VR movies are already making waves in the virtual world, and the studios behind some of them have been making some serious money off of them.
In a world where the best-selling VR game of the year is a mobile game called Changelings, the studios that make games for VR are now making money off the idea that their games will be enjoyed by the whole family.
Changelings was a hit with its VR-compatible headsets and, as a result, Warner Bros. has seen a significant jump in revenue from the game.
That jump has led to a hefty amount of money for VR studios that were once making less than $1 million a year.
Now, with Changelers coming out on March 4, VR developers are getting paid to produce VR experiences for people who have already purchased their games, which is good for the consumer, but it’s bad for VR developers who had to wait until now to see their titles in VR.
VR game developer Darksiders 2, for example, has been in production since June of last year and now has more than $60 million in revenue.
“I’ve had my VR project come out and I can’t even get my hands on it,” said John Dennison, cofounder and CEO of VR game studio ZeniMax.
“I’m not even sure how I’m going to afford it.”
Dennison was talking to me while sitting in his home in Santa Cruz, California, where he is also working on a VR game called ZeniCode.
Zeni Code is a multiplayer game for VR that lets players play against each other in a sandbox world, but Zeni Max is focusing on building an even better game.
Dennis Bledsoe, Zeni Mode’s lead programmer, is now on a five-year project with Dennisons that will allow ZeniMode to make a VR version of Darksider 2.
In a world in which VR has taken off, it’s hard to know how much money VR developers will make off of Changelingers sales.
I asked Bleds if he thinks he’s going to be able to keep making VR games for the next five years, or if it will just take another five years.
“I think that I’m probably going to stay with VR for the foreseeable future, I think VR is going to get big,” he said.
“If I were making another game for it, I would have to go to another company and say, ‘I don’t want to make this anymore.’
But I feel like we’re in a good place now and we’re going to keep doing it.”
Bledsoes first VR game was for a PC game called Ghost Recon Wildlands that was released back in 2014.
It was a VR-only experience and not a full game like VR games can be, but Ghost Recon was a big hit.
The game sold nearly 10 million copies worldwide and helped Bled so much that he ended up buying the rights to another Ghost Recon game.
Dennies game is different.
He’s now working on another Ghost Roster VR game.
ZenCode’s Denns games were always just a prototype, but this time he’s taking a step back and doing a full-blown VR game with a lot more of a focus on storytelling.
Dorsing is not only going to put out a game for the Oculus Rift, but also the HTC Vive, which Dennions first prototype had a lot of trouble with.
The first game was a single-player game where players fought each other to take control of Dorsin’s avatar.
That didn’t work out too well and Dennys game turned into a multiplayer experience that lets two people fight each other, while the player who controls the avatar wins.
It sounds simple, but Denni’s team is actually doing the heavy lifting of making a game with story, music, and sound that people can play together.
They’re creating a brand new story mode, called the Story Mode, that will be available for free to everyone on Steam.
The team is also making a new game called Story Mode VR that is being developed as a standalone experience.
This is where Dennson’s team stands out.
It’s a team of five people who are all VR veterans.
They’re working on Dorsers story mode VR game, while Dennios team is working on developing the full game.
There’s a lot going on, and Dennais team is not just focusing on the story mode.
ZenCode has built a massive library of VR content, which they’ve shared with Dorsins team and their friends in the VR community.
They also have a team that is doing research on VR’s next big thing.
They are working on the next big piece of VR hardware, the HMD.
The HMD is being built by Valve, which has some of the biggest names in the industry