‘HeadOffice.Space’ Brings VR Coworking To The Moon

Companies can host virtual events and secure their own private spaces on “Moon Valley” using this ambitious VR coworking platform.

How we work, play, learn, entertain, gather together, and experience the world isn’t just changing – it’s a whirlwind of disruption. Today, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, Pokemon Go, and more are shared virtual play spaces designed to meet up, build worlds, do battle, buy virtual goods, dance-off, and jam out.

So what does that mean for the future of work?

HeadOffice.Space announced their premier space for connection, it’s the world’s first metaverse on the moon designed for the ever-changing way remote teams work, play, learn, and explore together.

Built on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, the world’s most advanced real-time 3D creation tool that powers Fortnite, HeadOffice.Space is breaking boundaries beyond the break room by providing remote teams space for connection with virtual headquarters, collaborative community clubhouses, virtual events, concerts, summits, gamified gatherings, and virtual classrooms.

I had the opportunity to check out HeadOffice.Space with a number of people from around the world. We looked at daily schedules in the Squad Pods, sketched on the whiteboards in the Immersion Rooms, looked at a 3D model around a holographic table in the R&D Lab, attended a virtual meditation class in the Wellness Center, toured the Studio Room, jammed out on the Main Stage, walked on the moon and more.

“People have been collaborating remotely in games like The Sims and Second Life for almost 20 years and most recently with Fortnite and Roblox among others. Remote collaboration has enabled strangers from different parts of the world to fight wars, build cities and accomplish incredible quests working together, forming friendships, teams, “clans” and entire communities ever since,” said Marco Carvalho, CEO of HeadOffice.Space.

“We noticed that not only do people communicate better in these environments but they are able to stay for longer periods of time without feeling fatigued, they make more friends and develop a deeper sense of belonging and community compared to standard video conferencing platforms. We took these incredible tools and “workified” them, making them persistent, secure, and integrated with the most important business and communication tools, for the optimal headquarters.”

Built for remote teams such as startups, innovative global organizations, and educational institutions, participants are able to join or host events and secure their own private spaces on “Moon Valley.” Larger, enterprise-level organizations can even secure a customized, branded planet. HeadOffice.Space offers 20+ spaces to choose from. A few examples include:

Squadpods: Private, secure office space for teams to customize, meet and collaborate with work tools they know and love.
Immersion Rooms: Enable fully immersive onboarding and training sessions, share experiences, knowledge and create unimaginable and unforgettable moments in these fully customizable rooms.
Studio Rooms: Create interviews, events, videos and more. Livestream to millions of people or save it to video.
Wellness Center: Curated experiences and classes designed for mind, body and soul. Join a yoga session with your team, meditate in space or just relax with easy breathing exercises.
Main Stage: Events and unlimited guests, bring your concert, key note and more to the Metaverse.

Additional trade show event centers, Metaversity, sports arenas, and gamified experiences are in development. Pricing is freemium with per-event or monthly options and enterprise-level customization options available.

Limitless potential beyond boundaries and imagination

Evolving the future of work beyond retro 8-bit experiences from yesteryear or replicating a traditional office scene packed with virtual Formica tables and water coolers, HeadOffice is creating a fantastical unimaginable workplace without limitations.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Epic Games’ Head of Brand Phil Rampulla said, “One of the questions we always ask [of collaborators] at the very beginning is what is something that you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t because of any limitations, whether it be gravity, seating or anything else. Whether they’re athletes, writers, musicians, directors, or even stand-up comedians, we view our space as a place to do the impossible.”

HeadOffice.Space is embracing the same spirit as they build out the “Moon Valley” community and work with brands to create their own planets. While Moon Valley has a future space theme, brands have options to customize spaces in a way that’s right for them, whether it be a Cybertron-like planet, wild racetrack, underwater paradise, or inside a disco ball. The custom planet option allows brands to create an extended experience for their brand, culture, and values.

Is HeadOffice.Space a Metaverse? It might depend on which academic you are speaking to or definition; however according to A Framework for the Metaverse by Matthew Ball, who is tracking the emergence of the Metaverse around eight core categories—Hardware, Networking, Compute, Virtual Platforms, Interchange Tools and Standards, Payments, Metaverse Content, Services, and Assets, and Evolving User + Business Behaviors—HeadOffice.Space is probably one of the top metaverses for work under the current framework.

Ultimate Interoperability

Where a slew of virtual event and collaboration platforms have rolled out, every platform has its own flavor. What’s exciting about HeadOffice.Space is that it is interoperable, flexible, and accessible across multiple platforms, with Mac, iOS, Android, Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, and Oculus Quest support currently in development.

While every employer and employee might not be able to purchase an Oculus Quest, HeadOffice.Space is creating a Metaverse that is interoperable and accessible to everyone from the tech-savvy VR enthusiast to everyday people with PCs, Macs, mobile devices, and even Google Cardboard.

Webtools for the way people work

While other platforms exist, they are not all designed for the way that people actually collaborate and work. HeadOffice.Space is leveraging almost every web-based collaboration tool imaginable, Youtube, Twitch, Google Slides, Sheets, Excel, Word, Airtable, Miro, Mural, PowerBI, Powerpoint among others.

“HeadOffice.Space is not the Linkedin of the metaverse, it is more of the evolution of Fortnite and Roblox in the workplace. When you are at HeadOffice.Space you feel like you are working side-by-side with your team it doesn’t matter if the camera is on or the mic you have the option to engage and interact to be the best you and interact in a way that works for you and your team with the tools that matter most,” stated Ivan Zorn, Co-Founder, and CMO.

Persistent, Presence and Powerhouse Partnerships

Participants move around “Moon Valley,” a persistent 3D world with a continuous existence and evolution, time does not stop and experiences do not break from room to room, they flow and move from place to place. Participants are astronaut avatars, with the ability to create their own custom avatars through HeadOffice.Space’s partnership with Ready Player Me included a premium feature.

“I’m certain people will spend more time in work-related game-like experiences in the future. We do that already with our team in traditional games and VR apps; specialized work experiences like HeadOffice.Space will make that experience even better,” said Timmu Tõke, CEO at Wolf3D.

“Ready Player Me is an avatar solution for companies like HeadOffice. In every 3D environment, the participant is represented as an avatar. It’s literally who you are in the virtual world and is thus very important. Ready Player Me is a great solution, making it easy for developers to include avatars in their worlds and giving end-users an awesome avatar they love,” added Tõke.

Spatial audio allows participants to have conversations as they would in real life. Sounds are perceived according to the position of each avatar in the room, enabling more natural conversations, unlike traditional video conferencing platforms. Participants can also communicate via chat, emotes (emotions via Avatar animations), or jump into a video conferencing room to engage with a specific group or host presentations with larger team members and outside guests.

“We designed HeadOffice.Space with leading-edge security in mind, as a result, a publicly-traded cybersecurity company has partnered with us to implement our platform across their global organization. We collect zero data from participants, our video conferencing is HIPPA compliant and our servers do not store personal identification information. We do not require participants to have specific social media accounts to access our platform,” added Gillard Araujo, Co-Founder and CTO at HeadOffice.Space.

Community, Culture, Creativity and Connection

HeadOffice.Space enables companies to embrace remote work in a way that builds a sense of belonging, fosters a culture of connection, community, creativity, and productivity while saving money on physical offices.

According to the 2021 State of Remote Work by Buffer, current challenges with remote work include communication / collaboration (17%), loneliness (19%) and staying motivated (12%).
The Metaverse Market is anticipated to grow 509% from $46 billion in 2020 to $280 billion by 2025 (Strategy & Analytics Inc.).
73% of teams will have remote workers by 2028 (Upwork).
Remote work would save businesses over $700 billion a year in real estate, electricity, absenteeism, and turnover and productivity (Global Workplace Analytics).

With the rise in remote work, companies are looking for new ways to collaborate and create a better-connected culture; we continue to see significant growth in remote events, collaboration platforms, and the Metaverse. HeadOffice.Space brings together the best of these experiences in a way that is accessible to innovative businesses of all sizes, leveraging a breadth of platforms and web-based tools that people work with every day.

HeadOffice.Space is currently inviting select companies to participate in their early beta program. Visit https://www.headoffice.space/ to find out how to apply.

Feature Image Credit: HeadOffice.Space

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