Or, I would like to respond to some comments
A bit unsurprisingly, my recent article talking about the VR Game industry became a bit popular. The article used my financial flop, Fruit for the Village as an illustration on how much risk a VR developer carries financially and how there is very little risk mitigation available for indie VR game devs to utilize. Many people didn’t seem to get this point though, focusing mostly on how poorly I budgeted or how bad the game was, or how I charge too much per hour. This was not the point of the article. Either I didn’t explain that stance well enough…
or — the big problem with the VR game industry.
(When you’re done reading this, please check out Part 2, here)
The discussion about how much a VR game costs to develop, and how VR really isn’t that profitable for developers is a discussion running for nearly the past year. The VR landscape has changed greatly since the 2016 commercial launch, and thus, the VR Game landscape has changed to along with it. …
Or “How does thing work again?”
Being a freelancer is tough . In a world and industry that is moving more and more into the “gig” structure for hiring (that is, a structure were you hire independent contractors, instead of full-time employees to do work. Sometimes remotely), it’s tough to survive as a freelancer. I’ve had friends and fellow developers ask how I’ve managed to be able to survive as a level and game designer, a role that is notoriously anti-remote, for going on four years now. I wish I could point to one or two specific guidelines for, what I would consider a success (I…
Or, why non-PC VR headsets are necessary for VRs survival in its early years.
I’ve seen a lot over the past few years — developers immediately dismissing a new VR headset because it doesn’t have 6 degree of freedom (6dof) tracking and some for of 6dof track interaction. Some go as far to say it’s bad, subpar or even (most infuriatingly) not true VR. I think this is… not a good thing (to put it nicely). We’re too early in VR’s life still to be picky about new hardware thats coming out. That being said, this isn’t going to be me saying any VR is good VR, but instead me saying that the the…
…and how to deal with your hardware
This is a sponsored post by SpringboardVR. If you’re looking for a software system to run your VR Arcade, check out SpringboardVR.
Starting a VR Arcade? Read this article on how to handle game licensing!
I get asked about VR Arcades often and one of the most common questions asked is “what is the best way to get VR headsets.” Unfortunately, there’s no good straight answer online. Until now. I’ve done some research into the major headsets that you might use in an arcade and condensed all that research into this article. Bonus! I’ve also done some research in collaboration…
Or, when did we become scared of trying new things?
A year ago, I wrote The Cost of Making a VR Game, an article where I outlined the cost of making a VR game and talked about how VR wasn’t profitable for most developers. I ended the write up talking about how every developer was taking a risk, and how from the outside VR developers looked stupid, idiotic and reckless. And that was beautiful; the risk, passion and innovation of VR developers defined the VR industry.
Well, a year has passed and I from my perspective, no longer do I see the same innovation that once drove VR a year…
I’m sitting on a bench in New Gridania, the heavily wooded region of Eorzea. I’m typing up this, whatever it is, waiting for my turn in line so that I can continue to level progress my Bard. In laymens terms, I’m sitting on a bench, in a virtual world, waiting in a digital waiting line of players, waiting for a virtual match maker to put us together into groups so that we can enter a high level dungeon in the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG for short), Final Fantasy XIV. My virtual character, a small Lalafel name Joseph…
… and how to keep VR game developers happy
With the growth of VR over the past 16 months, we’ve also seen the growth of VR Arcades. Places where people can go, pay some cash and rent a VR Headset for set amount of time and play a library of games — hearkening back decades to the arcades of old. They’re still young and growing, but there is promise for VR Arcades.
(If you’re looking for information about VR Arcade Hardware, Headsets and how to get it all, check out the next part of this articles series!)
So, if you’re the type of person who wants to jump in…
Or - hey, there’s a twitter for that now
(tl;dr — Level Design Daily Inspiration is now it’s own twitter account, @leveldesign_jpg. Click here to follow)
When I start planning out a new set of levels that I’m creating for a game, the first step is to gather inspiration. Level design is an art in itself, and all artists require inspiration. I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s rarely failed me. …
Or… the true enemy of VR, is ourselves.
Last month, I was skimming through VR articles and came across The Enemies of Virtual Reality by Francesco Pallotta. In it, they talk about the history of VR, earlier attempts at commercializing VR and why things didn’t necessarily work back then. Towards the end, they list what they feel the main enemies of VR diffusion are based on previous and current markets:
Why is this happening? Why once again, despite the fact that the technology provides ever-higher computing power and graphics resolution, the VR seems to have trouble getting off again? What are the enemies of VR?
From the failures…
Joe Radak
VR Game Developer Person Thing from planet earth. King of the Snowgoons. NYC-ish area.
