Oculus VR Inc. will publish its first game exclusively made for its breakthrough virtual reality headset as the device nears a launch date for the consumer market.
The Irvine-based startup, which Facebook Inc. is scheduled to acquire in a $2 billion cash and stock deal, has partnered with the core development team behind the iPhone megahit “Word with Friends” to publish “Lucky’s Tale,” a third-person adventure game that was shown around last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Crowds wrapped around Oculus’ 2,500-square-foot booth, waiting as long as 90 minutes to test the game developed by McKinney, Texas.-based Playful Corp., as well as other titles destined to be among the first virtual reality games ever released.
The excitement behind Oculus’ second-generation headset and the first complete games for the emerging technology was palpable inside the halls of the largest video game trade show in the U.S.
Luckey
Palmer Luckey, the 21-year-old Oculus founder who upended the industry with the technology he developed in his parents’ Long Beach home, summed up the company’s goals at this year’s E3 show.
“We’re showing off our second development kit, DK2, running a wide variety of content, from indie to AAA,” he said, dressed in his trademark blue sport-coat-and-sandals ensemble, “just showing everyone how far we’ve come.”
Indeed—the company didn’t even exist two years ago. Last year, it didn’t have a booth at E3, instead funneling industry insiders and media to small demonstration rooms upstairs at the conventional hall, far removed from the buzz on the exhibit floor.
AAA titles are considered the highest-quality games in the industry, with big budgets and marketing campaigns.
The latest development appears to provide a glimpse into Oculus’ evolving business plan under Facebook as it moves from a hardware manufacturer to a video game publisher or developer, which carries greater revenue opportunities and the potential for much higher margins.
It’s also signed on to publish “EVE Valkyrie,” a first-person jet fighter game developed by Reykjavik, Iceland-based CCP Games. EVE Valkyrie is also slated to debut on a rival virtual reality headset by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
Oculus entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with Playful Corp. for “Lucky’s Tale,” which is expected to be bundled with the consumer version of the Oculus Rift. The company hasn’t disclosed a launch date for the device. ÂModels of the headsets have so far been sold primarily to game developers.
Luckey began working with Playful Chief Executive Paul Bettner more than 18 months ago to develop virtual reality games, before Oculus raised $2.4 million in an August 2012 Kickstarter campaign and became a tech industry darling. Two rounds of venture capital funding—the latter led by famed Silicon Valley-based Andreesen Horowitz—brought in $93.5 million last year, preceding the Facebook deal three months ago.
“We built over 30 games early on with Oculus, just prototypes,” Bettner said. “Like a lot of people, I’ve had this dream of virtual reality in my head since I was kid.”
That’s a common thread among all the players in the emerging technology that many close observers, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, believe will be the final computing platform.
Bettner heard about Luckey’s advancements in virtual reality from noted game developer John Carmack, whose hits include “Doom” and “Quake.” Carmack left the Texas gaming company he founded, id Software, late last year to become chief technology officer at Oculus, where he was instrumental in creating the prototype Oculus Rift.
Trailblazer
Bettner is an industry trailblazer himself.
He saw the possibilities of mobile gaming years before they became ubiquitous, and left influential roles at Microsoft Corp. as a senior software development engineer and creative director to pursue the unknowns of mobile gaming.
Many of Bettner’s colleagues thought he was crazy for leaving Microsoft Studios, where he worked on the Halo series and Age of Empires franchise.
His company, Newtoy Inc., would go on to create “Words with Friends,” which has been downloaded more than 60 million times, topping 15 million monthly users at its peak.
Zynga
Newtoy was acquired by San Francisco-based Zynga Inc. in late 2010 for $53.3 million as the word game became a cornerstone for one of the world’s largest mobile gaming companies.
“I believed in it. I saw this incredible promise of this technology,” Bettner said. “The same thing happened for VR. We want to be one of those pioneers.”
