Here’s a DICE 2017 chat I had with Jason Rubin, head of content for Oculus VR. Some of you will remember Jason Rubin as the cofounder of Naughty Dog, while those of you that follow the videogame industry closely will recall some controversial statements he made at previous DICE Summit events. In the chat below, he discusses what he said at DICE 10 years ago, how his views have developed over the years, and the tremendous potential of VR gaming. Here’s a clip from my conversation with Jason Rubin.
Nearly everything they know about how to design experiences and tell stories will need to be rewritten. The language for VR is still being defined, and therefore the best practices for existing genres are being thrown away as new ones are written. When devs jump in, they often think, “I’ve done this sort of game before on console or PC, so let’s give ourselves a few months of time to prototype and then we can get into production,” and they quickly realize that when the player in VR has agency to guide the camera and is capable of actually being in the world, everything that dev has done in the past is now something that has to be reimagined.
We’ve never been shy about the fact that we’re in the very early stages of VR. Like any major advancement, it takes time for the technology to come down in price. When flatscreen TVs came out, everyone wanted one but the prices were prohibitive. Now they’re everywhere. Everything for VR is moving in the right direction for that kind of mass adoption to happen — the PCs used to power high-end VR have already come down in price by hundreds of dollars since Rift launched in March 2016. Most importantly, the hardware delivers on the promise of VR. When people put on our headsets, they voice a strong desire to purchase afterwards. All-in prices to get into VR will continue to go down, so we just need make sure there’s a ton of great software when they do chose to join the VR revolution.
When you have a chance, be sure to check out the full Jason Rubin interview here.