Guest Blog: The Future of Stories in Virtual Reality

At Develop:VR this year, Pete Short from Breaking Fourth is going to be speaking about The Future of Stories in Virtual Reality. This topic is something which the London based VR studio is incredibly passionate about, particularly while there are still no hard and fast rules for VR storytelling.

Breaking Fourth released Ctrl this year, the world’s first scripted long-form VR drama designed specifically for mobile VR. This production has seen great success, being showcased around the world at events like Oculus Connect 3 and Toronto International Film Festival and being nominated for multiple innovation and VR awards. Ctrl is currently the only piece of it’s kind available in virtual reality, using a combination of CGI and live action footage to tell a dark, challenging story about the life of a teenage boy. The audience is dropped directly inside a video game (an impossible challenge for any other medium) and the drama in his outside world is shown via the clever use of webcam screens into his home. Full review available here.

So what should you expect to find out in this talk? Well, the future of stories in virtual reality is a vast topic which could touch on many different areas. During the production of Ctrl, we learned through trial and error what does and doesn’t work in this new medium. Taking techniques from the theatre and combining them with influences from games + cinema, we explored a multitude of different narrative techniques, culminating in a dark, emotional piece which splits audiences. Virtual Reality, by it’s nature, confronts the viewer with the content - forces you to watch and listen, and often results in increased emotional connection with the story and self-reflection on the situation. We sum up our thoughts on what was successful from our research and what are our new VR storytelling techniques that we now can’t live without.

Aside from narrative + storytelling techniques, in this talk Pete will explore whether this kind of content is what audiences want. Who are the current VR audiences and how do we cater to their needs while pushing boundaries with content that is available? Do VR audiences even know what it is that they are hungry for? What will audiences want in the future?

What does this all mean for the future of stories in virtual reality according to Breaking Fourth? Content is always quoted as the driving factor for VR.  This is and isn’t the case - High-quality, transformational, challenging and interesting content is the driving factor for VR. As John Carmack mentioned in his keynote speech at OC3 this year, it’s time for VR to stop being a gimmick and to start pushing boundaries. Pete hopes to share some insight on how content creators can enter this space and be creating content that will rival stories told through TV and film.

A short demo of Ctrl will also be available in the IndieZone at DevelopVR.

Twitter: @breaking_fourth

Facebook: www.facebook.com/breakingfourth

Guest Blog: Demoing VR is still key to audience engagement

When it comes to marketing a product, in regards to any product not just virtual reality content,  showcasing the product to your audience is important. With VR, it allows us to help work towards building the future audiences. You’ll hear influencers and speakers talk about “when VR headsets are adopted by the mainstream audience or general public” – there are necessary hoops we must go through until this becomes true for all major headsets that are now available to purchase. 

VR is no longer the rare product that appears in the corners of major game or tech events. It is now a key attraction, gathering extensive crowds and queues. In fact, event organisers and floor planners are working it into their strategy, having to take special measures for VR kit such as; dividers to ensure VR setups don’t interfere with each other, additional space for safety and ensuring room for larger than average queues.

Conference organisers have begun creating VR tracks, panels and talking with the major headset providers such as HTC, Sony & Oculus, pitching for them to take demo space on the main floors to try and satisfy demand.

Encouraging consumer adoption is important for developers and content creators as they don’t want the games and experiences they have spent months (even years) creating to flop, after all studios and publishers need to make enough money to ensure they afford their next production. Demoing headsets and content is an important part of this process, not only to promote their game but the whole medium of virtual reality.

Breaking Fourth's David Kaskel about to demo virtual reality to a customer at VRUK (Feb, 2016)

VR production studio Breaking Fourth, took the demo concept one step further. In July 2016, they held a theatre run for their debut production ‘Ctrl’. This involved placing 20 people at a time in their VR creation, providing viewers with a first-hand look at both the technology and the storytelling skills of the studio. Being held in a theatre, this approach also took the VR demo concept and transformed it into the premise for an exciting night out. It was met with rave reviews from CityAm, Wired and VRFocus.

Seeing is believing is crucial for this industry. A lot people need to try out technology before they want to use it. You go to the apple store to try out the newest apple watch before you buy it. The same applies to VR, it is an investment for the future. VR will be a big part of our home life in years to come. But like every larger purchase, you must give it a go before you make that investment.

By Bertie Mills, co-founder and MD of Virtual Umbrella 

Guest Blog - Notes from a Virtual Island.

The observant amongst you will have noticed that I have spent a fair chunk of my recent independent status travelling. The last 3 months have had at least one long haul trip per month plus a few local ones too. Aside from the jetlag and suitcase living, this has given me the opportunity to look beyond the confines of UK (and even European) dev scene to see the burgeoning industry of VR development. I have been to a number of international events, from EDEF, a new digital festival and part of the Edinburgh fringe to CEDEC, and Japanese game developers conference with a number of western and international speakers. And not forgetting the up and coming Develop VR in our very own London town. I have seen a number of trends over the last few months so I thought I would take this opportunity to relate a few here.

• There is definitely a UK VR development scene. Two or three years ago, you would find myself, Patrick (nDreams) and a handful of other VR evangelists doing all we could to promote the idea of VR being a new medium. We would be met by enthusiastic amateurs & self-assured skeptics in equal measure. But this has changed. Last week at an in silicon valley I met with a number of global VR developers and there is definitely a UK VR dev scene. More than a handful of eccentric enthusiasts, these are real companies with anything up to 50 employees making significant sized VR games & content. And the skeptics have changed their tune slightly from “if” to “when”. Seeing Mark Zuckerberg handling the recent oculus social demos himself is a clear sign that smart money and smart thinking believe VR not just to be a new entertainment platform, but a new medium for interacting with computers and with other people.

• As well as the developers mentioned above, I have seen a clear trend of media content companies emerging. These are smart people from established industries from music, TV, movies and education. A week does not go by without someone contacting me to “help” a new company hire a team to build their creative vision. Although this is great for freelance developers, there is a significant risk here: most of these new formed companies have a great understanding of content and audience, but lack the technical chops to pull it off. Believing, as most do outside traditional development, that lots of features they have experienced in demos, come for free. In short, they lack a CTO and a clear technological strategy. While we await the growth of the VR install base, this is a great opportunity for developers to earn some cash.

• This leads to the big question: when will VR adoption become mainstream and what are the financial rewards. As yet, there are a few indies who have made back their dev costs quickly and are enjoying decent profit. To be honest, these are relatively few. Perhaps by choosing a cheap indie art style and being one of the early few “hits”. This does reinforce my opinion that VR warrants the chance for new IP to take on the big traditional games with experiences designed for VR. The recent release of Playstation VR is the first big test of consumer adoption with the google daydream following close behind.

• Most recently, I have seen signs of the second wave of content. The first wave is cool, interesting games like unseen diplomacy, job simulator and universe sandbox squared. Although definitely engaging, these are pretty much one mechanic games appealing to the early adopters. I am sure we will see evolutions of these early games, but the second wave have deeper more complex mechanics. Take the recently announced Robo Recall, teleporting is becoming an established and comfortable form of navigation. In Robo Recall, this is designed into the game. You navigate by choosing a different Robot to take over. It’s a compelling game with a number of mechanics working together. Similarly, Lone Echo uses your arms to pull you around in space as a relatively new navigation mechanic.

That is all for now, I think the next big moment to take stock will be after the holiday season. We will be able see just how much demand there is for VR, what games people are really enjoying and how long they wish to play them for. I will keep on the look out and report back. In the meantime, good luck to all those launch titles for PSVR and google daydream.

Dave Ranyard

Guest Blog: Virtual reality isn’t just for gamers (or porn)

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Why is marketing still a blind spot for indies?

What early lessons can VR devs take from the indie scene, where the marketplace is already mature and getting crowded? We asked indie game marketer Hannah Flynn to write a follow-up to her Develop 2016 talk about this indie blind spot.

I work within a medium-sized team, covering all aspects of comms with my marketing manager. Our meta-job is to ask questions, raise flags, and encourage the right amount of thought about how the rest of the world will perceive our games. Sometimes that results in changes to the games! But marketing monsters with ridiculous demands are a thing of myth (or possibly just of AAA, I can’t be sure - I haven’t worked in AAA).

The videos of sessions from Develop 2016 have just been released to ticket-holders, meaning you can go back and pick up sessions you missed.

I spent probably three or four days working on my session, You Need to Hire a Marketer, to which about 10 people came, most of whom I knew by name.

Other than making a clear attempt to tug your heartstrings and get you to watch my video, I want to ask: why didn’t people come? Why do so many indie studios still treat marketing as a hindrance?

I’ve got a few hypotheses:

Marketing is evil. Or so the popular narrative goes: marketers are suits who interfere with game designers’ craft. Pushing poor decisions based on what will sell and blaming devs when games fail.

Marketers are expensive. Some of us are. But these days there are different ways to pay people, options for flexible working, and more graduates than ever wanting to get into games. There are ways to afford marketing support which don’t break the bank.

Marketers are scammers. As soon as you’re on Steam Greenlight you’ll probably be approached by marketing firms offering you services. Some of these make sense but others will sound like they’re promising the world, meaning they couldn’t possibly deliver it.

I can do it myself. Anything looks easier from the outside. I’m sensible enough of my abilities to know that I couldn’t make a game, and I’d invite you to consider that marketing is a career path in itself which requires its own skills. Some people are excellent self-promoters, bloggers, tweeters - this is wonderful. Hire someone who can help you with the rest of the marketing mix.

Marketing is scary if you have no experience of it, but releasing is scary without marketing. It’s far better to investigate getting marketing support early than to bury your head - your money, time, life - in a game, in the hope that people will just find out about it because it’s good. That can’t happen for all of us.

Hire a marketer. Give the responsibility to someone who likes doing it. Spend more time on your game. Be happier. Sell more games. Make another game. Survive.

If you can’t watch the video, you can view my presentation here. I hope you’ll have a read and tweet to me @h4nchan with your thoughts!

Hannah Flynn is Communications Director for Failbetter Games, makers of Fallen London and Sunless Sea. She has previously worked for Penguin Books, Tate and the NSPCC.

Guest Blog: Developing for VR - Lessons from the Leaders

In this article I’ve interviewed seven leading VR/AR developers to better understand their motivations, challenges, and hopes for the future of the platform. I’ve summarised their answers below.

The people interviewed were:
Patrick O’Luanaigh of nDreams (VR only)
James Marsden of Futurlab (traditional and VR games)
Martin de Ronde of Force Field (VR/AR)
Dave Ranyard - independent VR developer (VR only)
Jason Kingsley of Rebellion (traditional and VR games)
Sam Watts of Tammeka Games (VR only)
Mark Knowles-Lee of Fracture Games (AR only)

Q1. What motivates you to develop for VR?
• New challenges - the unknown.
• New experiences – possible through new interactions.
• Innovation – new possibilities for creativity.
• New opportunities - cutting through the noise of other games.

Q2. How do you decide which platforms to target?
• Target them all. Many of the studios stated that they’re device agnostic.
• Target platforms with unique differentiators. i.e. if a specific device has a differentiating feature, how can you make best use of that.
• Go where the audience is. E.g nDreams only develop for devices which they think will sell over one million units.)
• The game concept dictates the platform.
• Make use of existing partnerships. E.g Futurelab have a fruitful relationship with Sony so it was natural for them to begin working on PlayStation VR.

Q3. What are the specific development issues you face?
• People’s variation in sensitivity makes it difficult to design for. Several studios comment about always needing ‘fresh’ players who have not yet built up a tolerance to VR.
• Risk. Studios commented that they weren’t sure how big the market will be for some platforms. E.g. Sony have a huge advantage in this area due to its large install base and lower cost of the VR headset.
• The lack of a VR IDE. In particular judgements made on scale, lighting and legibility makes development a clunky iterative process (guess, build, test).
• Difficulty in accessing hardware.
• Need to prototype even the smallest feature. Some things you think will work just don’t. Don’t assume anything or rely on your past experience.

Q4. How do you design for VR?
• Test everything – assume nothing.
• Comfort is king so be prepared to throw things away - if a feature reduces player comfort for any reason, it has to go.
• Change your thinking. Whereas in traditional game dev you want to turn everything up to 11, be more reserved for VR.
• Is your experience unique to VR? Could your game only exist in VR? If not, then perhaps it’s not really a VR game, but rather a VR ‘version’ of a traditional game.

Q5. How do you evaluate the VR experience?
• User test with as many people as possible due to player variation.
• Aim for player comfort first, then emotion.
• Is it compelling? The experience should be unlike anything else players have experience before.
• Get platform owner feedback.

Q6. What are the key lessons you’ve learned so far?
• Player comfort is king. A variety of issues emerged from the studios, however above all is player comfort and making sure your tech and design choices are in line with delivering it.
• Experiment. Some things you think will work don’t, and some things which shouldn’t work do.
• Technical aspects underlying VR are hugely important. It doesn’t matter how great your game idea is, no one will enjoy it if the tech can’t support it.
• Poor design leads to motion sickness, not just frustration.

Q7. What kinds of new games / genres / interactions does VR allow?
• It may be go beyond games, into experiences
• A greater range of input, such as whole body interaction.
• Increased presence - the potential for a greater social experience than ever before.
• Design specifically for VR. Don’t ‘port’ your game from the traditional screen into VR.

Q8. Do you have any concerns?
• Health and safety.
• Market adoption.
• Business models.
• ‘Bad’ VR games may put many people off. There are already some awful VR experiences out there getting high profile exposure, and these may put people off for a long time.

Q9. Will VR be a Success?

• VR will be a success.  Our experts are  certain that VR will be a success, however that may take longer to happen than expected.

• VR will not replace ‘traditional’ games, it’s just another way to experience them.

• AR is likely to eclipse VR for non-entertainment applications.

Summary - Developing for VR Top Lessons Learned
Bear in mind that I only spoke to studios who had already invested in VR development, so this is not a representative sample of developers. So, taking the most popular responses from these developers, here’s the top lessons learned:
• Player comfort is key.
• Test your assumptions.
• There is an opportunity here, but it is a risk.
• Is your game unique and compelling for VR?
• VR will not replace traditional games, it’s an alternative.
• VR will be a success, but it might take some time.

Graham McAllister, Director, Player Research
Graham is the Director of Player Research, an award-winning games user research and playtesting studio based in Brighton, UK. 

Guest Blog: Stories Are Places We Go To

When you think about your favourite place, I bet it’s not just a location – it’s the people who are there with you, and the things you are feeling. It’s a magical place. I think the job of a storyteller, particularly a visual one, is to elicit wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonder from their audience. And great stories make us feel like we belong inside them, they transport us to different places.

When you experience a good story, you feel like you’ve gone on a journey, returning to your own life changed by the experience. The first time I saw The Breakfast Club when I was 15, I felt like I came back older, wiser and a bit taller. And I remember watching Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend one afternoon when I should have been in school and emerging blinking into the sunlight a changed person. That was a seriously messed up place to visit, especially on a Tuesday. 

I read somewhere that stories are survival training, giving you a chance to try things out in a safe environment before you might need to face them in real life. In hero’s journey structures, there’s always a phase where the protagonist acquires and tests out new skills before they master them in order to triumph in the climax.

Like dreams, stories are places we visit in our minds. The fantastical, and unsettling, nature of dreams and stories intertwine in cinema, television and games. Nightmare on Elm Street is a brilliant example of this, or the work of David Lynch, like the creepy scene in Mulholland drive where a man has brought his friend to a diner because he has dreamt about being there with him, and being scared. The source of the fear is a third man, “in the back of this place”: someone so scary that our erstwhile hero hopes never to see his face “outside of a dream”, yet before we know it, he’s headed out back to see if the man is really there, at which point Lynch switches the a point of view shot and we become the man, travelling towards the place which terrifies us.

In Back to the Future, we find ourselves aligned with the hapless Marty McFly, struggling at home with our cowardly father and alcoholic mother. However did these two deadbeats even wind up together? The mum recounts the story of how they met, but something doesn’t ring true. Marty ends up visiting the story himself by travelling back in time. In doing so, he smashes the story to bits and has to piece it back together in order to return home. Back at home in his own time, he momentarily becomes a helpless observer in his own story, watching as his friend Doc Brown is shot down.

I’m rambling on about this stuff because I think it’s particularly interesting given the surge in 360 degree video and virtual reality; advances that might herald a new era of immersive storytelling. Anyone who’s a cinephile and telephile knows what its like to want to live inside a favourite film or show. Good stories have always allowed us to do that, but using head-sets and 360 degree environments, we might take one step further.

I got really excited when I first discovered you could create interactive video that responded to what the viewer was doing: sharing control with the viewer over how the story unfolds rather than it carrying on regardless. Edits and music that change dynamically depending where the viewer is looking or what they are looking at with their mouse cursor (now finger). My first major foray into this world was a horror experience called The Burning Room, and I still love the sense we managed to instil of being present in a haunted place.

Sitting in a cinema or living room while the stories play out on screen allows you to experience love, terror and everything in between while simultaneously feeling the comfort of not really being there, of the characters being oblivious to you spying on them. Some filmmakers have played with this brilliantly, like Lynch’s POV shots, Michael Haneke acknowledging our complicity in his brutal Funny Games, or the classic fourth wall breaks in comedies. Deadpool prides itself on having a fourth wall break within a fourth wall break; “That’s like, sixteen walls!”

When you are free to look and roam around inside a story world, there’s potentially even more fun to be had with these concepts. Like immersive theatre in which the characters/actors are simultaneously aware and unaware of your presence. You can be acknowledged or ignored, the centre of the action or on the periphery. Perhaps you get left in one place while the story is happening down the corridor and its up to you to go and find the next act. Like real life, you can be anonymous in a crowd, a star in the movie of your life, or free to explore and find meaning – assuming you’re not supposed to be at school or work, or perhaps then also.

Stories are places we go to. Good virtual reality stories could be places you want to stay.

Jon Aird
Producer, writer and creator with a track record in making smash hit projects across online, social media and TV. Passionate about future trends and harnessing technology to delight audiences. Past projects include the BAFTA award winning digital Psychoville Experience and the viral hit interactive video The Burning Room.

Jon will be delivering a session at 11.15 on Thursday 14 July entitled Virtual Reality Thrills, Spills and Bellyaches 

http://www.jonaird.co.uk

Guest Blog - Why My Mum Likes VR Better Than You Do

“How do I put this thing on,” she said, looking warily at the VIVE headset and controllers. Mum’s not a gamer; she’s never so much as dropped a quarter in an arcade machine, let alone picked up a console control. Hell, she struggles with her smartphone. “This is heavy,” she sighs, as I fit her with the headset, and guide her hands through the controller straps. “Ok,” I said, “I'm going to turn on a game called ‘Space Pirate Trainer’. It’s really easy, you have two guns, you pull the trigger on your controller (I showed her where they were), and you shoot the floating orbs that are trying to shoot you.  Don’t let them hit you.” As I started the game she gasped. “OH MY GOD, I'M IN SPACE! CAN YOU GUYS SEE THIS??” The last thing I said as I popped the headphones over her ears: “Use the gun in your right hand to shoot the box that says ‘Play’. Have fun.” And then I got the hell out of dodge.

My mother is 61 years old, somewhat arthritic, but still relatively spry. I watched, grinning, as she transformed from a prim and proper real estate agent into her own personal incarnation of Lara Croft. She ducked and weaved; she hurled strings of four-letter-words at the robots. I do believe she accidentally kicked the cat at one point (he hasn't forgiven her yet, poor kitty). And when she “died”, she wailed “NOOOOOOO”, immediately followed by, “I want a do-over.” Before I could say anything, she’d hit the Play button and was back in. Her only break was when we had to tear her away for Mother’s Day brunch, but all in all, she played SPT, Fantastic Contraption, and messed with the IKEA demo (“I wanted to rearrange the cabinets! This is a let-down…”) for roughly 3 hours. On the other hand, my twenty-something brother-in-law, who plays a lot of WoW and Call of Duty, etc, tried it out, and got bored after about 15 minutes. “That’s nice, I guess,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s worth the money, and I'm just in a room here by myself.”

This kind of engagement - for lifelong non-gamers to suddenly become avid enthusiasts – is practically unheard of in previous iterations of game evolution. Yet change is generally difficult for the established culture/mindset to adopt (hence the addage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”). So why is VR, this cutting edge technology, more attractive to older people?

My theory is twofold: First, that because the controls are still very crude, the games must be designed simply. The quality of a game becomes more reliant on storytelling, visuals, audio, and ease of navigation. My folks still go on dates to the movies 2-3 times per month. They watch whatever movie or show BBC America is running. They want to the entertained, but in a way that’s low effort/thinking on their part. Gaming, for them, is “too hard”. But VR is easy.

The second is that the GenX/Boomers came of age in a time where real life experiences were tantamount to electronics/media. VR is the first tech where games truly emulate real life. Finally, here is a technology tailor-made for the vast majority of older people who grew up wishing they’d done something different with their lives (because no one gets to maturity without some kind of regrets). Not because they don’t like what they have or what they have done, (read: anyone who can afford VR is probably doing well for themselves), but because they wonder what it would have been like to be a musician instead of a sales agent, or an artist as opposed to an engineer. Well, turns out it’s not too late; now you can live those imagined lives vicariously through… you. Wanted to try Alpine downhill skiing but didn't because it was “too dangerous”? Not any more. Decided against that summer of slumming it in Paris to save up for a “practical” home downpayment? You can still waste a few hours at an outdoor café (with a view of the Eiffel Tower!) catching tidbits of murmurs in French. VR lets you be someone else for a little while, gives you a mental escape. So why aren’t younger generations just as excited about all the opportunities VR offers?

Millenials, unlike previous generations, are exceptionally self-actualized. VR is a nice distraction, sure, but it’s still a game, albeit really cool. However, Millenials want more. They don’t want to just watch a 360º movie, they’d rather actually go to these places or do these things. Being “in the game”? That’s nice, but Millenials want to control the story and change the outcome. This is now the challenge for VR developers: How do you create an authentic, fulfilling experience? What will it take to make VR indistinguishable from the real thing? That’s a question we’ll be able to answer hopefully in the next few years.

The good news? A healthy market for which to create content already exists. Right now, folks like Mum (Boomers and Gen X) are quite satisfied with today’s tech. When she finally put the headset down, smiling, she wiped the sweat off her brow and quoted a phrase I'm very fond of using: “We really are living in the future.”

Sophie Wright is the Product and Brand Evangelist for Human Interact, currently working on an unannounced VR project. 15 years of experience in an engineering leadership role led to a passion for exploring and sharing the possibilities of VR. In this reality, she enjoys gin, tinkering with her Mini Cooper, meteor showers, and having meaningful experiences with people.

Guest Blog - Demoing VR Guide

We’ve been working with the Oculus VR headset since receiving our Kickstarter backer edition of the first dev kit, the DK1, through DK2 and the commercial version CV1, the fully labelled Oculus Rift. As such, over the past few years we’ve done more public demos of VR than we can remember but each and every time, we have seen someone do something new or unexpected. So here’s a handy guide to demoing VR to the general public, or [potential] clients to ensure they have the best first time VR experience and aren’t put off for life!

Prepare for queues - there will be queues of people waiting to play. We find that 9/10 people at events haven’t tried VR and so, it will be a big draw for crowds. Queues are good though as you have a steady stream of people eager to play and willing to listen to you whilst they wait, so prepare some queue chat subjects. So where possible, have as many demo stations as people / space / budget allows, remembering to allocate one person per booth with floaters for queue management and breaks.

People are less likely to want to try a headset sat there unused - we haven’t worked out why but if it’s just there as a weird looking bit of tech, people will be more hesitant to be the first to have a go. So if quiet (which is unlikely) have someone on the team play and have fun doing it. 

Seating for safety - unless you are demoing HTC Vive and using room-scale to full effect, ensure you have a seat available for people to park on so that they are less likely to feel nauseous, fall over or stumble about. First timers tend to over-react to the motion sensation and will throw themselves around!

Regular wiping - be prepared to clean the headset and lenses regularly; headset foam with natural baby wipes and lenses with a good cloth. Try to avoid alcohol-based anti-bacterial wipes unless you can make sure it’s dry without any residue before the next user, otherwise it might react with contact lens fluids and give people a nasty reaction (have seen this happen!) After doing events for many years, this is why we have a set of headsets that are only used by us for development, without x,000 human skin cells embedded in the foam.

Set defaults - most VR headsets and software offer options to tailor specific dimensions of the user for the optimum visual experience. However this is time-consuming and requires an understanding of how VR works and the technology, which when dealing with high volumes of people (see point 1.) you aren’t going to have time to tweak settings for each and every person. If you set to default average settings, you can still give a great experience and any comments about blurriness can be overcome with a request to “find the sweet spot”.

So that’s the basics for demoing VR to the public. The obvious point is to make sure everything works every time without any stutter or jitter at a stable framerate. If demoing to clients (to try and win work) you have to setup and ensure your introduction to VR is as smooth and simple as possible to ensure they are not distracted or put off by the amount of cables or technology involved. Good luck!

Sam Watts has been involved in interactive, immersive content production for 15 years, from learning development and simulation to AAA and casual games. Currently employed as Operations Lead for Make REAL and Game Producer for Tammeka, he keeps busy by evangelising the possibilities and real world benefits of immersive technologies like VR and AR to anyone who will listen. Tammeka’s first VR game Radial-G : Racing Revolved launched alongside the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive earlier in 2016.

Game developers need to accept reality: Virtual reality.

Unlike many of his investors and the analysts who follow his company, I wasn't sent scrambling to consult Star Trek or the Marvel comics to discover why Mark Zuckerberg had swooped for the mysterious sounding Oculus Rift last year – let alone why he thought Facebook should spend $2 billion on it.

The games industry had kept me ahead of the wider technology space. Virtual Reality had been back on our radar for at least 18 months before the Facebook CEO got out his wallet.

Zuckerberg surely suspects that Facebook's flat desktop experience – or even its increasingly dominant mobile fly-by interface – will one day be about as relevant as using smoke signals to ask your hunter-gatherer neighbour to bring over a couple of extra wooly mammoth steaks for the cave bake.

He certainly wasn't about to let some VR incubated social network get a head start. However we choose to swap cat photos and pictures of our lunch in years to come, Zuckerberg is willing to spend billions to be part of it.

Pie in the pixelated sky?

The same should be true of game developers. As I say, we had a jump start on Virtual Reality 2.0.

Yet most I meet are highly sceptical that VR will EVER be how we play games, let along that we'll do it anytime soon.

For instance, Sony was demoing its Project Morpheus headset at the last Develop conference, and plenty of attendees took it out for a spin.

The verdict? Cooler than they expected, but nothing to rival franchises like Far Cry, FIFA, Dragon Age or Grand Theft Auto.

Now, I think they'd be right if they were talking about the next couple of years, though perhaps wrong if they're thinking the next ten.

But many game developers seem to mean… forever!

Let’s get real

This is madness. The future of interactive entertainment is VR. The question is when not if.

All you need to know to make this prediction is Moore's Law.

To jump to the end of the story, ever-increasing processing power means we'll eventually have VR that is practically indistinguishable from our current reality (assuming we escape global warming or nuclear Armageddon on the way, of course.)

Will it take 20 years, 50 years, or 200 years?

Search me, but if I look at the difference between Spacewar from the 1960s or Pong from the 1970s and the sort of games we see on next-gen consoles today, then I'm inclined to bet on brilliant engineering and programming delivering it sooner rather than later.

But anyway the fact is we don't need true reality in a headset (or whatever device VR eventually settles into) for VR games to be sufficiently compelling.

Something very close to reality will be achieved many decades before we get to perfection.

That near-reality experience will be so immersive, empowering, exciting and even frightening that the idea that anyone is going to instead sit in front of a TV fiddling with a joypad is laughable.

Virtual Rome wasn't built in a day

Just because I believe VR will eventually be achieved and universal, that doesn't mean I think it will be easy getting there.

We don't yet have the scaffolding to create a convincing VR sock drawer, let alone a fully immersive world.

But VR games today have as much in common with where VR games will end up as a Punch and Judy puppet show has with Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens.

There is so much to be invented, tested, and learned.

And that's why I believe VR will be the most exciting area to work in games over the next few years.

For all the advances in what we used to call multimedia, we're still near the bottom of a Mount Everest that has to be scaled.

Or to mix metaphors, while films can now conjure up utterly lifelike scenes – given sufficient talent and months of rendering time – when it comes to live, interactive VR entertainment, we're gazing across the Uncanny Valley.

We're wondering when to take our first hesitant steps downhill. It'll be years before we can even think about climbing out the other side.

Tomorrow's world

Old hands have seen this sort of thing before. It reminds me of the consensus that said 3D would never be mainstream in video games, because how would you do side-scrolling platform games in 3D?

Soon enough, Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider showed you couldn't quite achieve the same thing – but you could do something better.

Or think about mobile games.

I co-founded Pocket Gamer in 2005 when most people's idea of fun on a phone was Snake on a Nokia. Game developers were at the forefront when it came to scoffing.

But the technology moved incredibly fast, and now mobile is arguably the most popular platform for games.

Similarly, over the next few years, experimentation and innovation by pioneering game developers will radically improve VR entertainment, and along the way lay down the laws of virtual reality for generations to come.

How fast should a VR player turn and move? Can a static player be made to believe they can jump and fly?

And what to do when a player leans into a supposedly solid wall? Go black or fade out or send an electric shock through the headset? (Well, perhaps not that last…)

Forget Facebook or even the first true Virtual Reality Super Mario.

I have a hunch that VR game developers will work out the first 'rules' of a ubiquitous digital reality – one that someday we'll all live in.

Blog by Owain Bennallack, freelance journalist and member of Develop: Brighton advisory board.