Have you ever felt better after singing in the shower? Well, serial game entrepreneur Mike Wilson thinks you’ll feel better singing in virtual reality.

Wilson, the cofounder of Devolver Digital, is launching Realize Music, a new venture that fuses gaming and music in the form of a sing-a-long music app for virtual reality.

Started with Mark Roemer, Realize Music: Sing is an innovative virtual reality application that revolutionizes the way we engage with popular music, Wilson said in an interview with GamesBeat. He says we have all forgotten just how therapeutic it can be to sing your heart out.

By creating immersive audio-visual journeys while utilizing vocalization for its proven therapeutic benefits, Realize Music: Sing offers a unique combination of entertainment and wellness that encourages better breathing, reduces stress, promotes relaxation, and releases endorphins.

The subscription-based app will launch in North America on January 23, 2025, and will feature the largest music library ever included in any video game.

In fact, the music collection is larger than any karaoke room’s library too, and new music will be dropping every week. Realize Music: Sing will launch exclusively on the Meta Quest platform, with an introductory subscription discounted price of $10 per month or $100 for an annual subscription.

Future releases for Apple, Samsung, and Sony PSVR2, as well as adaptations for mobile, PC/Mac, smart TV, and other media, will follow.

Wilson has a rich background in digital media and wellness focused on harnessing technology to improve human happiness. He has been involved in producing and publishing more than 100 game titles, including massive global hits such as Doom, Quake, Max Payne, Hotline Miami, and, most recently, Fall Guys, which led to Devolver’s $1 billion IPO in 2021.

Wilson has financed most of the Las Vegas-based project with his own money, which he has plenty of after the IPO of Devolver.

He’s joined by the company’s CEO, music and wellness industry expert Mark Roemer, who has spent 20-plus years working at the intersection of gaming, tech, marketing, distribution, wellness, and content creation. The Realize team is rounded out by industry veterans from Sony, Meta, Rockstar Games, and the Guitar Hero franchise, among others.

“I come from a background in media and entertainment and I love the way those mediums now intersect with new technologies, allowing for completely new ways to experience the music that matters most to us,” Roemer said in a statement. “For those of us who really love music, and are moved emotionally and transported by it, we already know that music is medicine, and that it is powerful and can change our state. I am thrilled to offer people a novel, intimate, and participatory experience of their favorite songs.”

Wilson noted that nursing homes often have singing because they understand the power of music to make people feel better.

“After Devolver Digital’s IPO and launching Medicinal Media, I’ve turned my focus to building new experiences that touch on personal wellness to inspire people, promote personal confidence, and get them comfortable in their own skin at home,” said Wilson. “So when we started to build Realize Music: Sing, there was a conscious effort to break down barriers and give people the opportunity to express in private and find themselves through a deeper connection with music without fear of judgment.”

Key features of Realize Music: Sing

Extensive Music Library: Access more than 1 million songs, updated weekly, ensuring a vast and ever-expanding selection to suit every musical taste and mood.

Voice-Reactive Environments: Engage with dynamic visuals that respond to your singing, creating a deeply immersive experience where your voice shapes the world around you. New worlds dropping bi-weekly!

Lyric Visualization: Watch lyrics transform into captivating visual effects as you sing, enhancing the emotional and sensory connection to the music.

Customizable Settings: Personalize your environment and experience by selecting different settings and visual themes, making each session uniquely yours.

Interactive Activities: Enhance your musical journey with 3D painting and air drumming activities synchronized with the music, adding layers of creativity and interaction and getting the rest of your body moving for additional benefit.

Advanced Navigation: Utilize seamless voice-command navigation for an intuitive and hands-free experience, allowing you to focus entirely on the music.

Community Playlists: Create, share, and explore playlists with others, fostering a collaborative and social musical environment.

Therapeutic Benefits: Use vocalization for stress reduction and relaxation, tapping into the specific therapeutic power of music and singing to enhance well-being and personal expression.

Invite Your Friends Over: Use your headset’s ability to cast users’ view to a smart TV, phone or computer for more social settings.

Origins

Wilson said the project originally started at his previous company, Deepwell. He said it became a bigger company “that needed to be its own thing.” And he didn’t really want to interface with the Food and Drug Administration in getting approval to do it.

The effort spun out of Deepwell and got a grant from Meta, which has a whole section of its virtual reality app store dedicated to wellness.

“That’s where this will live. It’s not a game,” Wilson said. “It’s singing for personal wellness.”

The biggest effort in the project has been negotiating blanket license deals with the giant music companies to get more than a million songs for people to sing along with. The effort took 15 months to pull together licenses from Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. But Wilson and the team decided they needed a near unlimited number of songs for sing alongs.

“It’s unlike karaoke in that you sing along with your favorite artists instead of having your voice isolated, which would be jarring for the vast majority of us who don’t sing on a regular basis,” Wilson said. “It’s really beautiful to sing in an immersive environment. You can attach a visual theme to each song to take you on a specific journey.”

While it is reminiscent of music visualizers, Wilson doesn’t consider it to be a game because there is no “fail state” where you can lose the game because your singing sucks.

“This is why the vast majority of people just never will sing in front of even one other person,” he said. “That’s a real shame because it’s a practice that’s been around for as long as humans. And it’s very good for you. It’s very good. It’s something we’ve lost. Most of us don’t sing or dance anymore in our Western culture unless we’re naturally gifted at it or professionals.”

The fear of judgment is so strong, Wilson said.

“It kind of hit me that VR is inherently a private place for most people. It’s just not a very social thing to do with other people in the room. We have often thought of singing as a performative thing to be judged by other people and it doesn’t have to be like that,” Wilson said. “Now I’ve sung more this year than I ever have in my all the years of my life combined. It’s a consistenly reliable way to release endorphins. And even though it’s not a game, you get those feelings of mastery learning the lyrics.”

Wilson said he likes to sing for 30 minutes at a time.

As for marketing, Wilson said that’s a wonderful puzzle to solve, but he notes the wellness section of the Meta app store is a good place to start. And the company will release dedicated artist packs for fans.

“It’s for things that are good for people,” he said.