July 5, 2016

� Online interview conducted by members of Games subreddit on June 28th

� Participation from over 28 studios and ~45 developers

� Over 1,000 comments in discussion

� Link to AMA

� Top Discussion Points

� Platform Exclusivity (Oculus vs. Valve funding, DRM)

� VR Sickness & Solutions

� Market Adoption Estimates

� Unexpected Development Challenges & Surprises

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Business-wise, exclusive deals almost always make sense. The numbers they offer are designed to be very

tempting - they've done the math, they know your team size, and they know what the market is likely to generate…

IF we sold a copy [of Fantastic Contraption] at full price with every Vive, we'd barely be breaking even rightnow because so few of them exist in the world. That'll change in the coming year(s), but for now it's the reality

we live in.

-Andy Moore

Northway Games & Radial Games

There are multiple parts to exclusivity. For a game concept to really work, the game has to be designed to the device …We won’t support Unseen Diplomacy on Oculus Touchdue to tracking volume limitations and the hardware design that means that you would not be able to do the crawling or rolling segments of the game. We didn’t want to

compromise the design of the game. We’ve seen shaders work for some graphics cards, and not others, or may not work on console. You need to use specific SDKs in order to launch

on some platforms which need loads of extra work.

-Katie Good & John Campbell, Triangular Pixels

OSVR Fund is great and I have great respect for the people at OSVR working on open

standards, but the reality of it is that 5 million won't go too far. Compare thatwith the Vive[‘s] X 100 million and the deep pockets of Facebook.

-Shane Nilsson

Coal Car Studio

It's a controversial issue, and a lot of people will disagree, but I

think [Oculus Store exclusive] funding being available is good for

the industry overall. I'd much rather have funded exclusives,than nobody funding games at all!

The part where it gets tricky though is that oculus are lockinggames down to their hardware. I can't see any issue withthings being locked down to the Oculus Store, but when it'slocked down to only working on one headset, it gets a bit tooanti-consumer for my liking. With timed exclusives it's not

quite as bad, but I understand why people have an issue with that.

[Valve’s] Free loans to help out are awesome. It's not as risk-free

as the oculus funding, since you're now just offsetting the cost, but

it's definitely massively reduces the risk of it! I'm not sure on the

specifics of the loan though.

-Jacob Keane

RUCE

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WASD or gamepad locomotion should always be an option, but never be the default.

I don't like the idea of "VR legs". It's great if you have them, but I have beendevelopping VR games for the past 4 years and I never got them. Many won't and I don'twant to exclude people just for that reason.

I'm afraid that VR games have that motion sickness stigma already and when I'm demoing VR

in public places, many people don't even want to try my games because they don't want to

get motion sick.

-Mark Schramm

Developer of Grav/Lab

60% of Smash Hit Plunderplayers choose some sortof comfort option.

One of us gets horribly

motion sick, so we have to

build in features for him.

He's been developing since

pre-DK1 release and still

can't get over it.

-Katie Good & John

Campbell

Triangular Pixels

Our game (World War Toons) uses

free-roaming movement in our

multiplayer FPS. It was a tough issue to

tackle and we found quickly that thetraditional use of the rightthumbstick gives a lot of usersmotion sickness, so we removed it.Instead you use your head movementto control where your character isaiming.

We also use a quick turn mechanic that

once your head reaches a point when

turning it amplifies the turning radius

that way you can make a 180 quickly

and effortlessly.

-Reload Studios

Developers of World War Toons

I personally find teleporting HMD-

ripping-off horrible! …As for

providing options, within our

‘normal’ VR titles, we do provide

options. Everyone deals with

sickness in very different ways, and

a lucky few don’t have to! We

launched a demo over a year ago

where after your first few steps in

VR we ask ‘How did you feel?’ and

offer the player options.

-Katie Good & John Campbell

Triangular Pixels

Sadly, we've found in testing hundreds of

people that the people who get motion sickfrom gamepad controlled movement isactually the majority of all users. DK1 VRenthusiasts have self-selected to be nausearesistant.

…We don't want to push VR back another 5

years by scaring investors away when they

overhear people in a coffee shop say "oh Itried VR once it made me barf".

-Sarah Northway

Northway Games & Radial games

It's always the yaw rotation that gets the most people right in thegut… But, beyond that, those reporting sickness seem to number farless than they were three years ago when the first devkits showed up!Mainly due to better tech (less eye strain, less blur, higher FPS, smoother

tracking, lower latency), and also because devs are doing what they can…

-Drash

DrashVR

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� Majority of new users appear to have gamepad-induced motion sickness

� Oculus DK1 & DK2 adopters are self-selected to be nausea-resistant and enthusiastic

� Risk of market and media backlash for broader VR industry

� Anecdotally, incidence of VR sickness has lowered from DK1 and DK2 headsets

� Solutions

� Disconnecting locomotion and camera directions

� Teleportation as Traversal Mechanism – Fallout 4 VR

� “Hybrid” Teleportation + Natural Movement

� Smaller “free” spaces combined with teleport nodes – A Chair in a Room: Greenwater

� Full Natural Movement

� Restricted Environment Space – Cyberpong, Audioshield, Job Simulator

� Environmental Redirection – Unseen Diplomacy

� Seated Experiences

� Simulation experiences (EVE Valkyrie, Elite Dangerous, etc.)

� Loses effectiveness as Field of View increases

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Biggest challenge for me has been the developmentsoftware. Everything is so embryonic and everythingis alpha or beta: Runtimes, games engines, drivers -

everyone is running to catch up.

-Lupus Solus

Lupus Solus Studio

I think if you pay cheap salaries, manage to wrangle some high

performing talent together, and spend enough time working on

something interesting - you're probably looking at $250K-500Kminimum in expenses to produce something beyond a "toy"or a "tech demo".

-Andy Moore

Northway Games & Radial Games

UI is WAY harder than we thought! Strategy games

normally take a lot of player hand holding to convey

info, and its easy on a normal screen when you

control the viewpoint. Not so much when they can

look anywhere and can ignore everything you are

trying to tutorialize!

-Steel Wool Games

Definitely this[UI] for me personally. You can't even see your own hands to see what the buttons are!

And not having the ability to literally force players to look in any particular direction createshuge new challenges for teaching players how to play.

-Justin Liebregts

Futuretown.io

Everything needs to be the right scale in VR orthings start feeling weird as hell, but in

traditional games you can scale things a lot without

anybody noticing anything.

-Andreas Jorgensen

VRUnicorns

The most surprising thing is how much people love to fuck around with physics!!! ... Eventually I ended up making physics based games myself, and I was super

proud that I was able to make stuff of similar quality level to what I remembered as a kid... until I went into VR and everything just became a billion times more

awesome!!! YOU'RE TELLING ME I CAN GRAB THIS RIDICULOUS OBJECT AND THROW IT AROUND INSIDE THE GAME WORLD? HOLY SHIT THIS IS AMAZING!!!

-Horatiu Roman

VRUnicorns

In our game [Daydream Blue] in the GearVR version, you are prompted to lie down at one point. The world fades back in and you are lying on a raft on a lake… it may be the feature that has been commented on positively the most by players and other developers.

-Richard Hoagland

RalphVR

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� Major Challenges

� Market still too small to provide significant revenue

� Majority of developers reported low or nonexistent expectations of near-term profitability

� Development Tools tend to be unreliable / non-stable

� Existing knowledge base from non-VR game development must be remade

� Game Development

� Rethinking movement

� Room-scale experiences raise more questions about how best to structure environment traversal with natural movement

� Developing and proliferating “best practices” to mitigate and prevent VR Sickness

� Revisiting non-traditional gameplay models to take advantage of VR’s strengths in immersion while mitigating current limitations

� Simulation, Puzzle, Music, Physics, etc.

� UI design must be re-evaluated in both tutorial and gameplay contexts

� Removal of focal control requires alternative methods of information presentation

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� Major Future Events

� Playstation VR Holiday Launch

� Large install base, cheapest headset, AAA-publisher backing

� Bellwether of mainstream adoption

� Google Daydream

� Significantly expansion in VR penetration due to expanding new phone line-up and higher penetration of mobile devices relative to desktop and console gaming platforms

� Adoption Estimates1

� HTC Vive: 60-80K

� Oculus Rift: 40-100K?

� Rift sales will be more comparable to Vive post-Touch launch

� GearVR: 1MM+?

� Google Daydream launch will provide point-of-comparison post-launch

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� Email Warhawk_1111 (at) outlook.com for questions or inquiries

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