DayZ Creator: Early Access Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be; There's No Money in Virtual Reality

DayZ creator Dean Hall gave detailed and surprising statements on VR game development, where he said there's "no money" for developers to take, as well as Early Access/Game Preview programs and Kickstarter which according to him aren't real funding alternatives.

[Chris_Wray]

I'm not overly surprised. VR is a niche market for now and I just don't think there's the people out there to buy enough games for it to be financially viable to make a game without it being subsidised by a big company.

[cleft5]

Just because he can't make money in VR experience doesn't mean there is no money there to be made. There is plenty of money to be made for the person that is smart enough to figure out how to sale VR experiences properly. Adult entertainment will and already is profiting off of VR experiences. There is a reason they keep producing VR content.

Thats just one example, but its hardly a minor one. I think developers need to be careful with the silly notion that just because they cant identify how to make money in an experience, that means its impossible. Quite frankly, that is the height of arrogance. All of these major companies arent investing in VR out of charity. There is a great deal of money to be made with VR experiences.

[Timesplitter14]

fine, then "there's no money in VR game development".

Out of Ammo is one of the most commercially successful VR games out there according to statistics, and it had a very short dev cycle with a very small team, and despite all those odds, it's not even close to making enough money for payroll. That's gotta mean something

P.S: people like to joke about how important porn is for a new format... but this isn't the 80's or the 90's anymore. The only people who pay for porn in this day and age are people who live in trailer parks. I don't think it's gonna make much of a difference. If porn becomes successful on VR, it's gonna be free porn

[OMGitzThatGuy]

The adult entertainment also doesn't take years to make a product or has dozens of developers whose salaries are $80K+ a year on average and almost everyone has access to the internet but not everyone has the money to by a PC plus a $600+ VR system or money for a PS4 and a PSVR headset. VR wont succeed until the games are AAA quality and they are a affordable price and AAA games wont be made until VR sells more. VR is just a niche format that will only be a outlet for small and low budget games. Also, "Adult" entertainment doesn't need VR to work, media can be view with or without a headset, so they still have the majority audience to fall back on whereas VR games need to be made specifically for it or just tacked onto a base game.

[Timesplitter14]

@OMGitzThatGuy
here's the thing, tough; VR games will never appear to be "AAA quality". No matter how much the tech improves, VR games will always be roughly twice a performance-heavy as non-VR games (just because of how things work). They will always not look as good as the AAA games of their time.

and here's another thing; AAA games very often rely on being "cinematic". They are full of cutscenes and elaborate scripted set-pieces, both of which are terrible ideas for a VR game. In VR, you can't just stop the player from looking around and force the camera look at something. It feels way too bizarre and inappropriate (source: early 2014 VR games often made this mistake)

VR's shortcomings are not due to lack of funds, talent, or even tech. They are due to the nature of VR itself

[CorndogBurglar]

@Timesplitter

I'm not so sure I agree with your porn theory.

You can't get a VR porn experience anywhere but VR. Nobody pays for porn now because there are a million websites with tons of free porn on them. What those sites can never do is make you actually feel like you are in the porn. VR can do that. And if VR can do that, then thete are people that would pay good money to experience that.......namely me. Lol.

And anyone that says otherwise is a filthy liar.

[Alexious]

Potentially there is, but in practice it's a whole other story.

[kraenk12]

@Timesplitter14

The way you are talking about AAA development for VR isn't taking into account, that the player easily accepts a lower fidelity in comparison to the normal screen if immersion is increased in such a level as VR can offer. New kinds of experiences will be developed which even attract non-gamers which opens up the market. It's naive to think that there is no money to be made....I guess Dean Hall didn't have the right idea yet. Otherwise he'd already be working on it, would sell it before it's finished and go on a hike with the millions he made from his early adaptors.

It's the egg and the hen principle...atm there aren't enough headsets on the market to make big money, but without software that's going to attract buyers it's not gonna increase so it's a wise move to invest in heavy hitters like REVII which will further increase the system sales which will respectively increase the motivation of gaming companies to invest in developing VR software. The development goes into this direction anyway so for any company it should be wise to start developments in this direction because there's a lot to learn for VR. And just like you said, old and familiar patterns like movie clips simply don't work anymore...those need to be reinvented. Either as a spectator or as part of the scene. It's backwards to think we will always want to watch movies/cutscenes, when we can be IN the movies/cutscenes instead.

[kraenk12]

The thing is once the first killer apps come out, like Resident Evil VII, Farpoint, GT Sport etc the things will even fly off more of the shelves as they are now. I agree the PC VR market is pretty small, but the potential console VR market is a whole different story and the driving force is mainly dedicated game development as presented by Sony.

[ONESHOTV2]

PC VR is small ? Lol isn't it the other way around last time I check PC gamers could actually play most of their VR games on the rift unlike console were there are only cut down versions of a full game and who would want to play that.

[kraenk12]

I'm talking about a market which consisits of people owning a capable machine and device. PSVR has outsold Rift and Vive combined already and Sony's game support is already far beyond anything available for PC. There are 50 million VR capable PS4s out there already and a substantial part of those people will try to acquire a VR headset during the coming year...if Sony can satisfy demand that is, cause that's where they are struggeling atm.

@moldybread

What you need to understand is that VR will always be a beneficial experience. It adds to the experience, that means either games are adapted to work with VR or are developed solely with VR in mind. Either way it's a hell load of extra work that needs to be done..I could lecture you on the matter of 3D sound just for example..which happens in totally unexplored territory. Game design as it was, often simply doesn't work in VR or needs to be adapted. All that costs a lot of development time and atm there are only few people experienced in the field and even those are experimenting in their ways to try to adapt to the new medium. There is LOADS of potential and you'd know if you'd ever tried it. Pioneers in the scene will be winners in the end, others will be forgotten..that's the way it goes. But these additional workloads are the reason why GT Sport will only have a fraction playable in VR at launch, which is understandable if you know how Polyphony Digital are used to release their games and of course they are gonna focus on the 50 million without a VR headset first before they convert the whole game.
How would you know which projects the future holds?! Of course this is just the first step but someone's gotta do it and yeah, I'm sure next gen is gonna be better...but why wait?!

[freshslicepizza]

gt sport? its only on select cars and tracks. is this burden of proof that sony (sony owns polyphony digital so i put the emphasis on them) is not 100% committed to vr or is this because the ps4 can't really do vr justice so they have to limit its expereinces? it has to be one or the other or both.

how can you say there is potential when sony will not allocate funding for a pure vr game that can compete with the likes of horizon, days gone, the last of us 2 and so on? psvr will always be considered a peripheral and because of that the potential will never come to fruition. not unless the ps5 comes with vr built in.

[Aurenar]

Nobody has money for Vr asd

[Imp0ssibl3]

These are just two more trends that will slowly fade away. Both Early Access and VR cannot last, the latter in particular

[DashArrivals]

VR can last and VR will thrive

[bluefox755]

You know who doesn't say that? People who have tried it.

[Timesplitter14]

As someone who has been an early adopter of VR (since 2014-ish with oculus DK1) and who has also tried the Vive, PSVR and GearVR, I can say that VR really didn't hold my interest for long and I don't much care for it anymore.

It's just waaaaay too limiting on game design. It does open some new doors, but it closes thousands of others. Most of the worthwile VR games end up just being "hah, that's neat" kind of games. But nothing that'll make you want to pay upwards of 200$ for it

I do see a future for VR, though. One day, in 10 years, someone is gonna make a fully-portable device that can switch between AR and VR (think of something like google glasses, but good), and THAT's gonna be when VR really gets adopted by the masses. VR alone doesn't attract enough people, but an all-purpose mobile device that supports VR would do the trick

[kraenk12]

@Timesplitters14

I'm sure development will prove you wrong. (So you really just own a DK1?!) There are already first reports telling Resident Evil is best played in VR...Artful games like REZ...I don't need to start about cockpit based games like RIGS, Battlezone, Eve Valkyrie, War Thunder, X-Wing Mission etc. Additionally completely new game mechanics are being developed because they need to be developed...VR actually finally opens up new possibilities in game design which could be a saviour to the otherwise stale getting market. It's never going to replace conventional gaming but it's a welcome addition and will only grow from here.

[CorndogBurglar]

We have yet to see if VR is here to stay or not. However, early acces has been around for a pretty long time. Its certainly nothing new. If there was no money to be made in it then devs would have given up on it a long time ago.

It all depends on the devs in the end. If they are constantly working on the game and putting out regular updates and keeping the early accessers happy then its a great experience. Its when devs fall short on their promises that early access is a horrible experience.

Didn't Day Z catch all kinds of flack for their early access shinanigans early on? Or was that some other MMO Zombie game? Can't remember but one of them did a swell job of pissing off its early adopters. But then you have tried and true devs like the people behind Divinity: Original Sin 2 and its great.

[Timesplitter14]

You're thinking of WarZ. DayZ got some flak because it was the "original" early-access game and people didn't like that notion in general, but it still remains a well-loved game. One of my personal favorite games ever, in fact

[Seafort]

@Timesplitter14

And DayZ is still in Early Access. There hasn't been a survival game that's in Early Access that's been completed yet.

Early Access can be a good thing if the developers are trustworthy and try to finish their game in a timely fashion. Only a few developers are like that. Most of the Early Access games have been abandoned or are stuck in Early Access blackhole never to be completed such as DayZ or H1Z1 to name 2.

It's about time Valve took ownership of their Early Access project and kick some fraudulent developers out of it.

[-Foxtrot]

Things like VR are best suited to just having the best time you can while in the moment...which is why I hope when Sony has their fun with VR and the whole thing dies down a little they don't try beating an almost dead horse with the PS5.

If it comes to an end I hope companies move away from it until the far future they can come back with better tech and revive it.

I don't see what's wrong with our controllers for now. I think we are another decade away or so from going "This new product (VR-Motion Controls-Whatever) is better then a controller"

[Alexious]

Agreed, VR is just not ready. They already tried twenty years ago and it failed, this time they got closer but it's still not there, just too many drawbacks.

Perhaps in another twenty or so.

[WeAreLegion]

Nope. VR is going strong on all major devices. And the technology is progressing at an exceptional rate. We're getting wireless VR in January. That's something we thought was years away. It works right now.

Why is everyone treating VR like a new controller or something? It's a completely different experience.

[kraenk12]

Google "The Void" and then we'll speak again.

[CorndogBurglar]

You just said something that I can't agree with more. "I don't see whats wrong with our controllers".

Call me oldschool, but I've never been interested in these gimmicky things. The Kinect. The PS Camera. The Wii. Sure they are alright. But in the end I just want to sit in my recliner with my dog in my lap and play video games. I don't need all this moving around silliness.

[DashArrivals]

There are so many experiences just like that. You can sit in your recliner, wearing VR and drive a tank in a tron like environment. You see what I mean. In fact Sony themselves recommended to ALL devs to create games and experiences where the player is sitting in the chair. The new Ace Combat game for example can be played sitting down with a controller in your hands and wearing the headset.

Another things. 'Normal' gaming is NEVER going to be replaced. Ever. VR is just another way to play, and many of us welcome this new way to play and experience things. Games for VR is just the starting point. I promise you, you will have VR in your own home soon enough lol.

[kraenk12]

You're sadly mistaken if you think VR is ever going away. You just need to look at China where VR is already mainstream, because they adapt so easily to new technology that other cultures just wonder. You sound like a guy from the 70ies who believes computers are never gonna have wide public acceptance. =)

[Cybermario]

not really surprised, what you can do with VR is very limited, will be hard to see unique and especial game expoeriences with VR. Plus these are not cheap gadgets to go for right now.

[Green_gangstaZYX]

3

UCFORCE loves Kraenk12's tiny cock, he sent me a PM a few days ago about it. Ewwww nasty man. And he calls me monster and disgusting LMAO!!!!!

List of dumb fucks on N4G (more will be added later):
Kraenk12
Junebug
Overload aka S2Killinit aka Transistor aka Mariahelfutura
SpaceRanger
Aenea
Hoffmann
2pacalypsenow
Butchertroll
Morganfell
DigitalRaptor
Red_renegade aka Stardustlemon aka Spotie aka Hicken
Kingthrash360
Newmonday
Showtimefolks
Spoilerjerk
Majin-Vegeta
DeadlyOreo
Errorist76 aka Chameleon77 aka Crashbandicoot77
MasterCornholio
GrubsterBeater
MagicBeanz
Cindy-rella
TwoForce
3BnZombiesKilled
Utalkin2me
Spectre
BlackTar187
Sparta
Liqu1d
_-EDMIX-_
MightyNoX
IamTylerDurden1
Abash
Areyouhavinalaff
SniperControl
UltraNova
Playtimewilltell
johndoe11211
Dragonddark
Rude-Ro
Doabarrelroll
-Mezzo-
Inzo
PeaSFor
Ninsigma
Chevalier
Goldby
Kneon
Thejigisup
Akurtz
Skillz1215
SolidGear3
Bolts
Kryptix
OB1Biker
Godmars290
GamingTruth
Lonnie18
Lsbb
Wallstreet37
FreeSpeech69
Andresegr
Itechheads
Skillz1215
Cl1983
XiKurapikaKurta
Skankinruby
TheEvilResident1997
DarkSniper
UCForce

🐎💩

Wannabes that are almost ponies but need to put in more work:
ShadowKnight
Ratchet8
Xavy

[Scatpants]

Try Superhot it's amazing.

[kraenk12]

Actually there are more unique and special gaming experiences on PSVR than we had in gaming since decades already...and that's only after a few months.

[Green_gangstaZYX]

UCFORCE loves Kraenk12's tiny cock, he sent me a PM a few days ago about it. Ewwww nasty man. And he calls me monster and disgusting LMAO!!!!!

List of dumb fucks on N4G (more will be added later):
Kraenk12
Junebug
Overload aka S2Killinit aka Transistor aka Mariahelfutura
SpaceRanger
Aenea
Hoffmann
2pacalypsenow
Butchertroll
Morganfell
DigitalRaptor
Red_renegade aka Stardustlemon aka Spotie aka Hicken
Kingthrash360
Newmonday
Showtimefolks
Spoilerjerk
Majin-Vegeta
DeadlyOreo
Errorist76 aka Chameleon77 aka Crashbandicoot77
MasterCornholio
GrubsterBeater
MagicBeanz
Cindy-rella
TwoForce
3BnZombiesKilled
Utalkin2me
Spectre
BlackTar187
Sparta
Liqu1d
_-EDMIX-_
MightyNoX
IamTylerDurden1
Abash
Areyouhavinalaff
SniperControl
UltraNova
Playtimewilltell
johndoe11211
Dragonddark
Rude-Ro
Doabarrelroll
-Mezzo-
Inzo
PeaSFor
Ninsigma
Chevalier
Goldby
Kneon
Thejigisup
Akurtz
Skillz1215
SolidGear3
Bolts
Kryptix
OB1Biker
Godmars290
GamingTruth
Lonnie18
Lsbb
Wallstreet37
FreeSpeech69
Andresegr
Itechheads
Skillz1215
Cl1983
XiKurapikaKurta
Skankinruby
TheEvilResident1997
DarkSniper
UCForce

🐎💩

Wannabes that are almost ponies but need to put in more work:
ShadowKnight
Ratchet8
Xavy

[kraenk12]

You should really try to find a girlfriend.

[Green_gangstaZYX]

4

UCFORCE loves Kraenk12's tiny cock, he sent me a PM a few days ago about it. Ewwww nasty man. And he calls me monster and disgusting LMAO!!!!!

List of dumb fucks on N4G (more will be added later):
Kraenk12
Junebug
Overload aka S2Killinit aka Transistor aka Mariahelfutura
SpaceRanger
Aenea
Hoffmann
2pacalypsenow
Butchertroll
Morganfell
DigitalRaptor
Red_renegade aka Stardustlemon aka Spotie aka Hicken
Kingthrash360
Newmonday
Showtimefolks
Spoilerjerk
Majin-Vegeta
DeadlyOreo
Errorist76 aka Chameleon77 aka Crashbandicoot77
MasterCornholio
GrubsterBeater
MagicBeanz
Cindy-rella
TwoForce
3BnZombiesKilled
Utalkin2me
Spectre
BlackTar187
Sparta
Liqu1d
_-EDMIX-_
MightyNoX
IamTylerDurden1
Abash
Areyouhavinalaff
SniperControl
UltraNova
Playtimewilltell
johndoe11211
Dragonddark
Rude-Ro
Doabarrelroll
-Mezzo-
Inzo
PeaSFor
Ninsigma
Chevalier
Goldby
Kneon
Thejigisup
Akurtz
Skillz1215
SolidGear3
Bolts
Kryptix
OB1Biker
Godmars290
GamingTruth
Lonnie18
Lsbb
Wallstreet37
FreeSpeech69
Andresegr
Itechheads
Skillz1215
Cl1983
XiKurapikaKurta
Skankinruby
TheEvilResident1997
DarkSniper
UCForce

🐎💩

Wannabes that are almost ponies but need to put in more work:
ShadowKnight
Ratchet8
Xavy

[kraenk12]

I wonder when you will realise that the only dumb fuck around here is you yourself.

[DashArrivals]

How come his newest account is not banned yet? Maybe they had to 'hire' more mods to deal with this crazy pathetic fool. Hey? lol You have a very special mention at the start of his post. Did you destroy him recently?

[Frisky]

There's no money in VR unless you come up with something that people will really enjoy.

[dmetripaulpavlin]

Like a version of your game that isn't VR... oh yeah that exists and people do enjoy them and they pay, and keep paying. VR was, is, and always will be DOA. It is not what the masses of people want to use period. It is literally the same timeline and flow of 3d TV and curved TV's. No matter how hard companies push it, it is not going to be mainstream, ever. Keep playing that flute though and singing that tune, you will be wrong until the day you die.

[DashArrivals]

*no money for VR... on PC.... PSVR is the biggest psvr market. If you want to make money you have to make a good game and release on all 3 VR. Oculus. PSVR and Vive. But the game must be good. Don't be making crap. I've got about 15 titles on PSVR right now. If the content is worthwhile and it's good, I will buy it.

[dmetripaulpavlin]

How do you own 15 titles on PSVR if you buy worthwhile and good content? The PSVR doesn't have anything in either of those realms?

[DashArrivals]

Wait. Are you some kind of troll?

[kraenk12]

"There is no money in videogames"

-Unimportant person in 1980.

[dmetripaulpavlin]

"There is money in VR."

-Guy on internet who was wrong in 2016 and will be wrong in 2017.

[Rachel_Alucard]

When they release some comatose-reality based video game is when things take off. The dream for a .hack like game will become a reality.

[Armyntt]

VR isn't ready yet. Point blank. In order for VR to be a massive success in order for it to truly be the "future", it needs to work and work great and look great from the beginning. There's no luxury of it will get better. It has to be borderline perfect from day 1 or it will be a niche market because mainstream America/world will pass. And once it's a niche market, devs and the publishers will move on. No point in risking money on a small market. As cool as I find the VR to be and I can see the future, it's also its limitations that I see that will doom it in the near future.

[lipton101]

All I want to know is when it's coming to ps4

[Drizzy]

Microsoft is working to make it more affordable at $249.99 they said it themselves at a conference not to long ago and a lot of major partners are going in on it with them. Give a year after release they'll be down to $199 then people will buy it and hopefully it will be good. Also by that time maybe Sony will release ps vr2 and you know it will be more affordable than there competitors

[dmetripaulpavlin]

Fucking finally a dev admits what all of you know in your heart. VR is no different than 3d TV and curved TV's, aka absolutely never going to be a major player, why would you develope for a small niche market if your intent is to turn a profit? Answer is you wouldn't.