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SALT LAKE CITY — There's a little bit of everything at The Gateway. At Virtualities, the doors are wide open inviting anyone who enters into an alternate reality.
It's part arcade, part virtual reality cinema.
"You put on the gaming equipment and you're literally transported into outer space or into an alley way," said Jessica Brown Hamlett, an employee of Virtualities.
It's oddly quiet when you walk in. You won't hear the typical arcade sounds because the customers are enveloped in their own world.
"Our most popular game is the multiplayer killer zombie game," Brown Hamlett said.
There's something different about this store. Sure you can shoot zombies or ride roller coasters, but you have the opportunity to look through the eyes of someone else.
"I was just in Nepal after the earthquake," said customer Zack Smyly.
Real life events. Real life suffering.
"I swear it looks like some of the people are looking you right in the eye," Smyly said. "It makes you kind of understand how the people there may be feeling."
It's something researchers at Standford call "Empathy at Scale." They've found people are more likely to be empathetic to the suffering of people through virtual reality than by just watching a video on a TV screen.
"I feel like you see people (who come in the store) become a little more humble and caring about the world around them," Brown Hamlett said.
It's something the owner of this new store is hoping will spread.
"It's like they're coming back from a journey," Brown Hamlett said. "Then you go and experience something and you're the same person, but you're changed."
There's a little bit of everything at The Gateway, even a portal into another world.
