Imagine not being able to see a 3D movie or having little to no depth perception. In his session. James Blaha CEO of Vivid Vision is familiar with ambliyopia (lazy eye) and is working to treat it. In his session during Casual Connect USA, Perceptual Learning Games in Virtual Reality, James shares the leaps and bounds that his company is conducting on VR treating lazy eye. Rather than patching the good eye when you are young and “willfully blinding yourself”, Vivid Vision applies the techniques to treat lazy eye using virtual reality. In one of their games, “the bricks outside the arena are shown brighter to the weak eye and dimmer to the strong eye so this helps overcome the suppression of the weak eye . . .. [To paly this game], we are basically requiring that you have to use both eyes together and they have to be fused on the same image.” It is with this technology that James has seen vast improvement in his own vision.
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James Blaha is a man with a truly unique perception of the potential of games. In his quest to improve his own vision, he has uncovered an entirely new way to help others with similar problems.
His interest in the game industry began with creating his own games on the web just for fun. As he says, “I just decided I would try to do it and dove right in.” And there he discovered the fun of experimenting and discovering exactly the right gameplay.
Seeing in 3D
In late 2014, James began working on a virtual reality game for people with lazy eye (amblyopia). He originally began experimenting with VR to try to improve his own amblyopia and strabismus. During the process, he saw in 3D for the first time in his life. Immediately he dropped everything else to start the company now known as Vivid Vision in order to continue working on the concept.
His previous career encompassed a variety of different proficiencies that have been useful in the work he does today. These include game 
development, web development, design, machine learning and music. As CEO of a company, he is constantly faced with new situations; the diversity of his experience has helped prepare him to deal with these challenges.
While working on Vivid Vision, James discovered it is difficult to break into the medical field if you are an outsider. He found that if he read the many medical papers in his subject area he was able to comprehend and hold his own in conversations with the researchers in the industry. And once he could demonstrate knowledge, people were willing to engage with him and offer help.
Testing Features and Functionality
He has retained his passion for both machine learning and music; in fact, if he were not involved with Vivid Vision he would be working in one of these areas. Currently he spends his free time using machine learning to create music and art.
The inspiration to begin his indie project came through reading papers on lazy eye with the hope of improving his own vision, but as with all completely new ventures, getting the product ready to use is a long process. He tests early and often with private alphas and betas, sending out a test build just as soon as it seems stable enough to play.
These playtests are much more than tests of gameplay. They must also test how the visual system responds to different visual stimuli. Adding to the complexity of the testing are users with unique vision issues who, as a result, will perceive the stimuli in different ways.
Both the features and functionality must be thoroughly tested before each release, and every feature must pass before the patch goes out. The company constantly looks for new players to test the games, and feedback from players comes in continuously. Vivid Vision does not release a final version of a game; instead, they have a series of minigames to which they continue adding new games, levels and features.
The quality of the team is crucial to the success of the projects. Fortunately, this team has worked together smoothly for years without any serious complications. When looking for members, James looked for people with intelligence, autonomy and the ability to learn new things. The most difficult people to find have been those with ability in both art and coding.
Gamifying the Future
James sees a bright future ahead with the gamifying of more and more areas not typically thought of as games: not only medicine, but also such things as productivity and education. Besides helping to improve vision, he believes games can teach children strategic thinking, math, vocabulary, ethics and almost anything else. And the best way to get children involved in something, including game development, is to interest them in it, then they motivate themselves to learn how.
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