When you hear VR book the first thing that comes to mind is a movie, right? So, what’s the point of VR books, the reading or listening to a book is a unique experience mainly because it relies on our own imagination to fill the gaps of other senses. Well, you’ll be glad to hear that VR books take only a small chunk of imagination experience and serve to only enhance or increase the immersion of a reader.
If history is any indicator making something “virtual” is rarely an endeavour that results in failure. We have virtual stores, virtual board games, and probably the most popular virtual casinos. Sure all these things have their own perks when experienced in person but it’s undeniable that virtual versions have massive audiences. In fact, some of the features are even specifically tailored for online versions, like online coupons, or bets-promo-code.co.uk, which speaks volumes of the successfulness of these projects.
However, let’s stay on topic and explore whether VR audiobooks can indeed provide a better experience for readers.
More immersive book chapters
Let’s start with the overall description of the VR experience. So, once you put on your VR headset and play the book, you will still listen to the audio, but before you will be a panoramic image of the environment that is being described on a specific page or in a specific chapter. Furthermore, the sounds that are described in a book are also a part of an experience but in a non-intrusive way, so as not to interfere with the audio feed.
In other words, if a book’s protagonist hears squeaking noise, heavy breathing, ominous drums, footsteps, eerie tones, etc. those effects will be added to the book. This imagery and onomatopoeic sounds still don’t take too much of the imaginative aspect of reading, but better convey the mood of the scene in order to evoke or heighten the intended emotion in the reader. It might be also possible to add background music, once again to intensify the intended emotion that corresponds with the scene.
Easier to follow
If you don’t have a physical version or Kindel version of the book VR will help you out. In addition to the surrounding, the reader will also hold a page with the text being read on audio feed. You might even customize this and make it into a book page, tablet, or just floating text, however, you prefer.
It is also important to note that all of the mentioned features can be turned off. So if you only wish to listen to the audio in a pitch-black surrounding, you can do so. If this is the case though, you might not want to buy VR books in the first place as it is more expensive than a regular audiobook.
The only issue with this is production time, especially for huge books, like Song of Ice and Fire, Lord of the Rings, Dune, etc. The time and effort it is going to take in order to design the setting for each chapter will probably make the VR versions of the book too expensive.
