Hero Zone: Where Social VR Meets Real-World Revenue -
Hero Zone: Where Social VR Meets Real-World Revenue -
Every company on this map is a LEXRA member. The map covers the four layers of location-based entertainment (LBE): capital; creation and distribution; enablement; and audience engagement; and the 16 roles companies play, from funding VR attractions to operating the venues that run them.
Funds the industry’s development and growth: venue investments, tech startups, and stakes in larger entertainment chains.
The Content Pipeline
Owns the storytelling IP or consumer brand behind experiences: movie studios, streamers, sports leagues.
Funds and directs the development of experiences, working with developers to bring new concepts to life.
The technical creators who build the games and experiences.
The content channel: bringing creators’ titles into locations and supplying operators with experiences.
Complete, ready-to-run attractions that install inside an existing venue — a new revenue center for FECs, arcades, and escape rooms.
The whole package: brand, storefront format, and full operating stack, for buyers entering the industry.
The Glue
The essential hardware and physical tech: headsets, tracking, motion capture, networking, arena construction.
Software that runs the operation: experience launchers and operations systems, sold directly to operators.
Professional support across the venue lifecycle: systems integration, installation, maintenance, staff training, and consulting.
Specialized add-on hardware — haptics, wind, heat, scent, motion — that deepens immersion.
Software and tech for the people building experiences: engines, creation platforms, and middleware for creators and developers.
The talent pipeline: universities, colleges, and research labs educating the industry’s next generation and advancing the field through academic research.
The Retail Layer
Controls the physical real estate — malls, theme parks, resorts — where experiences live.
Runs venues open to the public, from dedicated VR arenas to mobile and touring operations.
The booking and ticketing layer: the direct financial relationship with the audience.
LEXRA is the trade association for the location-based entertainment industry. Every company on this map is a member, and membership is how a company gets on it.
Join LEXRAThe LBXR Ecosystem Map shows how the location-based entertainment (LBE) industry fits together. It covers 16 roles across four layers: capital, creation and distribution, enablement, and audience engagement. Under each role sit the LEXRA member companies active in it.
Location-based entertainment is entertainment people visit rather than play at home: family entertainment centers, arcades, museums, theme parks, and dedicated venues. This map covers the immersive slice of LBE, where VR attractions, free-roam arenas, and augmented and mixed reality experiences drive the visit.
Fifteen. Capital funds the industry. Creation and distribution covers the companies that make and move content, from IP and brand owners to producers, developers, distributors, and turnkey suppliers. Enablement supplies the tech stack, from headsets and platforms to peripherals and creator tools. Audience engagement covers the locations, operators, and ticketing that reach the public. A company holds every role it earns, so many members appear under more than one.
A VR attraction is a commercial VR experience or system built for public venues such as arcades, FECs, museums, and theme parks. It differs from home VR in being designed for repeat multi-guest use, staffed operation, and revenue per session.
XR stands for extended reality, the umbrella term for virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. LEXRA covers all three because location-based experiences span them: VR arenas and attractions, AR overlays in museums and theme parks, and MR experiences that blend digital content with the physical space. More terms are defined in the glossary.
