The DeanBeat: Seattle makes its move to become the capital of virtual reality startups

Here’s a toast to new beginnings. These happen over and over in the game business, where something captures the hearts of gamers and leads them down a new path of fun. That’s what I saw a lot of this week at the SEA VR event, a celebration of virtual reality technology in Seattle.

The event was created by startup Envelop VR, Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures, and the Allen-funded Living Computer Museum. The SEA VR event had 19 exhibitors, with more than a dozen of them local to Seattle. They were all inspired by Oculus VR, the maker of the Oculus Rift VR goggles and a startup that was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion earlier this year. That deal has made a lot of VR skeptics seasick from the hype associated with virtual reality. But the organizers of the event believe that virtual reality is the next big thing.