Boston VR Newsletter - June 2025 Edition

The organizers and volunteers of Boston VR are continuing our monthly socials at TimeOut Market.

Source of Photo: Meetup.com

For this month’s newsletter, I had the pleasure of obtaining a brief interview with Casey Armstrong—president of Boston VR, scrum master, XR developer, technical writer, and AI instructor, who shares with us his story into XR, wisdom he’s learned, and his perspectives on the future of virtual reality.

Chris: Thank you so much for this time. So to start, what kind of work do you do—or have you done—in XR, and how did you get into the industry?

Casey: After a career change from copywriter to Technical Writer in 2018, I decided to pick XR development as the kind of developer documentation to focus on. I was in love with the Oculus Rift Demos at Best Buy at the time, and I was convinced VR was the future of work. I had just graduated from Portland State University with a degree in Technical Writing, and my wife was accepted into school here in Boston. So, after we moved, I immediately began volunteering with the Brookline Interactive Group to start networking.

B.I.G. had me create guides for their XR equipment rental kits. It was a great experience, and it led to me meeting some of the founders of XR Terra, an XR development and design bootcamp. They were starting up, and along with a few developers and designers, I came on to help them create the curriculum. I stayed with XR Terra for a few years until, after seeing my students go onto big success, I decided to become more technical myself; I learned C#, took the Unity Pathway and did a bootcamp myself.

From there, I went on to work with a number of XR development shops as a scrum master and UX designer. Today, unfortunately, I may be giving up on XR in terms of the tech stack because of the slowdown affecting everyone in our industry. However, I have not given up on software development…. I am currently working a day job while seeking a scrum master position with a tech company in Boston. I also have been offering monthly workshops on vibe coding. Keep your eye out for the next one as I publish them on Eventbrite.

Chris: What a journey! I appreciate your honest thoughts on the industry…which leads to me to my next question: What advice would you give to someone just starting in XR professionally?

Casey: Advice? Maybe just… wait. In terms of startups, investment from companies in XR projects, and funding coming directly from consumers, it will be quiet for another year or more until we see a new headset from a large company like Apple, Google, or Meta, etc. get the interest of the business world again. In the meantime, you can pursue XR in medical applications, workforce training, and education if you are ok with smaller audiences and limited funding.

Furthermore, it will be interesting to see how far vibe coding in XR dev environments will take us in the next year alone. I myself can build simple web XR game prototypes in an afternoon (such as a beat saber clone with a twist), and I'm very much a beginner XR dev. Also, Unity Muse and Meta's vibe-coding style dev platforms continues to make strides as AI models become more powerful (by the week/month!)

Casey with Alvin W. Graylin, author of Our Next Reality, who is a respected leader in the XR industry, entrepreneur, technology pioneer, and former China president of HTC between 2016 and 2023.

In short, my main advice now is to go the XR path only if you are ready to sell your enthusiasm for it every single day. At Boston VR, we all know that XR is the future, but the reality of the market is that the burden is upon us to convince other people of that.

I might also add that while XR is very obviously (to me) a way to save money, be efficient, engage customers and employees, learn faster, and make people feel good in general, just remember that just because a technology exists does not mean people will use it. I saw this happen earlier in my career 2009-2013 with “Crowdsourcing”. I used to be a subject matter expert in that field: microtasking, crowdfunding, and open innovation. Those too were all technologies that were vastly under-explored and under utilized. Sad to say XR may be in that bucket too for a while.

Chris: What excites you most about this industry?

Casey: The most exciting thing about XR, for me, is finding new ways to do information work from facilitating meetings and group-decison-making in VR, sorting through data or images, or browsing the web. I am especially excited to try Google’s new AI assistant features in XR. I love information science, and XR + AI may very well turn out to be its most powerful incarnation yet.

Chris: For fun, do you have a favorite app (or game)?

Casey: Super Hot, BeatSaber, and WanderVR are my absolute faves.

For more info on Casey and his work,

Please visit his Linked-In here

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From Publisher’s Website:

“If you want to understand the most immersive new communications medium to come along since cinema…I’d suggest starting with Mr. Bailenson’s [book]. It’s short, it’s levelheaded and it tells you what you need to know. Among other things, the book answers the sometimes vexing question of what VR is actually good for.”

—Wall Street Journal

“Few people alive know as much about VR as Jeremy Bailenson. For decades he’s been researching how VR affects humans. Read this before you enter this new world.”

—Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired and author of The Inevitable

“Remarkably interesting... People interested in the current state of virtual reality’s applications will enjoy Bailenson.”

—New York Times

“Virtual reality is changing the way athletes train. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand and hone performance through VR.”

—Joe Montana, Hall of Fame quarterback

“Jeremy Bailenson’s work is unflinching and brave. He helps us see more of our vulnerabilities and our potential than ever before. This book describes the edge of human self-knowledge, and a precipice of human foibles to avoid.”

—Jaron Lanier, VR pioneer and author of You Are Not A Gadget

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Source: https://dreamscapelearn.asu.edu/

Source: YouTube

For more QQs in the realm of creative thinking, follow my X.com experiment @letsaskqqs.

-Chris

My Linked-In (new to site) is here

Boston VR is committed to fostering a welcoming and innovative community for XR enthusiasts and professionals.

Whether you're a developer, creator, researcher, or just plain curious, we're excited to explore the future of XR with you.

For more detailed discussions and to share your thoughts or experiences, don't hesitate to join us at our next meetup or reach out through our community channels.

See you in the virtual world!

To join, click here

Email Casey We need help with marketing, event planning, dev jams, sponsorship, and more!

AMXRA is the premier medical society advancing the science and practice of medical extended reality, https://amxra.org/.

AMXRA has generously committed to being a premium sponsor for Boston VR over the coming years. We are immensely grateful for their support and partnership in exploring the forefront of XR technology.