Feature Simulators Meet the sims


Global Amusements & Play looks at recent developments in the world of simulators, where VR is making a major splash and interactivity is everything. Jon Bruford reports…


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imulators come in many shapes and forms, but essentially it’s a machine designed to give the user a realistic imitation of something, and is often based around transport – so, for example, flight simulators, motorcycles, high-end cars. But the potential for a simulator to enhance your leisure venue is huge, as people embrace virtual reality headsets, and interactivity becomes ubiquitous. MaxFlight’s Frank McClintic explains


how his products can give customers a different experience every day, and that’s just with the base set-up: “Many places, if you get a movie ride and everyone has done that, you have to pay a lot of money for another movie ride; in our case, just what our unit comes with has, for example, two different flight programs. In one you can fly different aircraft in a WWII scenario. We use WWII because


May/June 2017


today’s dogfighting is not much fun, because you’re moving too fast. Dogfighting in WWII in a much slower aircraft with greater interactivity, it’s a very different experience, and every time it’s different. You can change the number of opponents, you can network terminals together in your venue – but that’s just one aspect. In the other software you can fly any plane from any airport in the world, so a player can change that every time they play, they can fly over their house if they want to.” McClintic says that simulators can


give venues a year-round draw that they might not already have, especially in places where weather is a factor. He tells us: “We have been shifting


focus too in that we are looking at theme parks now, where we might put 50 to 100 units in a given site. If you look at theme parks in general they are in a weather zone where their


season might be only 120 to 180 days a year; we provide, for generally half the price of a rollercoaster or other attraction, and half the land footprint, content that is pretty much unlimited. You can go onto our systems for ten years and never do the same thing twice now. If you put our simulators into a theme park, someone could do a thousand different rollercoaster rides, or make their own and ride that. Additionally, when you look at the throughput economics, our throughput is the same or greater than a $15million rollercoaster per hour but half the price, and with re-themable content, meaning instead of producing whole new rollercoaster every year, or if a new movie comes out, they just get us to provide new content for the following season. “The interactivity today is key; people aren’t always looking to go watch a movie. With interactive rides


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