recomendation report

ErasitechGaming June25,2015

Memo

To: Edward Yakes, President and CEO of Erasitech From: Nathan Mack, Erasitech Sales Team Manager N.M. Date: June, 25 2015 Subject: New Marketing Plan Recommendation

Attached is our suggested new marketing plan. Within the past three years, our sales have been slowly decreasing due to the expansion of the first-person shooter game industry. Competing companies like Treyarch, 343 Industries, and Electronic Arts have taken over much of the genre with best-selling game franchises like Black Ops and Battlefield, both of which share many similarities to Regeneration. It’s our failure to create new versions of the game, like sequels, and develop incentives for costumers to purchase and use our products, that has allowed us to go from the best-selling first-person shooter back when we started in 2009, to currently number five in 2015. The marketing team and I have developed new advances to Regeneration that will give great incentives to both new and old players. These include: 1) Adding new weapons, maps, and character costumes for players to play with/in. 2) Developing an annual tournament for high-ranked players to compete for a cash

reward and beloved bragging rights. 3) Incorporating modern, technological advances, like head trackers and gaming

treadmills into our second phase of the tournament championship. None of our competing game developers have yet to include wearable, virtual reality E-collaboration items to give the player the illusion he or she is the character in their games, and yet, devices like Oculus Rift and their partnering device, Nimble VR, are continuously being built and improved upon. We want to be the first company to lunge at such an immersive opportunity. We believe the announcement to the public of our tournament and its second phase will not only increase the sales of the Humaplay and Regeneration, including our headset and recording accessories, but greatly restore our reputation as a video game company. I ask that you please read over this report carefully and put every idea into deep consideration. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me. Sincerely, Nathan Mack


What’stocomeofourcompany?NathanMack


Erasitech Gaming New Marketing Plan:

A Recommendation Report

Prepared for: Edward Yakes, President and CEO of Erasitech Gaming Inc.

Prepared by: Nathan Mack, Erasitech Sales Team Manager


Table of contents

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………….. i Table of Contents (cont.) ………………………………………………... ii Summary…………………………………………………………………………... 1 Introduction…………………………………………………............................. 2 Purpose………………………………………………………………………. 2 Background………………………………………………………………… 2 Regeneration..…………..………………………………………………………. 3 The Game Today………………………………………………………….. 3 New Content……………………………………………………................. 3 Maps……………………..……………………………………………… 3 Weapons……………………………………………………………....... 4 Stabber………………………………………………………..… 4 Stapistol…………………………………………………………. 4 Regeneration Revolver………………………………………….. 4 ErasiSniper……………………………………………………… 4 ErasiShield……………………………………………………… 5 Costumes……………………………………………………………….. 5 Regenerating our Reputation…………….…………………………... 6

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The Tournament…………………………………………………………. 6 Phase 2……………………………..…………………………………... 7 Virtual Reality Technologies for Phase 2……………………….8 Oculus Rift…………………………………………………………………..8

Nimble VR..……………………...………………………………………….8 Virtuix Omni……………………...…………………………………………9

Projected Cost………………………………………………………….……..10 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………11 Recommendation……………………………………………………………12 Work Cited………………………………………………………………………13 Work Cited (cont.)……….………………………………………………….14 Appendix A……………………………………………………………………..15 Appendix B……………………………………………………………………..16 Appendix C……………………………………………………………………..17

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Summary

The purpose for this report is to promote a new marketing plan for our game, Regeneration. To clarify, this is NOT a way for Erasitech to save money, but a way to make it. We have developed a projected budget of $35,000 (this including Phase 2 equipment, tournament streaming cost, and flight costs for tournament championship contestants). We believe that if we stick to the main issues stated in the report, and have full success with our recommended tournament and its second phase, we will stay well in the parameters of our budget.

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Introduction

Purpose The purpose for this report is to recommend a Regeneration tournament held amongst players, including the addition of new character costumes, new virtual weapons, and in-game maps. We believe this will greatly increase Erasitech’s Humaplay and Regeneration sales, including a revamping of our reputation as a video game company. This report includes recommendations for adding elements to Regeneration to make it more fun for players, including our idea for a Regeneration tournament for active players, and lastly, recommends three types of virtual reality E-collaboration devices for top-tournament players to play with during their final tournament match in our Phase 2 of the tournament. We have spent many hours researching the E-collaboration devices described in this report (described in-depth on pages 8-9) and feel that the benefits of these devices will far outweigh the cost. Background In October of 2009, Erasitech was born, and by late 2010, we were the top grossing video game company in the country with over $23 million in Regeneration games sold and $51 million in Humaplay consoles, all in that quick time span. However, in all this time, we’ve only had one game under our belt, and because of this, nearly six years after our development, we have been knocked out of the competition by big game companies like Treyarch and 343 Industries, the two companies responsible for America’s most beloved shooters as of today – Black Ops and Halo. Activison’s production contractor, Keith Fuller, says, “In the last two decades, the growth of video games has produced a huge influx of games.” This is because “there are more players today, but there are also more games per player” (Fuller). The era of video games has expanded far past us since we began, and with games like Black Ops sales now peeking the 175 million game mark, and Halo’s 60 million at a close second (Makuch), there will soon be no one interested in purchasing our products, no matter how great our graphics may be. We just don’t offer enough to players to be seen as a forerunning company, and if we try to push out a sequel now to gain sales, we will not sell many games because many kids these days won’t recognize Regeneration at all; this is how far we have allowed our competition to take over the market we once owned. With this revelation, Erasitech will soon fall into an abyss of bankruptcy we can never pull ourselves up from; we predict the company to be out of business within the next 6-12 months if major improvements to our game aren’t made. If Erasitech doesn’t do something that not only gets us connected with the modern, first-person shooter era, and also exceed consumers expectations to attract attention, the future of our company is non-existent.

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Regeneration

The Game Today Ever since Erasitech created their first game of many planned, Regeneration, we have kept our evolving on a consistent timeline of little changes. Our small graphic updates and interchanging between new and old maps is no longer enough to sustain costumer satisfaction, as shown in our recent monthly sales reports and critique ranking of U.S. video game companies. Erasitech has put minimal time in the creation of new games and/or a Regeneration sequel, but we believe we have developed two ways to increase our notability as a game company. Although both are interesting, one cannot work without the other, and we believe the first one that we must implement has a 90% success rate, as it seems to be exactly what modern gamers want. We want to include fresh, exciting maps, weapons, and costumes for Regeneration’s players to interact with. New Content Maps Although we do create new in-game maps on a month to two-month basis, they are all very much the same, and players are growing quite bored of it. From jungles to abandon cities in rubble, we have maintained a boring set of map ideas that continue to flood our servers, but we believe the addition of our new interactive maps will not only give quite a battle for Regeneration’s players, but they will allow skilled gamers to use specific elements from the map as weapons for quickly growing their kill streak. Our first interactive map idea is DesertTech. It takes place on top of a military base completely buried in sand. Rocks, broken walls and pillars would act as useful barriers for character protection, and behind one barrier would be a hole of quicksand leading to a military arsenal packed with guns. Included would be a computer that, if a hidden code found carved into a rock from the surface were entered, would launch twenty missiles from beneath the sand and up to enemies on the surface. Another map we created is called Walking the Plank, as it would find our players battling in a large canyon’s crevice. Both ends of the canyon would be connected with long, metal bridges. The canyons would have paths carved out through them, giving a maze feel to players trying to travel between both sides. A light, sandy breeze that fits the setting would blow in the air, partially blinding the players. If a player were to fall off a bridge and down to the bottomless pit blanketed by a misty fog, they would automatically be removed from that match, making gun and knife fights on the bridges more patient and thought-out.

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Weapons As you know, all of Regeneration’s virtual weapons are based on guns and grenades used in modern day military combat, like the classic AK-47 and QBZ-95 Assault Rifle (Mizokami), but games like Black Ops recently have been creating their own, fictional weapons usable in their fake combat, and games like Halo and Gears of War have always been known for there futuristic weapons. We need to catch up, and I have been working with Regeneration’s character development team to do just that. Together, we have created five weapons that combine some elements from our competitors’ fictional weapons, while still giving a unique twist of our own: Stabber. The Stabber would be a skinny blade with a purple handle. At the end of the handle would be a red dot for added decoration. The actual blade would glow bright blue like characters’ blood in Regeneration. Each character would have a pair of these blades that could, at any time, replace any weapon if activated by the Humaplay controller. Stapistol. The Stapistol would give characters a way to use the Stabber from a considerable distance. It would be reloadable with three designated slots for the Stabbers. With the pull of the trigger, it would shoot like any normal gun, but instead shoot a Stabber knife instead of a bullet. Stabbers would do much more damage than pistols in Regeneration, giving this gun a fun, helpful purpose. Regeneration Revolver. It would look and act almost exactly like a normal revolver, but when the gun is completely out of ammunition, the barel can be detached from the gun and activated as a electricity grenade, electrocuting anyone in the radius of where it falls. ErasiSniper. The ErasiSniper would be a neon black, blue, and purple sniper whose scope contains three different lenses – red, green, and violet. The red scope would allow the player to see his/her opponents from a distance by highlighting them with a bright-red outline. The green would allow for night-vision, and the violet would allow for thermal heat detection. When all three scopes are combined, however, the color would change to a ghost white which would massively increase the sight’s distance, but the white filter may make it harder to distinguish enemies from other in-game objects if the character is not moving around. ErasiShield. The ErasiShield would be a holographic blue shield, somewhat like Halo’s shields, that is on a specialized watch worn by the character. Hitting the watche’s top button containing our logo’s image could activate the shield, and once pressed, it would project a blue holographic shield approximately four inches from the character’s arm. Turning a small dial on the watch could expand and/or decrease the radius of the shield. What we especially like is its health bar. When the ErasiShield takes damage, a purple flood starting in the center of the shield would expand out, like a wave washing ashore. The more damage the shield takes, the more the flood spreads, and once the purple “flood” of damage reaches to the edges of the shield, the shield would flicker and power off. Players would have to wait five minutes – regardless of their character’s re-spawning or not – before being able to reactivate it.

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Members of the character design team have done drawings of the described virtual weapons. Feel free to contact them if you would like to see the designs. Costumes All characters across all first-person shooter platforms are given a specific suit (armor) to wear during campaign/multiplayer levels. Games like Sims allow player’s to customize their characters, and some shooter games allow you to simply change the color of your character’s armor, but we believe players should be able to add personality to their own characters using hats, coats, spectacles and sunglasses, and even bracelets and small, virtual tattoos. These accessories could be purchased with Regeneration Points, which, as of now, only purchase advances to current weapons for gameplay, like bigger mags and better scopes. We would include a wide variety of clothing and wearable accessories to please all kinds of players of all ages. Obviously, accessories would not be affected in anyway once equipped to the character; meaning virtual wind in a map like Walking the Plank wouldn’t blow off a character’s hat, for example. Please contact Cody from character design if you are interested in seeing his drawn costume designs.

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Regenerating our Reputation The Tournament Ever since Erasitech’s Humaplay and Regeneration sales started to steadily decline, we have been working on a marketing stunt that will bring our sales up and beyond the yearly projected norm. Back in 2012, we had an idea of a Regeneration tournament, but before we were ready to pitch it, Treyarch released their announcement of a Call of Duty Black Ops 2 tournament coming in 2013. They’re success was beyond projections, as 32 teams joined the fight, and in three days, a team called Fariko Impact won the grand prize of $400,000 (Keshav), earning instant internet fame and making Black Ops the shooter game to play. Ever since, companies like 343 Industries and Epic Games have had tournaments for their best selling shooter games like Halo and Gears of Wars, but none of them flood the social media with advertisements and excited contestant news/comments as much as Treyarch’s Call of Duty tournaments. However, all of the tournaments are basically the same, with high-ranked, high-skilled players competing from their bedrooms through an Internet connection until all players/teams are eliminated. As for Black Ops championships, once the tournament’s down to the last few teams or individual players, they’re invited to play the same game using the same software and controller at the companies headquarters, where the battles are streamed via Treyarch’s website and a winner is eventually chosen. This seems to be a very successful marketing stunt for our competition, though, as the prize money has drastically increased, more people watch their live streams, and the advancement of social media like Facebook and Twitter allows for more player’s to even find out about such tournaments. Erasitech has and may have some advantages that would allow us to easily rank ourselves to as good, if not better, than the our tournaments being held by our competing video game developers. With better graphics, more unique weapons, interactive maps, and many of Regeneration’s loyal fans still loyal throughout all these years, we definitely have a shot at joining the club of the modern shooter game. With this said, we still believe the addition of bigger maps, more advanced weapons, and colorful costumes will not push us to exceeding the competition, but our phase 2 of Erasitech’s Regeneration tournament definitely could. Phase 2 Companies like Oculus and Virtuix Omni have been working hard on developing virtual reality E-collaboration devices for shooter video games, which, described in Ned Kock’s book A Basic Definition of E-Collaboration, and expanded upon by Grigore C. Burdea’s and Philippe Coiffet’s novel Virtual Reality Technology, is “using electronic devices among different individuals to accomplish a common task” (Kock & D’Arcy). Grigore and Philippe’s book goes on to explain how the advancement of the Internet and virtual

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reality has given the term E-collaboration a bigger meaning. (Grigore C. Burdea, and Philippe Coffet). As of today, we know E-collaboration mainly for it’s use in video game technology, and how it allows player’s to experience the game from a brand new perspective. That’s exactly what virtual reality companies are making it for, and we think Erasitech should be first at jumping at this new technology. We want to incorporate gaming “treadmills,” gaming goggles and hand trackers, like Oculus Rift and Nimble VR into our championships of our Regeneration tournament. Similar to Treyarch’s Call of Duty tournament, we would invite the top twenty individual players to compete in a one day final Regeneration match, but instead of playing with their Humaplay console controllers in some comfy gaming chair, they would play the game while wearing these devices; engaging themselves fully into Regeneration, making them feel like their character. We could not afford to do this for all tournament players from the beginning, nor could we obtain such a large amount of virtual reality devices, so we would have to limit the tournament players who can participate in this Phase 2 to the top players who made it to the end. We would also have to rent out a school gym or other large space to hold the one-day championship event, since we do not have a place big enough in Erasitech’s headquarters to hold such event. If you accept the terms described in this report, we will first contact Facebook (the new owners of Oculus) (Owens, Jeremy C.) to hopefully work out a deal where we can obtain the necessary equipment so Phase 2 can become a reality. If we are unsuccessful, we have companies like Sony who too are working on developing virtual reality technology. We will then get ahold of Oculus Rift and Virtuix Omni who are making the headsets and gaming treadmills, both of which work with wonderfully together to make the ultimate gaming experience. With our projections, we should be ready to launch this tournament marketing plan by summer of next year, giving assisting companies plenty of time to patch up bugs and finish their products, then put them up on the market for us to make a deal. On the following page, we have included in-depth information on our top three choices for virtual reality E-collaboration devices we find best suitable for our Phase 2.

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Virtual Reality Technologies for Phase 2

Oculus Rift The Oculus Rift is the virtual headset (sometimes described as goggles) that is often recognized as the best virtual reality device, as new versions of it are released at game conventions yearly; it recieves high ratings from users, and has a price tag that’s dropping the fastest among the two other devices described in this report. When most people think of virtual reality interaction, they think of the Oculus Rift, and it’s because of this and its interesting capabilities that got Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to purchase it for $2 billion in March of 2014 (Owens, Jeremy C.) On his own Facebook page, Mark describes the Oculus Rift as feeling like “you’re actually present in another place with other people,” and, “People who try it say it’s different from anything they’ve ever experienced in their lives.” (Zuckerberg, Mark). This is why we think it’s necessary to our Phase 2. It allows its user to see into the game, and absolutely nothing else. It’s like straping a televsion to your head and being unable to look away. This gives the illusion the player is in the game, an illusion no television could ever give someone. However, the Oculus Rift is very broing by itself, as Dave Their from Forbes describes wearing the headset without nothing else makes the user feel like “a floating head” (Their, Dave). This is where the Nimble VR comes in, because we all know you can’t shoot a virtual gun in Regeneration without the fingers to pull the trigger. Nimble VR Cody and I did some extensive research on virtual reality gloves and hand sensors, but found all of them to either have a huge lag between game time and real time or were too expensive, but Oculus Rift helps us again with their purchase of the company Nimble. With Nimble VR trackers, Regeneration Phase 2 competitors wouldn’t have to wear any gloves, but just stand in front of the television streaming the match. The Oculus Rift has a mount for the Nimble, and its distance of vision is just wide enough to see the player’s hands and arms, both of which are incorporated into the game. The Nimble VR tracker hand system can track slow to normal-paced hand movements, so any fast weapon arm movements may lag or even not register; nevertheless, the Virtuix Omi players will be standing in will prevent them from making quick movements, anyway. We will give competitors in Phase 2 a fake gun with a clickable trigger to hold on to just so they have something to grasp while their attention is on the game. This will make it much easier to position their hands on the virtual gun their character’s holding in Regeneration.

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Virtuix Omni The Virtuix Omni is the final edition to make the perfect virtual reality immersion experience for our well deserving tournament finalists. This is simpily a video game pad to walk on, meaning every direction a player’s character runs, turns, twists, etc. is done by the player him/herself. Adi Robertson, a jounalist for The Verge, gave the gaming treamill a trial run, and said it definetly needs some work when it comes to staying stable and running in directions other than straight. He described the contraption as “playing laser tag on ice, wearing bowling shoes” (Robertson, Adi). This makes us somewhat hesitant of purchasing the treadmil, fearing it may cause an injury during the championship or make gameplay undesirably slowpaced. With this said, Adi did say it has made big improvement since it’s release in 2013, and he knows they are still making changes. We hope that by the time we are ready to order the E-collaboration equipment around summer of next year, the Virtuix Omni will have made massive improvement in safety and useability, and have documented test trials and reports to backup their improvments. If they are unable to make the treadmill 100% safe and usable, we will not purchase the item. Fortunately, even though it would be a nice advantage to our Phase 2, it is not necessary for our plan to work. Player’s will still have a great in-game experience with or without it. The Virtuix Omni is the only gaming treadmil in development, and if we could have had more options, we definetly would have considered them. In order for Phase 2 to even happen, we would need a game headset like Oculus Rift and a sensor like Nimble, but not exactly those two. Companies like Sony and CyberGlove Systems are working on their own versions of these products, but we feel they are not as good as the Oculus Rift or Nimble, and therefore, we do not recommend them to be in our tournament’s Phase 2.

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Projected Cost

The following is a chart depicting the projected cost for Phase 2 equipment in alliance with Phase 2 competitor count. To simplify things, the chart has been split into four player sections, instead of twenty rows that simply multiply the previous number by two each time. It is split into this kind of table to help you understand the cost of the tournament for more players who are accepted to partake in Phase 2. This does NOT include cost for flying Phase 2 contestants down to headquarters, streaming and production costs, a prize amount for Regeneration’s winning player, arena rental fees, or any purchasing/shipping fees from the companies providing us equipment, as all of that either cannot be predicted, or the amount of work, therefore money, put into Phase 2’s development is still unclear. The prices in this chart are the retail cost of each item X4 (per player) as of now, and may change in the future.

Total: $24,316 The other $10,000 of our budget would be used to set up streaming of our tournament through Erasitech’s website. This includes cameras, hiring a commentator or two, and most importantly, renting a place to hold Phase 2’s competition (a standard 80’X100’ school gymnasium would work.) Other fees include shipping E-collaboration equipment, purchasing special shoes for the Virtuix Omni, and flying contestants to headquarters, as we don’t expect them to pay for there own ticket if we invited them. Since our company is not international, meaning the only contestants we choose from live in the U.S., there would be no overseas expenses. All expenses listed can change at any moment, and since we predict this tournament not to take place until summer of next year (2016), we are positive most of the costs will have changed. Nevertheless, we still believe the budget of $35,000 will stay the same, as prices for the Phase 2 equipment (our biggest expense) should decrease, and the quality of the products should increase. If our marketing plan is a success, not only will we make our losses back in a year’s time, but we will continue to earn much more if we keep up with game updates and redo the Regeneration tournament following summers.

Phase 2 Equipment

Cost per unit (as of today)

First 4 Players

8 Players 12 Players 16 Players 20 Players

Oculus Rift $200 $800 $1,600 $2,400 $3,200 $4,000 Nimble VR $99 $396 $792 $1,584 $3,168 $6,336 Virtui Omni $699 $2,796 $5,592 $8,388 $11,184 $13,980

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Conclusion

Only a few years ago, this entire marketing plan would have sounded like a big, fat joke, but today, the art of virtual reality is more immersive than ever. We believe in 10-20 years, people will practically be able to live most of their days in a virtual reality; having full mobility, visibility, and maybe even the illusion of touch and taste. This report does NOT say Erasitech will be the next big virtual reality device company – we will not be the face of E-collaboration goggles and gloves – but by including this growing technology into Regeneration and the gaming experience we can provide, we will definitely differentiate ourselves from all other U.S. game developers, and all it will take is some more game developing, some hard-core advertising, and a one day climatic gaming experience for deserving tournament champions.

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Recommendation

The marketing team and I ask that you and the board thoroughly review this report carefully, outweigh the cost/benefits and pros/cons of the plan, and send me back your final decision to approve or disprove this proposal. If you are hesitant with your decision, feel free to contact me anytime with questions on the virtual reality devices or in-game advancements, like the interactive maps or new weapons/costumes. We look forward to hearing your decision.

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Work Cited

Burdea, Grigore C., and Philippe Coiffet. EasyBib. Virtual Reality

Technology. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley-Interscience, 2003. Idea Group Inc., 2006. 15 July 2015. PDF file.

Keshav. "Fariko.Impact Crowned First Call of Duty Champions." Charlie INTEL. Vicinity Network, 07 Apr. 2013. Web. 14 July 2015.

Kock, Ned. EasyBib. "A Basic Definition of E-Collaboration." IGI Global, 2008. 15 July 2015. PDF file.

Makuch, Eddie. "175 Million Call of Duty Games Sold to Date, Still Fewer Than GTA." GameSpot. CBS Interactive Inc., 26 Mar. 2015. Web. 07 July 2015. Mizokami, Kyle. "The 5 Deadliest Guns of Modern War." The National

Interest. 13 Nov. 2014. Web. 09 July 2015. "The Oculus Rift Will Battle PS4 And Xbox One at E3." Forbes. Forbes

Magazine, 8 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 July 2015. Owens, Jeremy C. "Facebook Buys Virtual-Reality Startup Oculus." San

Jose Mercury News Business. San Jose Mercury News, 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 July 2015.

Robertson, Adi. "The Virtuix Omni Gaming Treadmill Is Finally a Finished

Product." The Verge. Vox Media Inc., 07 Jan. 2015. Web. 17 July 2015.

Snow, Blake. "Why Most People Don't Finish Video Games." CNN. Cable

News Network, 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 09 July 2015.

Starr, Michelle. "Oculus VR Buys Hand-tracking Expert Nimble VR." CNET. CBS Interactive Inc., 11 Dec. 2014. Web. 18 July 2015.

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Their, Dave. "I Just Got A Preview Of Oculus Rift -- And Facebook's – Killer App." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 19 June 2015. Web. 18 July 2015.

Zuckerberg, Mark. Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 18 July 2015

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Appendix A: The Oculus Rift VR Headset

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Appendix B: Nimble VR Tracker

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