A look back at Bigscreen’s 2017 updates
Reflecting on the amazing work we accomplished this past year, and a glimpse at what’s coming next
In 2017, we shipped dozens of major product updates that make Bigscreen feel more polished, useful, stable, and powerful. We raised $14 million in investment from some of the best investors in Silicon Valley. We grew our (fully remote) team, and had our first team retreat in Florida.
Here are some of our notable 2017 accomplishments:
Showed “Top Gun 3D” in our social VR movie theater, in partnership with Paramount Pictures
Added support for multiple monitors (physical & virtual)
Added the “broken screen” easter egg
3D markers for drawing
“The Cinema Update”
- Rewrote our underlying core technology in raw C++ for major performance improvements
- 1080p 30fps desktop video streaming in Multiplayer Rooms
- Native desktop audio streaming (no 3rd party addons needed)
- Added support for VR Ready laptops & Windows 7
- Added the hyper-realistic Cinema environment
Added new daytime environments, a new avatar customizer, and virtual bodies to our avatars in “the Avatar Update”
Added the “Lobby” environment for hanging out before entering the cinemas, and a selfie stick
Added the “Tablet” user interface
Added the monitor menu bar for quick access
“The Big Rooms Update” added support for dozens of people in a room
We’ve also been busy on the business side
- We welcomed Paul, Chris, and Liam to the team this year, and also held our first team retreat in Florida.
- Partnered with Microsoft to be a launch title on the Windows Mixed Reality platform
- Partnered with Logitech on VR tracked keyboards
- Partnered with Paramount Pictures to show “Top Gun 3D” and more 3D movies in our social VR movie theater
- Announced our $3 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz & True Ventures
- Announced our $11 million investment from True Ventures & Andreessen Horowitz
What’s next in 2018?
Our plans for 2018 build upon the work we accomplished in 2017. Notably, we plan to bring Bigscreen to mobile VR headsets and PlayStation VR. We‘re also partnering with more movie studios to do regular weekly movie nights in our social VR movie theater. Read more about our plans for social VR movie watching in our Paramount Pictures announcement.
We also plan to grow the Bigscreen team. Bigscreen is a fully remote company, with people based in the United States and the United Kingdom. We are hiring experienced Unity developers, backend networking engineers, VR interaction designers, and 3D artists.
If you haven’t tried Bigscreen yet, you can download it for free from Steam, the Oculus Store, or the Microsoft Store. We support the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, all SteamVR headsets, and all Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
If you love Bigscreen, be sure to leave us a review! You can also join the Bigscreen Discord Community, and sign up for our newsletter.
