What makes VR games successful?
When looking at the Oculus top selling page you’re met with familiar names. Titles like Beat Saber, SUPERHOT VR, and Pistol Whip. These games have topped the charts for months with little signs of movement.
Even most recently with a legacy title like Tetris entering the space, it still couldn’t knock Beat Saber from the top spot, despite a generous marketing budget and legion of already-made-fans.
So what makes these so popular? and what can developers take away from these titles and apply to their titles? We take a look…
Beat Saber
Made by Beat Games, it is the number one selling game on Oculus. The game is a virtual reality fitness/rhythm game that takes place in a surrealistic neon noir environment. The player has to slice blocks representing musical beats with a pair of lightsabers.
SUPERHOT VR
SUPERHOT VR is an arcade shooter built for virtual reality. Players control the speed and time of the game based on movement, the more you move, the more your enemies do.
Pistol Whip
Described as an unstoppable VR action-rhythm FPS, Pistol Whip is reminiscent of arcade classics like Time Crisis. The player travels through a scene shooting enemies and avoiding bullets. It’s time crisis meets the matrix — with elements of both SUPERHOT VR and Beat Saber in one.
What do they have in common? and what can we learn from this?
Looking at the three top-rated games for Oculus, they feel quite similar. Beat Saber heavily relies on hitting to a beat, and SUPERHOT VR is a shooter with a difference. Pistol Whip is perhaps the perfect combination of the two — mixing arcade-style shooter with rhythm-based gaming.
So we’ll look at what these games have in common to unlock secrets into making a VR game successful.
Repeat playability
All of these games share a sense of repeat playability. That is not to suggest they do not follow a narrative, but levels can be replayed to improve scores, and played at different intensities with high scores.
With games on the Oculus store being affordable in comparison to most games on PS4, XBOX and Nintendo Switch, users are more to delete games from their storage once they’re done with the main gameplay. This doesn’t seem to be the case for Beat Saber, SUPERHOT VR or Pistol Whip. They’re games you can never really complete.
Action Genre
These three games all fall within the action genre that encourages movement — a sure-selling point of virtual reality and plays into those perks well. It may seen obvious that an action game is most popular, users wants to be active and moving.
But it’s worth noting that all games have almost-static positioning, meaning users are not having to run or move greatly from their standing position. The majority of movement comes from arms and the controllers with small feet movements to avoid bullets or blocks.
Newbie proof
One of the best things about virtual reality is its ability to bring people together. People are fascinated with the technology and often haven’t tried an experience since the Google Cardboard. One trait all of these games share is the ability to be noob friendly.
All games can be played on ‘easy’ for someone unfamiliar with the game and hardware, and all feature great tutorial modes that can be replayed at all times.
The shareability factor makes these games likely top-of-the-list for a first time buyer, such as myself. Having played all three games briefly on my friend’s headsets, when I bought an Oculus Quest, these were the first three games in my basket.
Play with friends
Apart from SUPERHOT VR, these games feature leaderboards. This brings out the competitive nature in all of us wanting to one-up our friends and plays on the repeat playability factor.
Expansion
Regularly updating the game proves extremely lucrative from a player retention aspect, and also for profits. The games you find on the top-selling page all regularly release new features, modes and additional products through in-app purchases.
It keeps the game fresh and filled with features and ensures players are repeatedly spending in-game. Beat Saber releases add-on packs for new music in game, and Pistol Whip releases new levels and game modes.
Nostalgia
But what these games to best, and probably why they’ve been so popular, is they play into our inner child with their nostalgia factor.
Beat Saber is similar to Just Dance and Guitar Hero. And better yet, it plays into the Star Wars fan within most of us equipping the player with duel lightsabers.
SUPERHOT VR and Beat Saber have an arcade-feel to them with the likes of Time Crisis and other shooters.
And most recently we’ve seen Tetris enter the VR space with the launch of “Tetris Effect”. The classic game is a favourite for many, but it’s been reinvented to suit the new format with a focus on trippy visuals to wow the user. Since it’s release, it’s found itself around the top spot of the “Top Selling” list.
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