Nate Mitchell, cofounder of Oculus VR, said Facebook continues to see the point of stoking VR to establish the market for the long run.<\/b>
\nFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in 2016 that the social network had invested $250 million in virtual reality apps and games for the Oculus Rift VR headset, and it was going to put a lot more into it. And it\u2019s clear that at the Oculus Connect 5 event, the social network continues to pour money into VR titles.
Nate Mitchell, cofounder of Oculus VR and still an exec at Oculus, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the company continues to see the point of stoking VR to establish the market for the long run. The latest games on display at the event in San Jose, California this week are oriented toward social and multiplayer experiences, Mitchell said.
Oculus Studios is funding games such as Insomniac\u2019s Stormland and Ready At Dawn\u2019s Lone Echo II, while third-party publishers and developers such as Ubisoft are proceeding with games such as Space Junkies. We don\u2019t know exactly how much money is going into these titles, but they are taking more time and resources to finish. Mitchell said it\u2019s clear that the company still believes in VR and is ready to make it happen.
Here\u2019s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: These games here, what do they represent? Is this the sort of thing you\u2019ve been greenlighting lately, or a year or two ago?
Nate Mitchell: It\u2019s a mix of both titles from the Oculus Studios team, titles we\u2019ve fully funded, working with partners like Insomniac or Ready at Dawn, and then also some third-party titles from the ecosystem. We have Ubisoft\u2019s Space Junkies, which was set up over there. Now it\u2019s Vox Machinae. That\u2019s another awesome third-party title. Just some of the great content we\u2019re excited to be releasing, both later this year and in 2019.
GamesBeat: It looks like these are pretty high-end games. Have they been in the works for a while?
Mitchell: Each one is on its own development timeline. One of the fun stories about Vox Machinae, it\u2019s just a two-person team that developed the whole game. They\u2019ve been working on it now for a while. They were one of the first studios we ever gave a developer grant to, way back in the DK1\/DK2 days. They\u2019ve been working on it for a while. It shows in the quality.
Stormland\u2019s been in development\u2013I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a year now, but it\u2019s been in development for a little bit. Defector we\u2019ve been working on for a while now. A bunch of titles here\u2013the quality you\u2019re referencing is absolutely from us going with slightly bigger budgets and longer development timelines.
GamesBeat: Have some of these teams, like Insomniac, already made a few games before?
Mitchell: Insomniac is on their fourth title. They did Unspoken, Feral Rites, and Edge of Nowhere. What we\u2019re seeing is the culmination of many years of VR learnings building on top of one another. Of course, a bunch of these teams are world class studios to begin with. But they\u2019ve been learning how to design and build for VR. Now that\u2019s all coming together to create some of the magic you\u2019re seeing today.
GamesBeat: Do you find that you\u2019re more interested in greenlighting social and multiplayer games?
Mitchell: We try to have a good mix of titles. What we\u2019re seeing is developers gravitating toward multiplayer. Multiplayer is one of those aha moments for people in VR, with what we call social presence. You\u2019ve tried Toybox and things like that. When you\u2019re in there with someone, that feeling of being there\u2013it\u2019s another level from what you can do in traditional games.
Devs naturally gravitate toward that. We\u2019re seeing them take that and innovate and push in that space. It\u2019s not that we\u2019re saying, \u201cWe only want to see multiplayer titles!\u201d Devs are saying, \u201cThat\u2019s one of the things we\u2019re most excited to build.\u201d We\u2019re featuring some single-player titles here as well. Defector is single-player. Stormland is single-player too.
GamesBeat: How would you say these fit in with Oculus Connect 5 and some of the larger themes you\u2019re trying to hit there?
Mitchell: One of the big themes for us with OC5 is celebrating the last five years and looking forward to the next five. A big part of that is our commitment to Rift and gaming. One of the main threads in the keynote is that we\u2019re committed to the Rift platform. We\u2019re just getting started. In year three the ecosystem is continuing to hit its stride. Growth is fantastic. The games and the quality of the content are at an all-time high. We\u2019re showcasing more of this long-term investment we\u2019re making to continue to grow VR, to support the developer community, and continue to make the Rift hardware, the Rift software experience, the Rift product as a whole better every month.
GamesBeat: I saw the Wal-Mart announcement. They\u2019re buying into VR for training, apparently?
Mitchell: Right, 17,000 Oculus Gos. I think that\u2019s the number, at least.
GamesBeat: Is that market racing ahead as well then, things like enterprise and health care?
Mitchell: We\u2019re seeing interest in all these different verticals. Each vertical is at a different state in terms of adoption and interest, but especially in terms of training, we\u2019re seeing VR take off in a big way. Wal-Mart is a great example. In health care I think more and more people are experimenting. How can we leverage VR for therapy? You\u2019ve covered a lot of this stuff. You know it better than most. We\u2019re also seeing Go be a really effective platform for those use cases. It\u2019s easy to deploy. It\u2019s very portable. You can take it anywhere. That\u2019s been great.
On the location-based entertainment side, the arcades and the very immersive experiences, we continue to believe that\u2019s going to be a key touch point for people experiencing VR for the first time. That\u2019s going well too. We\u2019ve partnered with a number of those folks. We\u2019re helping out on the hardware side and also with marketing. The Void is going to be at Oculus Connect 5 with a really fun experience. We\u2019re trying to help everyone in the VR space succeed.
GamesBeat: Santa Cruz, are you going to demo more of that?
Mitchell: There might be a stand-alone demo or two at the show.
GamesBeat: What hopes do you have tied to stand-alone?
Mitchell: Project Santa Cruz, when we initially showed it at OC3\u2013that\u2019s really a feature prototype, like Crescent Bay or Crystal Cove. We haven\u2019t announced any official plans to bring that to market yet. But we believe in the stand-alone space. You saw that with Oculus Go. I think we\u2019ve put our best foot forward with that product. That\u2019s just getting started. You could absolutely imagine us doing more in stand-alone. That\u2019s all I can really say for now. [laughs]
GamesBeat: Is the distinguishing factor the hand controls?
Mitchell: Project Santa Cruz obviously differs from Go in that we have 6DOF tracking and the hand controllers, which allows for some different experiences. Most of the experiences you see here today require 6DOF input.
GamesBeat: Do you feel like there are certain applications that are waiting for that?
Mitchell: My anecdotal impression is that people have been going full steam ahead. It doesn\u2019t matter if they\u2019re waiting and hungry for Project Santa Cruz. Most folks are doing whatever they want on Go, on Rift. They\u2019re pushing forward. Maybe it\u2019s not perfect for whatever their use case is, but they\u2019re still pushing what\u2019s possible. There are absolutely some developers saying, \u201cHey, can I get a Santa Cruz prototype?\u201d But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessarily going to change the game in terms of use cases. Like Go, the stand-alone form factor has a lot of advantages, not least of which is portability.
GamesBeat: As far as comfort goes, we\u2019ve got one game here that made me a little sick, Defector. I think I should have chosen the other comfort option, the teleporting one. I tried the full walking around.
Mitchell: I usually do the tunneling mode.
GamesBeat: It makes me more aware of what I can tolerate. But it seems like this is still a factor.
Mitchell: It\u2019s still a factor, yes. I think we have a much better tool box of mitigation strategies, depending on the game. There\u2019s a lot you can do. But we haven\u2019t solved it 100 percent.
GamesBeat: I like how Echo Combat has handled movement.
Mitchell: It\u2019s awesome. Lone Echo was one of the first games I played that did locomotion in that totally different way, using your arms to pull yourself through. It works for a lot of people. I\u2019m excited for what they\u2019re doing in Echo Combat and Lone Echo 2.
GamesBeat: What are some of the best experiences you\u2019ve had in VR lately, out of everything you see?
Mitchell: I was playing the Stormland trailer last night for the third time. I really am excited about Stormland. What Insomniac is doing, building on not only their own success in VR, but also all their success with things like Spider-Man\u2013what they\u2019ll be able to bring together for Stormland is going to be special. I\u2019m still playing a bunch of Echo Arena. I\u2019m just a big fan of Echo Arena. Definitely excited for Echo Combat.
Recently I was playing some Rec Room. I\u2019m a huge Rec Room fan. They\u2019ve done an amazing job of pushing out update after update and pushing forward with user-generated content. It\u2019s just super fun to get in there with friends and play all the different games they\u2019ve built. I haven\u2019t spent that much time in Spaces recently, but that team is firing on all cylinders with some cool new stuff. Hopefully we\u2019ll be able to share more on that pretty soon.<\/p>\n

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