This Week In The Business: Dizzying Days For VR

This Week In The Business: Dizzying Days For VR

$US400 ($511) — The current asking price of an Oculus Rift and Touch Controllers bundle. As recently as March, it was $US800 ($1022).

QUOTE | “We used to invest $US100K, $US200K, but we don’t have to do that so much anymore because those people can get paid out [from the install base].” — Oculus VP of content Jason Rubin explains why the company is no longer investing its money in smaller VR projects.

QUOTE | “We don’t have a product to unveil at this time, however we can confirm we’re making several significant technology investments in the standalone VR category.” — An Oculus response to reports that the company is planning a $US200 ($255) stand-alone VR headset for launch next year, in addition to the wireless version of the Rift being developed under the codename Santa Cruz.

QUOTE | “The biggest risk is because the technology’s so new, nothing’s staying still long enough to get an installed base before they’re off to a new thing and then the [next] new thing. I’m aware of things coming down the pike that are really exciting but, you think, of course, the installed base is back to zero.” — Climax Studios CEO Simon Gardner identifies one current threat to VR’s viability.

QUOTE | “One of the things that we are all dealing with is that I find the sites that focus on VR really get what we’re doing and what the trade-offs are. And, oftentimes, these people who are not really VR sites, the reviewers are just shredding products because they’re making comparisons to a PC experience.” — inXile CEO Brian Fargo takes issue with how general gaming sites have been reviewing VR titles.

QUOTE | “They are losing their interest in 3DS titles as well, simply because of Switch. Everybody’s talking about Switch, Switch, Switch!” — Natsume CEO Hiro Maekawa explains why the next Harvest Moon title is moving from 3DS to Switch (and PS4 and PC) because Nintendo and its fans are quickly dropping the handheld in favour of the hybrid.

QUOTE | “Just so we’re clear on my opinion: the price increase for Ark is ****ing OUTRAGEOUS.” — Day Z designer and RocketWerkz CEO Dean Hall is bluntly critical of Studio Wildcard’s recent decision to double the price of Ark: Survival Evolved from $US30 ($38) to $US60 ($77) as it prepares to launch out of Early Access.

QUOTE | “All of these changes have given us a lot of confidence that when a lot of games are coming through the system, they’re actually able to reach the right customers. And if there are games coming through the system that nobody’s actually interested in, they actually end up not showing up to very many people.” — Valve’s Alden Krol believes discoverability updates have made it so an abundance of “low effort, low quality” games flooding Steam would not negatively impact developers of good games.

QUOTE | “I think there’s a little cowardice when you don’t want to tell a specific story and leave everything to the audience. It feels a little bit like you don’t actually have the answer.” — Investigate North creative director Neils Wetterberg explains why he wants the company’s game Aporia to tell a very specific story despite having no words or dialogue.

QUOTE | “A lot of game depictions of war are not accurate emotionally, are not accurate operationally, even if they’re accurate visually. And as we get towards ever more immersive experiences we have a responsibility to represent that moral reasoning.” — Improbable VP of corporate development Oliver Lewis was inspired by games that embrace that responsibility to form the Near Future Society, a charitable foundation supporting the positive impact games can have on the world.

QUOTE | “Since we’re an open marketplace, there have been attempts at scamming in the past, but we tend to always catch them before anything happens. This time was a bit different.” — An itch.io representative explains how the indie-friendly storefront has changed how it works to prevent scammers from selling pirated games through its site.


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