Will mobile VR games fire? The developer answered this

Two years ago, mobile games experienced a wave of brutal growth. This project, known as "quick realization," was temporarily favored by the capital circle. However, with the advent of the closure of mobile gaming companies in Chengdu Hi-tech Zone Software Park, there are some game developers who seem to smell dangerous. With this wave of "virtual reality first year" boom, many developers slowly test the development of VR games, and some of them have even completely positioned themselves as VR game developers.

In the process of transformation, the biggest problem they encountered was that there were too few developers using the corresponding development engine. As the VR industry is getting hotter, people in this area will gradually make up for it. However, they are currently facing another problem in the exploration of mobile VR games. It is undeniable that mobile VR is the main way for most people to experience VR. Will mobile VR games become the next madest spot for investors like mobile games?

Performance restricts mobile VR games

About a month ago, the author visited Pan Xiang, the co-founder and producer of Harvard Technology. In the conversation with him, the author once asked this question. Pan Xiang said: “I am not optimistic about mobile VR. Because of the insufficient performance of mobile VR, many fine screens cannot be rendered."

Pan Xiang has years of experience in game production. Since 2015, he has developed 3 different types of VR games and has won numerous important awards in the industry. The products have landed on platforms such as DaPeng, Gear VR, and Viveport. They have established deep cooperation relationships with major hardware manufacturers and offline experience stores. Currently developing games for PSVR.

In the beginning, he and his partner were planning to make a mobile game. Like other game developers described in the article, they were not optimistic about the prospect of mobile games, so they changed their mobile games to half of their VR games. In the process, they not only tried the mobile platform, but also developed a shooting game for Vive. Perhaps in the process, he discovered the biggest problem with the mobile platform.

What we know is that no matter what type of VR device is, the most important thing is immersion, and this depends on many factors. For VR games, the most important thing is the fineness of the picture. Even the benchmark Gear VR on the market for mobile VR devices uses nothing more than a mobile processing chip. The combination of a desktop NVIDIA high-end GPU and an Intel i7 processor is no different.

"If you take the game of zombies that I developed myself, if you have a big wave on the PC platform and dozens of zombies rush toward you, the impact on the screen is very strong. On the Gear VR, it may only be Rendering a few zombies, there wouldn't appear to be dozens of such situations behind the scenes,” explains Pan Xiang. “Beyond that, like Vive, it has a controller that can interact with the Gear VR. Only the side trackpad."

The lack of a wide range of location tracking and interaction methods is also one of the major problems of mobile VR, and this will also affect the immersion of VR. Ximmerse has started to do this in this area, and IDEALENS also came up with their all-in-one location tracking solution at the press conference. Therefore, there is little need to worry about this, but it is not yet clear that the positioning equipment can do it. What degree is it.

"I don't like mobile VR devices because of their payment. For example, HTC Vive now has SteamVR and Viveport, users can purchase VR games on these platforms, pay, and Gear VR's built-in application store Oculus Home Used in China," said Pan Xiang. "Another question is: What kind of charging model does the game use? It can't be completely free?"

In the era of desktop games, the charging mode has experienced a point card timing system (such as Fantasy Westward Journey, World of Warcraft), buyout system (for example, watch pioneer) props charge system (for example, asked). In the era of mobile games, the prop charging system has become the most popular cash cow for mobile games. What kind of charging mode should be adopted in mobile VR games? How to cultivate the buying habits of users in VR needs to be explored. Especially in the current situation where the VR payment method has not been determined yet, the payment method is still not clear, which is really a headache problem.

Insufficient performance, play to get together

The Rubik's Cube Entertainment Director Jane Rui did not think this way : "How VR games pay for this issue is not something we need to worry about. This is something the operator needs to consider. We only need to develop games and design good gameplay. As for payment, we The payment system that can directly access the platform will do."

Jane Rui is very confident about mobile VR games. His Rubik's Cube entertainment is located in Guangzhou. There are no lack of members who originally jumped out of the NetEase game team, but also members who originally did CG special effects. They have developed too many VR games, according to them, those VR games are mildly entertaining.

"Players who use VR devices to play games cannot last too long. It will take up to half an hour. Plus, the performance of mobile VR devices is not strong. In combination with the wireless characteristics of mobile devices, it is a game of light entertainment type. It's suitable," Jane Rui said, "so players don't spend too much time in the game and they don't have too much discomfort. Because the game is lighter, we need to work hard on the game."

I experienced an escape game that they developed for IDEALENS K2: In the game, the player needs to avoid the opposite darts by swinging his head and launch darts to attack the moving enemies. The intensity of the game is not great, but it has some fun. He stated that later games will introduce socialization and realize the PVP game mode. They also designed different characters for the game. These images are relatively simple in design and relatively high in recognition. Whether it is social introduction or unique game image, it is a method to enhance the playability of the game. Of course, all this must be based on the premise of not adding too much burden to VR devices.

"As for the payment model, we also thought about this issue. In fact, I'm more inclined to allow players to try out certain levels for free, and then go to the next level. If players are interested, they can unlock it again." Jian Rui said. This charging model is somewhat like an in-app purchase in the App Store, but players are not buying game props but rather "half" games. The payment method is solved by the platform. As a game developer, they do not need to consider, but only need to consider dividing. So they are very optimistic about the prospect of mobile VR games.

When the author asked him about the issue of VR advertising, he said: "These things are not our main consideration at the moment, because the mobile VR platform is not yet in size. Only when this platform is large enough, advertisers will join Come in.” In terms of the current situation of the author, in fact, advertisers have already targeted the VR cake, but as Jane Rui said, the scale is not big enough.

Pan Xiang discovered the problems in the exploration of mobile VR games. Jane Rui gave his opinion on these issues. For developers, developing mobile VR games is like dancing and playing in limited performance. The most interesting gameplay is to achieve the purpose of realizing the money. This exploration process is more difficult than the desktop VR helmet, but it is not impossible. More and more developers are already exploring. On the road.

This entry was posted in on