I’ve always loved games. As a kid, my friends and I filled entire rooms with game worlds and instruction booklets made from graph paper. Later, after long shifts as a line cook, I taught myself to code to bring my games to life. Today, games are not just my passion but my career. But here’s the question I keep asking: can games do more than entertain? Can they help us live better lives?
As I’ve grown older, I’ve thought deeply about how games fit into a purposeful life. With less free time and more responsibility, I often wonder: Is playing a game a meaningful use of time? Over the past four years, I’ve worked closely with adults aged 21 to 102, gaining profound insights into how we grow, adapt, and connect. I’ve come to believe that games can do more than entertain—they can help us flourish at every stage of life.
Because if we are going to spend so much of our lives playing games, we should expect them to help us live a better overall life.
I’m thrilled that 2024 brought the question of games into focus for me and my company, VRTogether. Looking back on everything VRTogether has accomplished–stretching as far back as my first commercial VR game, Daydream Blue, in 2015–it’s clear that VRTogether is about creating games that make a positive impact. Because if we are going to spend so much of our lives playing games, we should expect them to help us live a better overall life.
2024 was a landmark year for VRTogether. Here’s a glimpse at what we’ve accomplished:
Research Breakthroughs: We began an NIH-funded project, VR Singing Club, to help older adults delay the onset - and mitigate the effects of - dementia. Early results are promising, showing how games can support cognitive health.
Product Launches: Thanks to a Kentucky Matching Funds grant, we launched VR Singing Club on the Meta Horizon store, and its fanbase continues to grow.
Creative Innovations: We launched, Sleigh Songs, a winter wonderland singing experience, that brought joy to our team and our users!
These successes made it clear that VRTogether has built a foundation for a virtual reality studio that makes a certain type of game–one that promotes positive outcomes, remains fun and engaging, and improves health and wellness. I call these Games for Flourishing. That is VRTogether’s mission: to create games for flourishing through joy, wonder, connection, community, and accessibility. In a world where technology can often feel isolating, we’re committed to making games that bring people together and improve lives.
With fresh funding, innovative projects, and big ideas, 2025 promises to be our most impactful year yet. We’re thrilled to announce another Phase I SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health! This grant, funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, will support deploying our unique technology in the intensive care unit. I’ll share more about this project soon, but we’re thrilled by our amazing collaborators and preliminary data. We’ll also wrap up Phase I research for VR Singing Club, paving the way for Phase II, and continue improving the app for users on the Meta store. Plus, we’re prototyping exciting new applications for our community of supporters—who knows, we might even launch another game this year!
We’re a small but passionate team of six with a bold vision: to create games that help people flourish. If this resonates with you, we’d love your support. Sign up for updates to join us on this journey and be the first to hear about our latest innovations, experiments, and releases. Together, we can create games that truly make a difference.
Thanks for reading.
-Richard, Founder & CEO
P.S. If you're unfamiliar with what VRTogether does, we develop VR, AR, and mixed-reality games to help people flourish. We combine scientific research with game design to create experiences that spark joy, connection, and well-being.
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