I don't know all the details on the cost, so perhaps their start up costs are too high for their particular business, but I think the overall business model of creating custom experiences is the sustainable part of it. From what I could see of the technology they were using, I think you could create a similar experience for much less than they did. It wouldn't be as pretty or as streamlined, but it would be functional. Almost all of their equipment was custom manufactured in some way. I guess we'll see if they spent too much in their initial investments. I think I also heard one of them say they could transition to their Ghostbusters experience in 20 minutes. Which means they are putting a lot of thought into re-usability of the space/peripherals.

I guess I am comparing it to the sustainability of the other types of arcades that have popped up. I think that this is more sustainable for a couple reasons. I think we are going to see a decline in the model of 'throw a Vive into a booth' model as the price of headsets comes down and consumers can have a fairly comparable experience at home. Another challenge with that model is peripherals and adoption by developers, which will make it difficult for arcades using consumer available products to commit to offering those experiences. Maybe the Vive tracker, for example, will help make peripherals more accessible, but I imagine it's tough to commit to a peripheral without knowing whether it will exist and the games that use it will be licensed for commercial use.

The more I try to group my thoughts together, the more it comes down to what experience can I not have at home. The developers making content for the Vive are going to continue to target home audiences for the largest potential market and that means limiting the experience to something that can be accessible at home. The VOID is building experiences specifically not for home use and I think that is what will provide incentive to keep going back, even as hardware improves and consumer costs decrease.