Virtual reality therapy? New arcade in South Bend hopes to offer more than games – South Bend Tribune

SOUTH BEND Adell Badgett has always been a tinkerer.

Even as a child, he was one of those people who had to know how something worked, even if that meant opening that thing up to get a look at the gears or the wires. Even if that meant making the adults in his life mad.

Somebody was always yelling at me for taking stuff apart," he said. "But that has always been a passion of mine."

Badgett is now the owner of the virtual reality gaming arcade businessDellstarVR, which opened recently in the 200 block of West Colfax Street in downtown South Bend.

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Badgetts willingness to search for possibilities that exist beneath the surface extends to his business, which he runs with the help of his niece, Belinda Page.

Like most children of the 1990s, Badgett grew up playing video games.

But the interest for me was not about playing games, he said. It was getting behind the games and to the technology.

Badgett, 41, bought his son a VR headset for Christmas in 2019, and that offered a chance to learn more about thetechnology anditspotential.

"You know how the internet is, they send you all this related stuff because they have your information," Badgett said.

Soon, he was receiving updates about games, but more importantly about advances in VR technology.

"I was seeing all this information popping up on my feed, so I am seeing how it is progressing and how it is becoming more affordable," he recalled.

Badgett was also reading about the growing VR arcade industry, mostly in big cities, although there are some arcades in Michiana. He and his son visited an arcade in Chicago and he was convinced he could start his own business.

Badgett worked a variety of jobs over the years, including in construction. He was working as a delivery man in early 2020 but was laid off when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Soon after, he decided to open the VR arcade.

I had built a computer and I already had a headset, sothe only problem was how to get the computer to send information to that headset wirelessly, he said.

Once Badgett figured that out, he used money that he saved and pulled funds from his investment account to start the arcade.

Page said the business is growing at a slow but steady pace.

We want to keep it steady, but the people who have come have had a really good time, she said. We are trying to focus on hosting birthday parties, where people rent the space for two hours and we order pizza ... and they get a whole cooler of drinks. We are trying to offer an experience.

Beyond gaming, Badgett now wants to take another step. After opening the arcade, he soon realized that VR could be a way to connect people in communities with a dearth of mental health services to providers of those services.

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That realization came from Badgetts personal struggles with anxiety and depression, which he has dealt with since childhood.Badgett said he has also struggled to find Blacktherapists who could provide culturally sensitive treatment but was eventually able to locate one in South Bend.

His sessions started in early 2020 andmoved to Zoombecause of the pandemic.

Badgett started using virtual realityexerciseprograms as a way to deal with stress. His therapist decided to buy a VRheadset, andthe two started conducting counseling sessions via virtual reality.

They created avatars for themselves and held sessions in arelaxing virtual space.

The environment that we went into was like a loft space with afireplace and sectional couch, he said. The lighting was dimmed down and it was a Zen type of environment.

Studies on the potential of virtual reality to treat anxiety and other disorders date to the 1990s, according to a recent article in the New York Times, with VR therapy slowly growing across the country as technology improves and headsets become cheaper.

Badgett's ultimate aspiration forDellstarVR is for the business to connect people fromunder-servedcommunities with therapists, and to useVR as an alternative way to provide counseling services.

It's only an idea for now, but one that Badgett says he's willing to take the necessary steps to make happen. He is convinced VR therapy can help a range of children and adults.

It can be hard to get kids to open up," he said. "But if you put them in a different kind of environment, like out in space or sitting on a trainor doing something that they like to do, now you have a chance to get them to open up."

Email South Bend Tribune reporter Howard Dukes at hdukes@gannett.com

Follow him on Twitter:@DukesHoward

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Virtual reality therapy? New arcade in South Bend hopes to offer more than games - South Bend Tribune