, I love it, and I kind of get used to it, and I go, oh my God, and I get used to it. So, where are you at, on that journey?

[00:09:09] Kyle Riesenbeck: You know, I've seen some people experience fatigue in this community. It's an interesting industry because it's grown out of this kind of grassroots, slow momentum, but high potential. And anybody who's listened to like Michael Abrash, for example, at some of the, you know, shows and things that he's talked, he referred to the first couple years as, the good old days. And most of us who have been around long enough, know that, it really was the good old days. But we're past that now. I think we are now into the, I don't know, whatever follows the good old days, the normal days.

It's a real legit industry with growth and potential. And when I – every morning I get to wake up and read the things that my team has written, along with all the things that other people have written on the internet. And, you know, it reminds me that every day, when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do, is put my glasses on. I can't see without my glasses at all. And someday, and this is to answer your question, what I'm excited about is, someday, I'll put my glasses on, and I won't immediately reach for my phone, or I won't immediately do this, that, or the other, everything will be right here. And it'll be in a form factor that doesn't look wonky, it's going to be in a form factor that makes sense. And that it doesn't feel like, oh, what's he got on his head, no, it's just glasses.

And that's what I'm excited for, is that every day, I see indications that there are tech advancements that are going to bring it closer to what I want, which is, these glasses. But, I, okay, now I'm in VR, now I'm in AR, oh, what's the weather today? Oh, my mom sent me an email. That kind of stuff. Hi mom.

You know, it's kind of a – I can see the end of the road for this technology, but I can't see the path that we're going to weave through, to get there. And that's what keeps me excited about it, I think.

[00:11:20] Dylan Watkins: The journey along the way – the glasses you sound like you're talking about, are the Tony Stark glasses from Spider-Man, Far Away From Home?

[00:11:27] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yes. Perfect.

[00:11:28] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, you put them on, they just do everything. You're linked up to Skynet, AKA Elon Musk, and he's just downloading information into your brain directly through the Neuralink and all that jazz.

[00:11:38] Kyle Riesenbeck: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:01] Dylan Watkins: What's your theories on the whole – Apple just released that new mixed reality leaks, what's your theories on those things? Do you think it's actually going to come out? Is it another type of like, you know, red herring or what?

[00:11:53] Kyle Riesenbeck: So, I’ve been saying for years, wait until Apple brings something out, and there's actually one reason that I say that, is because, a few years back, Apple bought a company that was in the VR space and it was called, Vrvana, Vrvana – yeah, anyway, they had a headset, called the Totem. And I don't remember what show it was, but they said, here, come on over here and check this out. So, I put this Totem on, there's two big eyeballs out in the front, you know, two big cameras. And I look through and I'm like, oh, it's pass through, oh, this is – wow, this is really good pass through. It was like blowing my mind.

And then they're like, here, look at this and look at this. And they're putting these little placards out, like QR codes and the headset, read it, threw up a, like a DeLorean, I think it was, from Back to the Future and a couple other things. And the whole time, the whole time I'm looking around, I'm like, wait a minute, you don't need to show me anything. Look at how good this pass through is, there was like no latency or nothing. And they're like, what are you looking at? I'm just experiencing the world through the best pass through I've ever seen in my life.

Well, then Apple buys them. And I'm like, okay, well, that's awesome. So, now, Apple can make a headset using, or hopefully using that technology. For me, I think Apple's foray into this industry is going to be cautious and slow, but as soon as they see the demand for it, I think they'll go, oh gee, maybe we should have done this a little bit sooner. So – but you know, Apple's the kind of company that doesn't want to do it until it can be done right. And I respect them for that. You know, I want them to come out with a –  I want them to come out with a headset that impresses the heck out of me. That's all I really want from them.

[00:13:39] Dylan Watkins: It's the Gordon Ramsey coming out – when it comes out, it's going to be right.

[00:13:44] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yes.

[00:13:45] Dylan Watkins: Doesn't matter how long it takes, it's going to be delicious and you're going to enjoy it. So, you know it’s coming.

[00:13:50] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yes.

[00:13:51] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. And one of the things that I – I'm excited about it, and if you look at it, you see them kind of, the tech giants mimicking each other. So, you know, Facebook Oculus has this kind of walled garden, Apple effect, where they only have highly curated content coming in versus like Steam, Wild Wild West, anything goes, you know, who knows, kind of experience. And then, so you have this, Facebook kind of mimicking Apple in a sense, of doing the walled garden high quality, but then, you have the same thing that I feel like Apple is kind of mimicking Facebook in a sense. And you talk about people that both of them are in some things where they can just throw ungodly amount of money at the situation to solve the problem versus, HTC, and other people have a bit more of a challenge because they really, they don't have the same amount of income, that they can just, you know, as we say, FU money, to throw at a situation, until it – or buy people up until it goes across.

So, how do you think the relationship between Apple and Facebook are, or how do you think that plays out? No pressure.

[00:14:52] Kyle Riesenbeck: It could be a format war. You know, the challenge right now, I think, for Apple, is, that they're going to need to come up with something that has the same amount of content that Facebook Oculus is offering right now. Content is king, you know, I can still see Steve Ballmer up on the stage at a Microsoft, you know – developers, developers, developers, developers. I don't know a single developer, I'm not saying that none exists, but I personally right now, don't know any developers that are developing for an Apple, anything headset. And that is scary because it takes a couple years to build up a catalog of compatible stuff.

So, even if the headset does come out, it might only be like a two or three trick pony for a little while, until people start to develop for it. So, the ecosystem is going to be a challenge. Oculus – Facebook Oculus already has the ability to run everything in their own store, everything using the link, in their PC VR store, and you can plug it in and use it on steam VR.

Plus, there's all sorts of fun, wireless streaming capability apps out there. There's just so much already available. And I mean, you know, you look at the other headsets like Pimax, or the VIVE, or, you know, Samsung Odyssey, the Windows, media, or Windows MR Headsets. There's a lot of stuff out there, but those headsets aren't as – they're not as popular because people want specific features, people want specific apps, and you're not going to buy a tool that doesn’t do the things you wanted to do. And so between the two of them, I have a feeling that they're going to be – I don't think it's going to be a constant banging of heads, but I do think that there's going to be some friction, possibly.

[00:16:56] Dylan Watkins: I can see that because I do remember at the last OC, and the final OC connect, now dubbed Facebook Connect, and I know, ‘I'll miss you, buddy,’ they talked about their augmented reality headset that they're going to be coming out with, that they're going to geo map every location, and Oculus is now starting to March into that space of augmented reality, which I feel is where Apple has been looking with that, you know, wanting that Tony stark like headset.

And, and so, I feel like they're starting to compete in those two areas. And it's very interesting to see, can Apple make an ecosystem that works because I mean, originally I talked trash on the iWatch and the earbuds, and all those things. I'm like, no one's going to use that, that's silly, that doesn't make any sense. I don't see any purpose.

And now, I'm like, oh my God, I'm part cyborg. I can, like – I can say, Hey, Siri do this. And all of sudden it starts playing there, now set me a reminder, and I'm like, wow, I feel totally integrated as one holistic unit. And I feel it's kind of where, you know, Facebook is coming from that different direction of, you know, they're making the communication channels and getting into the hardware, where Apple is making the hardware and getting into the communication channels, and also the software development space, which I do agree, being able to fund amazing content, is going to be the key to everything. And Facebook has kind of switched up their model of, instead of like betting on early ponies, they wait until the pony wins the race, then they buy that pony and pull it off all the other shelves, you know?

[00:18:32] Kyle Riesenbeck: Isn't that how this industry works, though? I mean, as soon as somebody makes something valuable, like, you know, when I was talking about – the Totem headset and Vrvana, you know, there's a lot of people out there who are working on one sole thing and they're saying, okay, I'm going to make this perfect. And then a big company comes and buys them and implements it into their new headset. I don't know if that's a bad thing, you know? I mean, the people who work for – the people who develop any one of these little pieces of software, they didn't do it to just do it. They did it because they knew they could make money off of it.

And I mean, okay, I'm sure that there is some super passionate people out there where money is not important to them. I don't know who those people are, but, you know, I, I, I feel like every company that's trying to produce something new and fun and exciting in this industry knows that the likelihood is, is that if they make something amazing, they're going to get purchased. And so what actually might end up happening between Facebook and Apple is, somebody comes out and says, cool, I've got this new piece of technology, and then they have a bidding war over who gets to buy them. That could be interesting to see down the road.

[00:19:48] Dylan Watkins: That is 100% a thing, I mean that's why I think there was – what was it, a billion or 2 billion spend on Facebook? I mean, Zuckerberg saw that value of that. And at the same time, it's like, would we have the Oculus Quest 2, if Oculus was like, no, you know, we're Snapchat, we're going to do it on our own, you know, I don't know if they would have the technical chops, I mean, they had Carmack, but would they really be able to have the resources that they could, and build that? It's very much like if you look at like military, right.

Military, you know, internet infrastructure, all the things that military does, for good or for ill, but they have the cash flow to be able to dump it. And then that trickles down from military to enterprise, enterprise to consumer out the gate. And I feel the same is true looking at like Oculus and Apple, that they've got that ability to just, if it doesn't work, it's no big deal, they're just going to keep dumping at it until they sort it out.

So, I mean, do you think, I mean, do you think Oculus would be where it's at, or do you think there's going to be another underdog that comes up in the ranks and challenges these two global giants in this head-to-head Nintendo versus Sega, if you would?

[00:21:02] Kyle Riesenbeck: I'm going to go ahead and say that, for another contestant to enter the ring, I don't know. They would have a lot of catching up to do. I mean, let's take a look at back in the day when that actually happened. I can remember exactly where I was. I've talked – I've told this story a million times and I'll tell it in your podcast as well.

I can remember exactly where I was. So, I was standing in front of my stove, and I was making chili and I'm stirring the chili, okay. And my phone, just ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I'm like, what's going on? And even my wife was like, what – you're blowing up there, and I'm stirring the chili.

And I pull the spoon out, and I pick up my phone and I go, Facebook just bought Oculus and I just dropped the spoon and I just – the slow, boom, boom, boom, chill on the floor. I was like, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do? So I get on the horn right away. I'm calling, at the time, which is kind of funny for the trivia nuts out there, at the time, I was actually working with, Road to VR and my podcast was on Road to VR at the time. And so, I'm like calling Ben Lang, I'm calling Cymatic Bruce, I'm calling – I'm like, we got to talk about this right now, like within two hours, I had a podcast kicking already ready to talk about it. And the big point that I made during that podcast was, this is a good thing because now, Oculus can spend Facebook's money instead of trying to scrounge up what little bit that they can find elsewhere with investors.

You know, I think that that drove the VR industry more than any other, like, I'm sure historians will disagree with me someday, but I think that that drove VR faster, stronger than anything else that's happened. I mean, you know, you, you can talk about all the other advancements that occurred, but I think Facebook buying Oculus, that was a major catalyst for legitimizing this industry.

And, you know, look at some of the other players, I mean, just take Pimax for example, their headsets are –  well, they exist. I'll just say that. And they have some intriguing factors, things that make them unique and some people like that, but there's some trade-offs and there's some brand recognition, there's a lot of things that prevent Pimax from being able to be that third player, you know.

Everybody knows Coke versus Pepsi, but what about RC? What about Shasta? What about Fanta? I mean, there's other soda distributors out there, but they're not as prevalent as the big ones, Coke and Pepsi. I mean, there's always going to be competition. I mean, competition drives quality. That's a very standard statement to make, with nobody out there pushing the boundaries and doing things that other companies are doing, then they're not going to be forced to keep up with the Joneses oh, Jones Cola, there there's another one.

[00:24:25] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, a classic. The one person, the one company that pops in my mind that could, that's got the capital, that's got the innovation, that has done this in multiple other sectors, and talk about it, is Elon Musk. He's got the Neuralink, he's got the ecosystem, he's got something that could leapfrog all the other technology go right into your brain, that they can't catch up with, and very much like how heated the electric car, and everyone's like, you're crazy, you can't do it, made the rocket ship and took over the infrastructure with that. I could him doing it.

I, one time, I had a dream that I lived in the Elon Musk future world, where I woke up, and I had the Neuralink in my head and it was connected to his Skynet. And then I thought, okay, Tesla, come pick me up. And I got in my car, and I said, ‘take me to work,’ this was before the pandemic, and then it would take me in the Tesla car and then I would go into one of his tunnels and then out through the tunnel, skipping all the traffic.

And then I was like, I was like this whole network. And so knowing the infrastructure, I think there could be a chance in the next five to say 15 years that there is something like that, that – but you'd have to quantum leap it. You have to quantum leap past all of Facebook's hurdles, all of Oculuses.

Now I don't – you know, who knows? It's one of those things that it's still a bit like, too futuristic, even for my taste, which is a hard thing to say, but it's one of those things that could be possible. Because I know that HTC right now is doing, they just started to announce that they're integrating kind of brainwave, biofeedback, things right now as well.

Do you see that as being – like, what's the timeline for something like that? Is there something that's going to be adapted for that? Or is that just kind of like, you know, a vaporware?

[00:26:17] Kyle Riesenbeck: It's not vaporware. You know, it's interesting, you described a Utopian future, which is fun, because a lot of people like to focus on Dystopian futures, especially with the current status of the universe, but it is fun to look at the potential for an amazing future. I mean, if you look at just, I think I'm a few years older than you, but just look at the difference of what the world is now, versus before.

And, you know, like you said, the watch, you know, we've got the phones with LiDAR and we've got the earbuds and we've got the, you know, I've got about 30 headsets floating around right here, which one do you want to see, you know? We are slowly jumping forward. Now, when we talk about biometrics and wetware plugging stuff into your brain, surprisingly enough, that's where I draw the line. I will not – I say this now and somebody – well, someday, oh, you said you'd never do that. Right now, currently, as it stands, I do not want to have Elon Musk put something into my head and let me play video games with a monkey I don't need to do that right now.

Five years, it’s easy to predict. 10 years, chances are, you're going to be wrong, 15 years, there's not even at any point, trying. But like I said before, you can see where it's going. There is a future, there's an obvious end point to this, and we'll hit it. We'll get there someday, but we don't know how long it's going to take, you know, what steps are going to be needed to be taken to get there, but it will happen.

You know, I'm reminded of – my children are upstairs right now, I'm down here in my VR dungeon. You can even see the other side. I've got my, you know, lighthouse boxes and everything. And yeah, this is my little VR respite. It's a nice open area, plenty of room to move around, but I got two kids upstairs, both in OG Quests that are playing rec room. ‘Mom, dad, we're done with school. Can we get in rec room?’ Yes, because my children are going to be VR natives. They won't know a world without VR in their life, especially since I've had VR in the house, since what, 2013, end of 2013. So my children know about VR. They are VR natives.

That's a term that I've been using for a while. These are people who, you know, you might not be able to remember a world without cell phones. You might not be able to remember a world without broadband internet, but, you know, I still remember my 2,400 broad modem and you know, the sounds and stuff. It's a thing and we've moved past that. And so we take it for granted, I think a lot of it. And, we'll take more for granted down the road. I mean, who knows maybe someday I will just put my glasses on and plug it into the back of my head and not think a thing of it. I'll just take it for granted that it exists. Yeah.

[00:29:38] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, man. It's the trade off, right? Like you don't want everyone tracking you listening to you all the time, but you love ways on your phone. It's like you get this type of trade off and, yeah. It's, it's funny. I don't know if you – I was – I'm an uncle for both my brothers, and I was visiting my brother in Florida and, they're six and eight years old, and they got just irately mad because they weren't allowed to play VR on the weekdays and uncle Dylan got to do it, and they're like, he's playing like, no, he's working. He's like, no, I can hear him. He's shooting missiles. He's playing. I just hear just –

[00:30:13] Kyle Riesenbeck: It's research kids. It's research.

[00:30:17] Dylan Watkins: I know. Take off the raccoon face. What did they – I had a really interesting conversation yesterday, with Sean from rec room and a couple of other the people, and it was the dudes, Finn, from Waffle Chicken, and another gentleman that was the designer of the Venues, and we’re talking about the future of rec room, you know, as this new social media and how they're just starting to pay out people like the early days of YouTube. And the head designer from Oculus Venues is like, well, why don’t you talk to me about music and concerts and what can you – and what are all the things you could do and what what's getting paid out.

And they're talking about how they're introducing cars now, being able to build your own cars, and they have their own, live, what do you call it? Their own ability to do visual coding and scripting. And they're like, you know what I'm saying, what can come. And everyone's like, well, what can we make? What can we produce? How do we monetize this? And all. It’s funny that all the VR enthusiasts immediately turned into monetization of what they could do. And so, I had an idea that isn't necessarily appropriate, but I'm going to share it anyways. And I shared it with them.

I said, well, here's what came to my mind. And I'd love to get your take on this and what your thoughts are, is, one of my favorite things inside the Wave, is the digital drugs you get to share with people. So you grab them rip them apart. And all of a sudden you go into like this, you know, weird kind of world with someone that you share this digital drug.

And I was like, what are the chances that people that can do their visual coding in the rec room can actually make digital drugs that they then sell at these digital concerts? I'm like, is that a thing that can happen? Is that monetizable? And they're like, absolutely.

So, what are your takes around the ecosystem of that and the whole rec room and your kids being involved in that?

[00:32:10] Kyle Riesenbeck: So, very snow crash, you know, I'll meet you at the black pyramid. We'll go to – yeah. So, a few things. It's interesting as a parent, knowing that my children are going into these digital worlds where, oh, look, it's a Panda. No, actually it's a 60-year-old man sitting in his basement with a white t-shirt on, named, Chuck, you know?

I wonder sometimes about that, but then again, I'm the kind of parent that if you shield your children from it, they get frightened at it the first time. And if they're, you know, 23, the first time they see something, it's like going to be shocking to them. So I feel like, like for example, my 15-year-old, she plays, Echo Arena a lot and she, and I hear them down there and she's playing late at night, you know, four on four and they're throwing, you can hear them just trash talking each other and screaming at each other. And I'm like, well, I mean, you know, she can't go out and play real sports, she can't go out on the soccer field and trash talk where we can't hear them on the sidelines, anyway, you know, all these kids running around, the parents are like, go, Billy, go Susie. But what they don't hear is that Billy or Susie are in there going, you know, in expletives and things like that.

If somebody brings digital drugs to a digital event and my kids are there digitally, I don’t know, I mean the kids always know that they can just come back into the real world, at the same time, they do need to see that this stuff exists, that this is real and not everybody has the best intentions and you know, oh, you were bad, so go sit in a timeout. We don't play that game.

So, I think it's okay for this sort of stuff to occur. And I think it might encourage, especially my older child to maybe play around with building some stuff on her own, you know, I've shown her Unity, she's made some little, you know, Flappy Bird clones and things like that, it might encourage her to expand her horizons and see what else is out there, you know? We’re all pioneers and this is the wild, wild west. And nobody knows where it's going to go in 5, 10, 15 years, but you know, I don't want to discourage my kids from exploring it. I don't think that's healthy.

[00:34:47] Dylan Watkins: It's funny because you struck on a really interesting point besides the plug for Horizons, but Horizon is the rec room clone that Facebook's doing. So, it’s just, to anybody listening, but you're talking about this balance, right? You have this balance because you want your kids to be safe and you want to protect them, but you know, that's not going to allow them to grow. So, do you protect them now and then be vulnerable later or do you have them be vulnerable now to protect them later? And are there any things that you've taught them? Because I've done some late night forays and say VR chat and gone deep into, I would consider it to be kind of a dark web to go into.

Is there anything that you try empower them with or is there anything that you say, hey, stranger danger, don't take that digital candy, or is it just kind of like, hey guys, we all know this is a game and there’s people in there. How do you armor them up for going into those types of places?

[00:35:45] Kyle Riesenbeck: That's a fantastic question. And I think it's something that needs to be delved into a bit more about what's right and what's wrong. Now, I'll tell you what I do. I give my children the ability to know the difference between right and wrong. You know, the proverbial kid with the fork, walking up to the, you know, the electrical sockets, like you're not going to want to do that. I'm going to do it anyway. Okay. Well, you're not going to do that again. My parenting mantra is that, some lessons can be taught, but others must be learned, and you have to make a mistake and learn from it, or you have to – see somebody else do something wrong and then learn from it. There's no book, oh, wow, that's cliché, as a parent. Oh, there's no book on parenting. There really isn't. But I'm on, you know, I've got four kids, I've got two that are already grown and moved out. You know, it works. They're fine, they're viable members of society. I feel as a parent, I'm two down through to go, you know?

But I don't think that shielding my children is going to be the right way to prepare them for this. So my kids have been completely immersed again, pun intended, in all of this, from the day that they were born. And I don't worry about it. You know, they know like if somebody, you know, sticks and stones, my kids, aren't going to cry if somebody calls them a bad name. If anything, they'll probably just say, shut up, and walk away.

I think giving your children a good understanding of who they are, personally, allows them to deal with how other people are. And I don't – I've seen my kids go, okay, nope, nope, nope, nope. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. Like what happened? Oh, this guy was just acting cray-cray or whatever kids say nowadays. Okay, good for you, for leaving, you know, plus I have to give a lot of people, especially like rec room and VR chat in all these places, credit for having settings that you can turn on, a bubble, a dome of like, leave me alone, don't talk to me, don't say anything. You know, I mean, my kids that are in rec room, or my younger one, actually, my 10-year-old, she's got a kid account, so she can't hear and she can't talk. So, there's no – and she's got a little bubble where nobody can get close to her. of course, it's, you know, what's going to happen, it's two little stick figures, but I'm not worried about the kids experiencing too much of this.

I mean, heck, you can just walk down the street and see, you know, I live in Seattle. I went to a park once with my kids, and there's a naked dude walking down the park, like just naked dude, just walking down, not thinking anything of it, there's kids, there's grandparents. I don't care. Okay, well, I mean, hey kids, there's a naked guy. What am I going to do?

[00:38:45] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. It must be cold outside. You can tell.

[00:38:51] Kyle Riesenbeck: It was very cold. Yeah.

[00:38:52] Dylan Watkins: Did you like on one side – tangent with the naked dude in the Super Bowl, did you hear about the naked super bowl guy that ran out?

[00:38:59] Kyle Riesenbeck: I saw that. Yeah.

[00:39:02] Dylan Watkins: He took out a bet in Vegas, put $50,000 on, it was like 750 to 1 or whatever it was. And then he ran out naked, made a whole bunch of money and then did that. And just – that to me sounded like a gamer that hacked the system, right? That’s just straight zero-day exploit, that will never happen again, in terms of bets, but I’m just like, like, good for you, good for you. I will run out naked to make it – to make it.

So, anyway, sight is on that one. What's your take on Horizons? We were talking a little bit about this, Horizons is this – I mean I don’t know if you spent time in there, and things like that, and comparative things. I've gone in and kind of peeked my head in a couple of times, but what's your take on that in the ecosystem? Because they have a very different kind of closed off controlled space where you go, anytime you go in and there is a moderator in there that goes, hey, how you doing? Nice to meet you. And like, you know, so, I picture some dude strapped to the headset at Facebook with that, but what's your take on that? How do you think that's going to play out over the next couple of years?

[00:40:12] Kyle Riesenbeck: I'll probably get some flack for this, but, Horizon, it's a good start, you know, I mean, I remember back in the days before VR chat, Rift Max theater, how many people remember Rift Max? Yeah, right? Yeah. I used to do karaoke in there. I did a talk show, several talk shows actually, in Rift Max theater, you want to talk about the wild west, I mean, those were the early, early days. And you know, everybody had an avatar, everybody had their voice and there were a couple stages and things that you can go and hang out in.

That was it. There was no moderation. There was no nothing. There were trolls. They came in they'd follow year around. They'd do things that they shouldn't be doing. And it's just – social is hard, you know. It used to be, you know, the famous line, I believe that Palmer Luckey said, it's like, input is hard. Well, now, input's not as hard as it used to be, but social is the new hard thing to try to figure out. You need to have curation, or you're going to have a bunch of people having a problem. Back then, we didn't care because it was only like a dozen of us that had headsets. And then it slowly became, you know, a couple hundred, nobody cared because everybody knew each other. That was the whole point of the community, you know?

I can go outside and talk to all of my neighbors and that's glorious. But as soon as one of them starts acting strange or rips their clothes off to win a bet in Vegas, I'm going to go home, I'm going to leave and I'm not going to come back out until that person's gone. So there are challenges.

Horizon to me is, like I said, it's a good start. And I think that they have to figure out a lot of things, still. You know, Facebook just recently made Facebook Messenger available on their headsets. And I wonder if that will be able to create like the, I think, I wonder if the intention is, is that, there will be this one to one you can go and be virtual inside a room through Facebook Messenger. I don't know. I was just thinking about this today, earlier. I haven't fleshed it out completely, but there is an opportunity for a one-on-one in VR chat with avatars, or two or three, you know, a group chat, but then it's not in some curated public place. It's just you and whoever you decide to invite in.

[00:42:53] Dylan Watkins: What I do like – when you friend up with people inside the Oculus headset, then you can have that audio chat that you can connect with outside of the applications, go on an application and pop out the application, you're still connected with audio, and that's really, really, really powerful. And I could see them trying to do that. I saw Zuckerberg inside clubhouse chatting, and it nearly broke the servers with all that stuff. And so, I could tell him, just taking notes going, I'm going to do this, I'm going to bring this in here, and we're going to bring this across. And you know. So, how do you – 12 people, community, easy, right? Even us, right? There's, you know, a couple hundred people at Oculus Connects or Facebook Connects, and those types of faces. We know, we see a lot of people, a couple of new people, but the community vibe is still alive and strong and flowing with alcohol, but how do you keep the culture the way it is as you scale? How do you scale culture to that scale?

[00:43:56] Kyle Riesenbeck: You don't, that's the secret. It's not going to. And I think that's, again, going back to what Abrash had said about the good old days, is that, you can't get it to scale up. It will scale slightly, but then it has to evolve and become something else. That's the challenge right now. Isn't it? To get everybody able to go somewhere virtually and interact with each other, we can't even do that normally. I mean, if I took – I can handpick a hundred people and put them in a room right now, like a giant gymnasium, and I guarantee you that there would be an argument within an hour. Like, two people are going to find each other that are oil and water and don't blend well. It's going to – it happens in real life. So, you can't expect it to magically work fine just because everybody's got technology on their skull. I mean, that's not going to change things. So, our expectations have to be, it's going to be as bad as real life, but it could also be as good, if not better, than real life. It just depends on how we accept it and how we move forward with it.

[00:45:05] Dylan Watkins: At some point, I look at it as like there's a natural value exchange in person. We can get together, we can cheer a cup, we can drink alcohol, we can stumble down the streets with the wind blowing on our face, singing songs. There's a certain amount of value being exchanged there, but in VR, when those first low fidelity and the inputs, all the stuff being challenging, there's a certain amount of value, but it's going to cross the threshold of value exchange. And I had a really cool moment at Facebook Connect where I was looking for my partner, Tanya, at the conference. And she had – her back was to me, I'm like, Tanya, is that you? And she turned around, and it looked like her. I was like, oh, hey, how are you doing? And she's like, oh, hey. And you had that like, that spontaneous moment of, you know, coming across someone that you care about inside VR.

And it was like, oh, great, let's go watch this talk. And then we went and stared at this 2D screen for about 45 minutes with our VR headsets on. And we're just like, I can't – why does anybody do this? I felt like I needed like, like a bra for my neck, just to hold up my head to try to do that. So, like what would make it surpassing that? Like what are the things that need to be in there to really like add value beyond the point of surpassing the meet to meet connection?

[00:46:27] Kyle Riesenbeck: Wow. Yeah. A lot of it is about expectations. I mean, I don't know if you had one of these when you were a kid, but I had a little watch and it had a little video game on, it was like Mario or something.

[00:46:42] Dylan Watkins: Yes.

[00:46:43] Kyle Riesenbeck: Yeah. Right? And I'm just like, as a kid, that was just a cool thing you could possibly have. As an adult, I stumbled across one at like a Goodwill or something, I don't know where I was. And I'm like, oh, I remember this. And I'm like, hmm, well, this just doesn't have that same level of awesomeness that it – why did I think this was such a good idea? And the reason I bring that up is because, like you said, two people staring at a 2D screen together, it's inappropriate – no, not inappropriate, it's a waste of that technology to go and do that. So, you know, like big screen, for example, big screen, I have, well, a great example. I've got friends all over the world, hey, let's four of us, get in, and we'll stream the Nintendo Switch, and we'll play Smash Brothers while we're sitting, and we can trash talk each other and everything. That's the intention. That's the intention. If you're watching a 2D video in VR, you're doing it wrong.

I mean, that's not what it's supposed to be. Now, I get it, the interaction of having two or three or 500 people altogether doing it, you're still just watching a 2D screen, like give that person an avatar and let them get in front of you and give a real talk. You know, give it a different delivery. We're just so used to cramming our standard ideas of how media consumption works into new technology instead of recreating it and making it something that is more comfortable in this tech. I mean, it just – things need to be reinvented for it to make more sense. Yeah.

[00:48:34] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. And that's the thing, when you said that, I couldn't help, but to think of 360 video and like all the pushing in that direction where you generally put on a 360 video experience. And there's some things that make sense that I thought was really good. I actually did a sexual harassment training video where this guy was like pressing up against me. And it actually worked because I couldn't move, and I actually felt extra trapped. And I was like, wow. I was like, get out, get your junk out of my face. And I was like, oh God. But like, but after a while, you're like, nope, that's just not – that's not doing it for me. You know? You lose – when you said you're not doing it right, I think you nailed on that point. It's just – there's – you want the old feeling that, you know, that 1980s Thundercat, you know, cartoon gave you, but you don't actually want Thundercat, you want the new, revitalized – you want these same feelings from the old genre, but you sometimes watch it again. You're like, nope, it just doesn't do it.

So what has been some, oh my God moments for you? Like, can you talk to me through like the burning – a couple of the burning moments that you've had, that when you've put it on, you've taken it off your head like, you’re like, wow, you’re like, that was a thing, that was an experience. That was something that – because we get that where it sears that emotion – first time for me, you know, this is way back, was trying the old Zelda game with the DK1 and my mind was, well, that's the first thing I tried. Someone ripped – probably highly illegal, but I went and tried it and it was amazing. Played for 45 minutes, you know, went to the dungeon, killed the dragon that looked like a duck, took it off as VR sick – I was like, oh, that was amazing. I might be – I might throw up. But that had a couple of other burning moments as I went through this. Could you think of the most recent, oh my God, burning moment that just like you took your headset off and you're like, that is so cool.

[00:50:24] Kyle Riesenbeck: Squadrons, Star Wars Squadrons. So, yeah, I played back in the day, the old school, Lucas schemes, I almost said X-men, no X-Wing versus TIE Fighter and stuff like that. And it was a six-off, you know. Woo. You know, and I play with either a gravis game pad or a – I know I'm throwing out. I'm old, man. I'm old, you know?

[00:50:56] Dylan Watkins: Youi need a Nintendo glove into the thing.

[00:50:57] Kyle Riesenbeck: There you go. But I'm playing this game as a kid and I'm just loving it. You know, I'm flying in X-Wing and I'm shooting star destroyers and stuff, and then Squadrons comes out. And so I got myself a nice toss, you know, thrust master 1600, whatever. And I'm sitting there and I'm playing like, oh man, they made this so cool, I’m actually in the game. And I know that sounds, you know, silly, because I'm always in the game in VR, but it was nostalgic, but it was new as well. And that that's really that sweet spot. That combo.

Now, the problem with that though, is, is that games like that aren’t as appealing to me as they used to be. So, I'm not really the target audience for that sort of thing, but the nostalgia level of playing a familiar game mechanic, but with a new look, and here's another game I'm big into, No Man’s Sky, holy cow, No Man’s Sky in VR is – if you haven't done it –

[00:52:06] Dylan Watkins: I haven't tried it.

[00:52:07] Kyle Riesenbeck: It's life changing, for me, it was, at least. I mean, when it runs well, if you have a good, solid, sturdy rig that can handle all the graphics, then yay. If you can't, then no, don't bother. Playing No Man’s Sky in VR and having friends, all of a sudden, oh, here comes David, he's flying his ship down and he lands and then he gets out and he comes over. And I don't know, I'm a big fan of novelty, and novelty is really cool for me. You know, I live 2,700 miles away from everybody I'm related to outside of my immediate children and family here. I have nieces that are like, oh, hey, let's all join together in rec room and let's go bowling. Something that my family has always done is on New Year's Day, we would all go bowling together as an extended family.

And it was a lot of fun, but we couldn't do anymore because we moved, and then, you know, obviously the Rona causes problems. So we have the exact same experience that we usually do on New Year's Day, but we had it in rec room. It was close enough. And it was very – it was interesting to know that technology gave me the ability to do something that I was physically unable to do right now. And I got that feeling of that family, that closeness, it's, yeah, it was very touch.

[00:53:30] Dylan Watkins: That's so cool. Yeah. They say often like you come for the game, you stay for the people, right? You go for that or you don't quit your job, you quit your boss. It always goes back to the people situation. And yeah, it was very interesting and kind of vindicating being a VR developer. I always feel like we're building a town in the desert saying the trains are coming, the trains are coming. And then that train was named, Rona, as you said, and it came through and it was pumping and we're like, see, this is necessary. And it was the first time that, you know, it is the new type of STD, it is the new type of like, oh, you know, pariah creator. So, you're right. I haven't done it – cross collaborations having – because we, me and my brothers and my father used to always go and play bowling together and that type of stuff. And I would love to be able to do that with my nieces and nephews and have them jump inside and having have that moment because you're doing the activity, but it's more about like the trash talking and the complimenting.

[00:54:32] Kyle Riesenbeck: Right, right. Yeah.

[00:54:33] Dylan Watkins: And making someone miss. So, that is super cool. What’s your like, in terms of Upload in your whole journey, because you've been on just on the bandwagon, I would say you started the bandwagon on the whole VR front of getting into the space. What's your destination? What is it that you want to do with your career, with the VR industry? Do you have like a holy grail place that you want this to go for you in the industry? Or is it just the journey? What does that look like for you?

[00:55:08] Kyle Riesenbeck: It’s a good question actually. If you go back and listen to my old podcast, the rev VR podcast, you can hear about a week before Thanksgiving, each year, I did a podcast episode where this is the year, this is going to be the year where there's going to be kids opening boxes and it's like, oh, it's a VR headset. Yay. And they're crying and hugging mom and dad and stuff. And I did that episode four years in a row.

This year, this past year, I finally on social media, without going and having to go look for it, I found those videos, they found me, of kids. Oh, it's a Quest, oh my gosh, and they're crying and everything. To me, for the last five years, been waiting for that moment, and now, it’s happened, now, VR is finally mainstream-ish. And where does that leave me? Well, right now, running Upload, fantastic team, a lot of progress, great service to the community. I feel like right now, right here is awesome. And I want to continue to grow this and I want to make Upload VR be that big powerhouse that everybody goes to all the time for everything virtual reality related.

And let's say I grow it and it's bigger than anything else, and it's amazing, and now I'm happy about that. What's next?

I don't know. I've a teacher, a trainer, developer, manager, you know, I was the yarn expert at a craft store for a while. I've done so many fun, amazing things. And, you know, I think the way you said that is right, that it's the journey. It's just, what's new, what's fun, what's exciting? Where – leading edge stuff, what can I see next? So for me, I think it might be about the journey and not the destination.

[00:57:20] Dylan Watkins: That beautiful. So many people like talking about the train has come in, VRs come in, you know, there're waiting for the thing to arrive versus stopping, reflecting, taking a breath, looking up at the stars, and realizing you're exactly where you want to be, which is, very rare for a lot of people to even get to that phase, even if they make a billion dollars and sell their company to Facebook, you know.

[00:57:41] Kyle Riesenbeck: When I was a kid, I read books about the beginnings of Apple and Bill Gates and pirates of Silicon Valley kind of stuff. And I always thought, darn, if only I had been born 10 years earlier, I could have been out there and been part of that. And I've said that for years and years, oh, if only I had been born 10 years earlier, I could have been part of that. And now, I think, now, I got to be part of something just as cool. And I'm thrilled to death to have been born right when I was, and be right in the right place at the right time to get into all this. And I do, on a daily basis, stop and go, well, this is fun, you know, just a little bit, just a little reminder that life can be fun, and interesting and new, every day. If you just look for it.

[00:58:40] Dylan Watkins: Look for it, that’s beautiful. And on that note, let's say there is, you know, a young Kyle who just discovered his VR headset, you know, it’s Christmas Day, he opened it up. It's Nintendo for us, right, or maybe Atari, right? You know, they try that magic out, they go into, you know, their Mario Brothers or rec room or whatever it might be. And they had that magic moment, they're like, I want to get into this. I want to be a part of this. What do you say to them? What do you say to them after they have that magic burn moment to them, what advice do you give a young Kyle on his journey just taking the first few of his steps?

[00:59:21] Kyle Riesenbeck: Don't let anyone tell you, no, you can't do that, that won't work. That's the best advice I can give, there's nothing more than kids being discouraged because, well, that's not how things are done. That's not what we do. That's not – that's not right. No. Don't listen to those people. Look at it and find a way to make it happen. You know, the idea, the concept of being a hacker, the concept of being a leading-edge technology freak, there's nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Go find everything you can do. It's not supposed to do that, but I want it to, so I'm going to find a way to make it happen. Don't let anybody stop you from trying out the crazy ideas.

[01:00:13] Dylan Watkins: Love that man, some fantastical advice. And, you know, with that being said, is there any last things, any last messages you'd like to give out and share before you let people know how to get ahold of you and what you do?

[01:00:30] Kyle Riesenbeck: Absolutely. Yeah. So, obviously, I want everybody to go to uploadvr.com and check it out. As I say, on our podcast, it's the best place to find all your news, reviews, comments and interviews in the VR space. Our YouTube channel is wonderful. We have a – most of the time, twice a week podcast called the VR Download. It's pretty exciting. We get in and avatars into a virtual studio that we designed personally, and we have conversations, either game oriented or hardware tech oriented. It's – we're constantly looking for new ways to reach out to the community and give them new stuff.

And as like everybody else, you can find me on Twitter and Facebook and Myspace and Google+ and wait a minute – some of those things don't exist anymore, or, you know, email me, kyle@uploadvr.com. It's pretty easy.

[01:01:28] Dylan Watkins: Awesome, Kyle, man, this has been an absolute pleasure. I really enjoyed this. And whether we reconnect in the virtual space, the digital space, or in person, man, I look forward to our next encounter. So, I owe you one, brother, and, I really appreciate your time.

[01:01:41] Kyle Riesenbeck: Absolutely. Thank you, Dylan. It's been a pleasure.

[01:01:44] Dylan Watkins: Of course. Take care now.

[01:01:45] Kyle Riesenbeck: All right.

[01:01:46] Dylan Watkins: Bye now.

[01:01:49] Outro: Thank you for listening to the Heroes of Reality Podcast. Check out HeroesofReality.com for more episodes. While you're there, you can also take the Hero's Quiz to find out what kind of hero you are, or if you have a great story and want to be on the podcast, tell us why your hero's journey will inspire others. Thank you for listening. See you on the other side.