Reality, Upgraded: Navigating VR/AR Gaming with Alex Silkin | 323

foreign [Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of Game Dev Unchained the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof I am Brandon Pham and with me a special guest Alex silken I got it all right cool uh thanks for joining us uh this is the part of the podcast Alex where I kind of ask our guests which is yourself to talk about yourself a little bit a little preview of where you've been where you are right now where you heading yeah so I've been doing uh professional game development for about 10 years um uh so I was I was going to USC to study uh video game programming um and uh

for uh essentially what became my thesis project we created this uh virtual reality Hardware software um prototype uh kind of like a math science experiment which a whole bunch of wires and bolting like headset and these social controllers to a helmet um to bike a helmet and eventually that that was in 2012 and we started a company based on that and built a few rounds of um increasingly sophisticated prototypes but when um the VR consumer Market became mature enough to have actual platforms to sell on we've uh created our games and um essentially started focusing on just delivering games to Consumers uh we also did a bunch of like application based in Dana for a bit um but that um slowly uh kind of shut down uh right before covid which is I guess good timing because probably definitely you know kind of kill that industry for a bit

but we're finally on the other side and uh yeah we released a whole bunch of games and now we're focused on IP licenses ever since our like really big hit with Creek uh rice to Glory which is a boxing game based on um the movie and um now where the latest game that we're working on uh We've announced it we haven't really shown uh much of it um it's based on Aliens movies uh so kind of a sci-fi horror game um uh I guess uh sort of a spiritual well I think that's a setting of article but we are spiritually uh inspired I guess by um the alien isolation game so we're hoping to create a compelling uh virtual reality focused uh follow-up to the game yeah for the listeners out there I think the the the life cycle of the VR landscape I I feel like anybody who puts on a VR gets it I feel if anything all first person shooters should be VR base

right that's just my personal opinion on things uh like in in terms of the technology it's impressive and it's fun um you know when I play Half-Life Alex it's like yeah this is how basically everything should be and uh if we were to just look at the last 10 years I know we kind of connected on my last rent on the round table news and I kind of expressed my attitudes where I feel like you know the last 10 years has been like this huge incline of VR interests covet kind of kind of hampered it a bit which is was a weird period because if anything to me that was like where VR should have been striking the hardest and where everyone was stuck at their computer with not a lot of choices to go outside and congregate and interact with live people um and now it's kind of making I feel another push with the recent announcement of the Apple product right

so if you can I I you being a developer in that space for a while I would love to kind of just love to hear your general perspective of what's going on right now in this space is Apple making an impact is it something that you know is there another second you know surge of VR interest that that is happening and everybody should start paying attention as developers as game MERS like what what is to be expected in the next five years with the VR AR space because it feels like it that you know they're kind of synonymous now the AR VR space it's like one and the same but not really right the technology is different but now we're wearing these devices that should be able to do both is the expectation um it's a lot of questions but would love to kind of hear your response hey yeah I think um uh I think consumers of people in general have very short attention spans um they quickly forget about

um some exciting things to happen when their Eclipse by other exciting use uh and I'm very excited about the Vision Pro um but I think you know just a few months ago psvr 2 came out and I think that was actually a pretty big step for premium um consumer uh home virtual reality um I mean that's on one hand like anyone who's been playing PC based VR games um I think they'll find that in some ways uh it's really just catching up it's eclipsing in in many ways but um you know the index kind of set a really high bar for the Optics and the resolution um field of view of of the hardware but with psvr too none it would finally matching that but we actually have um for the first time kind of available to a mass mass market and uh I think they Sony has just done such a big push for

immersion across both uh navr and virtual reality so the haptics in the head but also the Adaptive triggers and the controllers uh just provide um you know such an additional um kind of way of you know but I'll put it for um uh for content to kind of keep maturing um and uh you know of course the PS5 is a pretty powerful piece of uh Machinery so we'll be you know uh of course on one hand we have quests which is just uh so much more approachable it has mass Market but it is also kind of like a mobile based um headset you know and I'm excited the quest 3 is coming out you know the quest Pro also has uh better uh better processing uh but in the end you can't really uh you know it's just the reality of like a dedicated uh big box that's rendering your game so I'm excited for you know the graphical Fidelity that we're going to see from uh psvr psvr you know games like you already have

Resident Evil uh Village uh the VR Port but we also have uh Resident Evil 4 uh VR mode that was showcased um and those really look next-gen graphically so I'm really excited about that and of course the Apple Vision Pro now that's what everyone's talking about um I think um you know I went to augmented Expo like the week before that and it was It was kind of awkward because everyone was just waiting for next week uh like waiting for like these news that like this event was eclipsing it and as it happened um and um you know I think uh hardcore VR game is might be a little bit confused by um The Vision Pro um form factor I mean there's no motion controllers like you can't uh that's what I think a lot of uh people have been playing VR games are kind of focused on like how how does this even make sense for um you know the games and experiences that we've been used to

and um um and you know and they didn't showcase a lot of gaming focus at um the you know at the announcement uh they were actually focused a lot on just actually it seems like traditional almost like 2D screens projected in augmented space but in some sense like that is actually a much bigger market right like the VR uh VR Market is still somewhat Niche it's grown a lot I mean with 20 that people really like to talk about the 20 20 million headset uh Quest headsets out there um which is and uh I think as as many as Xbox um uh series s x I might be misremembering the stat but you can't really call VR Niche because then you're calling Xbox Niche which is not really true um so um I think um with division Pro it's there but the

division Pro they're chasing a much bigger Market though they can theoretically replace every single screen in your life um which I think is a much more ambitious goal uh it's also I think in some ways a little bit a little scary that one device from one single company can theoretically now like replace every single device and can now sit like right between the consumer and all the other content out there all the other creators um so you know I'm wondering how that's going to work out but on the other hand you know these at least right now they're not going to be able to deliver at least that niche of you know really uh I think um action-oriented you know VR experiences that require buttons and require fantasy but on the other hand like as we've seen um you know with the mobile game Market that um iOS is really like propelled into the mainstream and kind of Clips traditional gaming um you know I think you know it doesn't make sense to bet against apple and

their potentially creating kind of like a whole new whole new type of consumer a whole new type of uh kind of like uh experience um like that is potentially going to be really popular I mean it's going to be much more approachable um that you know just to put on a headset and play some more experience some more casual kind of experiences that you can just uh you know touch and look at um so I'm definitely kind of excited yeah excited about that but also kind of scared there definitely seems to be a net positive in terms of all the uh uh all the factors right I mean we're talking we're talking about the console right and psvr is definitely a huge component that I think because it lives within its own ecosystem that people are not as which is weird because you know the original VR the Oculus was kind of conceived for gamers right that

was the niche market that's how it grew and that's how it basically essentially got acquired by because that that crowd was just really pushing it it was just presenting a lot of potential right uh and yeah and at the quest right now is a 20 million uh units sold we're looking at PlayStation 5 I think the last time I read it was like near to 40 million like Hardware potentially to sell psvr too right the funny thing about PR's VR games is that it's very focused and then they're very polished experience and in a way PlayStation Sony they kind of uh are okay with like really investing in that space and not having to look towards like a return immediately right I feel like with the quest and the PC Marketing in particular there's got to be like a tremendous pressure on the

developers to immediately look for profit or or trying to drive sales immediately because they're kind of on their own I'm not sure and maybe you can comment on how meta is very supportive of that right um but like the weird thing that I compliment Apple for I kind of criticize metaphor right those are kind of like the big two right now for the market even though Sony again it's too weird Sony's like this weird cousin that like yeah they count but like in the grand scheme of things when you at least when you talk to the referring to the tech space no one's like putting psvr and you're like is this going to change the future is like no it's used for a bunch of Gamers right but psvr is a like a very strong Contender for sure in terms of how it shapes the VR space but how apple is kind of going for what you're saying I think you put it pretty in a very good way how it's trying to

place every screen I didn't even think of it as that like yeah you're absolutely right like the computer screen the TV screen it's not just for phones right it's basically every screen that you interact with that is a huge potential market and we have to remember Apple single-handedly basically ushered in the smart phone era right I mean there were other smartphones existing before but nothing like pretty much after you know there was a clear uh there was a clear indication of where Apple came into the space because every phone started to kind of copy its design pretty immediately right and I see the same with apple where yeah they're going for a bigger space and at the same complaint for the phone in terms of games is starting to apply for this apple Vision Pro right it's like well where are the buttons it's like well they single-handedly made a mobile market and the last time I checked data traditional gaming have actually or have always been just a small percentage of the whole gaming Market they actually Shrunk the only

last year traditional gaming is shrinking uh compared to the rest of the mobile market or casual gamers basically right so that's something to be you know cautious about and shows how how strong at least with younger generation uh basic uh a whole Market that was just born in the last 15 years is overtake have overtaken and sustaining and kind of cannibalizing you know the gaming Market overall so who's to say that Apple Vision Pro you know with this gestures base and let um let's not forget that you can use a control they just straight up use a Sony controller for a lot of the games to kind of make it uh uh clock cross platform uh that Vision Pro is just going to create its own Market again you know the the the Black Mirror Market of the video game interaction uh that might be even more compelling than even the

the Casual mobile market right uh my my argument with meta is that meta I feel even though they showcase a lot of games on their side sometimes whenever I view meta news they always talk about their little virtual social space that mirrors a lot of like Nintendo World right and I was like well I don't think this is to me it doesn't feel like these are made by not to disrespect the game developers that work there it's just like this is just very basic you know this is not this is not even wowish you know it's like we've made wow ten years ago that looks and plays much better than this and I feel it's a step backwards and uh thankfully I feel with a competitive with a competitor like apple I think meta is taking notice and making something more compelling than that in the following year or else they know

they're going to get squashed apple is such a force no one should underestimate their their ability to go into the space and basically recreate it re-envisioned from the ground up and Market it better than most people so I think I guess in conclusion I'm kind of conflicted I know that space is going to grow because I've never seen anyone put on a VR set and walk away disappointed or going man I was like oh my God I get it right but like the steps of getting people into those things have been a barrier and like you said before with PC you know having a PC Hardware that can run these type of games have been you know definitely Niche right PlayStation definitely helps the quests you know having a standalone device is a step in the right direction but Apple just makes that sexier right uh I mean they they pretty much bypass

the whole weight thing and just like we're just gonna put metal on metal and Polished look awesome because you want to look awesome and the demos I think it by far it was the best presentation I've ever seen for any types of VR device they just know how to they just know what the consumers want and I'm as a gamer I'm impressed by it even though they didn't show any games right so if you were to look and it seems like obviously you're super excited the pandemic was kind of weird because it focused on other Technologies right I thought it was a period that VR and AR would actually get a boost but instead blockchain or nft and all these stupid things kind of distract everybody right and then died coincidentally right after coven was over uh when you were in the thick of the

developing VR uh applications and games what were you thinking in those two-year period it was like what what is going on like I I feel like that distraction was not just uh by the consumer but I'm sure investors or Publishers were putting VR in the back seat a bit right just saying hey this is you know the hot new stuff is this one right here what was that period like yeah honestly covet was like uh three years of living and like upside down like world where everything that you thought would happen like didn't happen or happen in reverse and time kind of like Stood Still so it's just like a very confusing moment um and I think you know in the beginning there was like a lot of issues with the supply side Supply chains you know I'm very impressed that PS5 and Xbox series s and act s and X basically as far as I

remember shift like on time and Quest 2 also shipped like didn't get delayed and actually released like at the end of 2020 as far as I remember uh but that I think you have to think the majority of the development happened you know before covet actually started um granted you know obviously all the factories shut down you know I imagine they were able to build up some stock and afterwards there were issues with you know actually I mean for like two years I mean I think this year was the first year finally you could like just get a PS5 on a web yeah um you know Quest 2 was just like always out of stock as far as I remember you know Xbox and PS5 also like you know those giant resale Market on eBay and you know Sony at their PlayStation direct initiative to help people kind of like Get Around the scoppers and like get into like this like Lottery system um like I used you know I wanted a PS5

for my birthday in I think 21 it was 2020 I think 21 games shipped in 2020 and I used five computers to get a PS5 because I just logged into the like PS5 any but I even like used my girlfriend at the time like she like locked in her phone and I think she's the one who actually got it like like that's how difficult it was to get Hardware back then um doing a listening sorry I cheated the system but you know I really wanted a PS5 for my birthday and at least I wasn't like stopping it for like thousands of dollars um I actually ended up getting an Xbox for like twice the price from like Walmart because I was just like that's good I just don't want to jump into these hoes and um you know so we're a little bit concerned about you know uh just the VR industry was already kind of constrained in terms of like how many people had these devices and now all of a sudden you had an additional like artificial barrier to people and getting devices so we actually started diversifying away

from VR uh in last few years and we released um like one non-vr mode for like a puzzle uh game called puzzle bottle which is on PS5 you could play it in non-vr and then for uh a big hit Creed we released a like a non-vr uh port on PS4 and of course it runs PS5 and you know Xbox and uh switch um because we just weren't sure if um the market the VR Market was just kind of you know really die but it kind of went the opposite uh you know despite all the um shortages of devices they were still flying off the shelves and you know people were all kind of locked at home and uh they needed that escape and you know gaming did really benefit from the pandemic from just like the increased sales of people just sitting at home there's like a lot of kind of new customers who decided to pick a game for the first time there was existing people existing

customers who you know just had way more free time and free money on their hands um so um VR Market actually kind of really grew over uh covid of course so then it kind of led to this whole like Mad Dash to metaverse which is kind of mixed with this whole like web free like crypto based like movement um so like that muddied the water um and uh and now like on the other side like coming out we're seeing again ps3.2 just come out and that's growing the market on one end of course it's a more hardcore Market you know the quest is increasingly you know investing into the ecosystem you know 20 million plus Quest twos and equestrians coming out with the more AR focus and of course I think the Vision Pro is gonna force a lot more people to double down or re-enter the market like I think I've already seen like rumors of Google like uh potentially trying to do something again because I think it

everyone is realizing that Apple can potentially replace you know every single screen in your life so they're potentially going to cut out everyone so you're not going to be like juggling like 10 different headsets like every time you want to switch a service or something like you're going to be doing it through whatever set of goggles you have um so so yeah I mean you got to give credit to Apple for you know pushing the like competition is always kind of good in the end for kind of pushing the industry forward so uh sort of like the space race or I guess the AR VR race um or the metaverse race um and um you know I think there's always been this excitement of VR you know AR XR I guess is it called now uh as being like the next Computing platform that dream has been kind of with us um since the beginning I mean since all the like Sci-Fi movies of like lawnmower and lawnmower man and you know the Matrix um but it has been very much gaming

focused like a lot of technology in the end like led by Gaming first that is It's Entertainment it's fun it pushes the hardware kind of kind of to its limits um and you know Facebook at the time now they call themselves native meta you know Zuckerberg they bought Oculus really not just not for gaming like they bought them for the future of computing right um and you know just talking to various people who are at Meadow have worked with meta you know there's always been this big push for how do we make quests the Computing platform of the future you know they've invested a lot into various like features platform features like all their you know plans were always from this angle and it has from you know talking to people there it's there's been a lot of kind of friction um and confusion because you know on from the top you get this kind of messaging of like this is a computer like how do we put these productivity Tools in there but then everyone like on

the floor working and like looking at the numbers just realizing that the people who are buying these things and what they're using for is gaming right so and of course you can drive yourself towards division but on the other hand you can't I think you know you don't want to probably alleviate uh you know alienate your uh your core audience yeah your coordinates you know the duck that slaying the golden eggs or whatever the expression is yeah um and um I think you know there's always the element of like just being there too early I think with the Apple Vision Pro potentially we're kind of getting there but they're you know they're kind of like standard Apple uh or you know they've done this with the iPhone right like when they came out with a device that was like way more expensive uh way higher specs in order to create a much more polished user experience to maybe solve uh the problems that are

stopping this kind of medium from becoming mainstream right and I think you know Apple's Innovation is not just the software the hardware the ux but it's also kind of like Financial innovation in the sense that they let you finance the thing right so I think it was like Steve bummer is kind of uh really like age like milk quote of uh saying that no one's going to want to buy 800 phone right because all the other phones are like three four times uh you know yeah quarter of the price um and now Apple's coming out with a headset that is you know three times more expensive than the quest Pro which is kind of like meta's highest spec um headset that it came out with a 1400 price and people were unhappy and said it was overpriced and they lowered the price to a thousand and honestly like I used Quest Pro as my daily driver now like it's got amazing clear Optics

um and I mean I primarily use a PC development um and it's important like that's how we develop all our software in the end it's all about iteration like you want to iterate on PC uh so you're always going to need some kind of device that hooks into your computer which I guess like The Vision Pro that's probably gonna hook into your computer like that's the other big question of like does can you use Windows to develop for it because if you go to use Macs like most gaming Studios just like have Windows PCS like um there's a lot of like question marks of like how that how this gonna work um like are they going to support open XRS the standard like is it going to be easy or to well I mean there you know they're partnering obviously it's Unity so like that's one way to like write once and Target multiple um multiple devices although again if like at the unity level you're still like using like the openxr Plugin or the UFO of the the Oculus plugin Etc so um I'm wondering how that's going to work

um like how the ecosystem is going to grow because it's also gonna if if a lot of the issues with the early VR development was how fractured it was lack of standardization across the software and Hardware you know on the hardware side like every single every single manufacturer had such drastically different controller um controller um like button layout um just the type of buttons on there the feature set so that just like really makes your life as a developer um as a designer as a as a software engineer trying to figure out how to properly maximize the user experience for that and of course it's also bad for the consumer because like it's already a very like kind of uh complicated like new market for uh you know tech savvy individuals but now you have to like figure out like which device do you get uh when they're also different and on top of that like which you know now we have exclusives like which games run and which and VR already has such so much friction of putting it on now you know

you don't want to really juggle like multiple obese devices in your life right um so you know I think um basically you know I'm sure apple is going to come out with some financing they're going to sell literally 500 000 of these in the first year so it's not exactly going to Eclipse quests you know I think you know if Zuckerberg said his his Viewpoint is like he's trying to make the most like mainstream like affordable device so we sort of have like I don't know like sort of like a Tesla versus like a Toyota I guess that situation um I think you know in the end there's a lot of Toyota's being sold and there's a lot of Teslas being sold um so but most people just have one yeah I think there's obviously enough space for these two to kind of fight it out I mean look at how many consoles we have or traditional consoles that we have that that are still around right um even though Xbox is always in trouble

uh I mean that's the thing that people do forget there's a lot of quests out there um 20 million copies uh a 20 million units sold or more right of I gotta ask delve more into the the metaverse thing yeah metaverse is one of those things that got kind of thrown in the bag in the last you know the covet years right as a developer as a game developer right who are totally bought into the VR system totally understand why people are buying these things right they want to play games right primarily and then you see a company like meta who are making these devices and every keynote is kind of centered around like working right it's like how do I make Zoom VR I was like what are you talking about who wants to work who wants to put on this dude to work more right and uh I I feel like there's such a disconnect to the original vision

to what they're trying to do and what they're trying to do is just not cool at all but they're trying to pawn it out I mean the confusion that you're speaking to internally I've friends there too shows at these showcases it's like it's a confusing message of whether they want to be this productivity which is very Niche it's even nichier than games right productivity thing uh and or or they want to be uh well I mean I think until not until Apple Vision showcase what they wanted their lifestyle right they're a lifestyle Hardware it's like this is going to improve your life in in these ways right they're gonna nail that their demo already shows that they get it I I I I just find meta still confused on who they want to be right I still think obviously they have a lead and uh it's a cheaper Hardware compared to apple

Vision they're gonna enjoy this you know until eventually I either match you know Apple Vision catches up right uh the metaverse right what what were your thoughts about that like you're constantly watching these updates because you have to you're like I gotta be on the cusp of technology and you're like what are you doing we're making way cooler stuff than this what are they doing so I want to understand from your perspective as a developer on VR and game Focus and seeing these type of things and am I am I misconstruing the feelings here where I'm the frustration of what's Happening I'm gonna I'm gonna go on a long tangent okay uh starting starting actually with something that's almost like uh uh completely outside but you mentioned like Xbox struggling uh like I have all

the consoles um I've actually like this is my first Xbox that I bought and a surprise and I ended up using it more than PlayStation like the game pass is like great you know great choice for consumers of course they just announced today that they're raising the price so yeah you know it's The Crucible Services come around with a low price maybe try it out of the competition and eventually you know raise the price back to what it was and then all of a sudden you are you're you've turned to the dark side you're you're the evil yeah the evil corporation that has replaced the previous Corporation but I think um you know Microsoft also I'm a huge Fanboy I I I you know I interned there like for two summers had an amazing time like growing as a software engineer and as a young person and you know Microsoft has Xbox and it has uh you know office right and of course like uh windows with whatever it's like a giant corporation that is able to Target to uh such a wide breadth of you know both like B2B and

consumers um and you know I think they have this Xbox brand that is like has a very clear identity like even if you go to like the Microsoft Redmond um HQ like the Xbox building is like very different it's like it feels like you're in a you know gaming company like they have statues of like as far as I was like Halo Gears of War or something uh versus you know the corporate like more corporate atmosphere of like the office teams Etc right so like with meta I think part of the issue is that they rebranded the entire company under this like meta umbrella which feels you know a little bit like aged like milk kind of situation because they're bad did to you know metaverse you know that's what meta stands for and like suddenly a few months later just like the entire concept just became so burnt out and has like kind of negative like taste and like um a lot of consumers like mines right

um and you know I think it's you know it's it's almost like a uh like uh like a ancient it feels like it's kind of like ironic tragedy right they were trying to escape from the Facebook branding because that also got really spoiled by all the scandals of like the election alleged or I don't know somewhat food maybe like election interference um you know whether real or not like the damage was done to their brand so they were trying to fix their brand but going to meta and Consulting everything under that and you know they have this Oculus brand that they purchased that had a lot of existing kind of positive vibes from consumers and you know the um the association with virtual reality right and they decided to you know kind of completely uh you know face that out in favor of just like having the quest brand right and it was like also such a confusing transition with like them

creating so many different accounts and trying to merge the accounts and like they still have like the on the PC they still have a Oculus client uh with the Oculus logo and some of the websites still say Oculus but someone just said Quest and I'm wondering how much that has actually like backfired or has caused some of these issues where they instead of just like doing the Xbox route where they can keep this like gaming focused brand that people know as meta but like it's also Oculus of course maybe it was confusing to be like meta Quest Oculus you know in their mind I I don't know um that said you know it's a Microsoft Xbox you know effect and I actually you know if you really probably shouldn't learn from Microsoft for naming things because like you know their naming has been super confusing going from Xbox One to Series S and series X so I I lost count yeah you know it's it's difficult like naming things you know like you know this is why we have chat GPT now so hopefully you can

just help have layout help you name things um but you know so there's this kind of dissonance of meta trying to do all these things and you know them rebranding as meta and having that somewhat confusing like showcase where they showed the future but through a bunch of like renderings of like Mark Zuckerberg being and doing fun things and virtual environments but they're all as far as the understanding just like renders well it's like it's you know the problem you know you really want to be like right at the cusp of something when it's like a little bit early where like you know maybe like 30 of the people think it's the cool thing and 70 of the people still think it's like kind of like science fiction or whatever and then you you were able to push the purpose forward and become that you know make that mainstream like you're a little bit if you're like way too uh you know early then you're basically just trying spread your science fiction right like the technology is not there the

consumer desire is not there right and it felt a little bit like that showcase was that because they were literally showing like like trying to inspire um you know people watching of like this is the future but it's kind of confusing because normally showcases are like this is the future like next year like we have the trailer for a game that's coming out like you're gonna be playing this game next year and not like this is the future of like we literally made a sci-fi movie to show you of like what the future in like five to ten you know years is gonna be um this is why we are renaming the company behind it um I mean I guess it's policy but I think it's a little bit um too ambitious in some ways and maybe crumbled under its own ambition um you know I think you know I'm split because I am a futurist I grew up like reading and watching science fiction like you know I read snow crash you know which as far as I remember has coined the metaverse term but I also you

know on the other hand you know kind of like a realist and like with these desires of somehow connecting all these games together and having this like whole economy like a lot of people were saying like this is kind of doesn't seem like it makes sense from a design perspective or like why do even every why did why this what is the uh uh intent like what is the desire of connecting like multiple games together like how does that and maybe I'm misunderstanding what the vision is but for me it seems like there's no real benefit to each experience to try to like connect these economies together um and maybe I'm just you know a little bit too old school in my way of thinking I don't have the vision man that's the problem yeah so much of it was just about you know it seemed like recreating these economies that we have in the real world but in the digital world but in my mind it's like like the real world sucks like we're basically recreating the issues that are plaguing the real world which is like speculation and like overpriced

assets it's like great like you're too poor to buy a house in real life so we're gonna make another set of like virtual real estate that you're also too poor to buy like what like how does that how does that actually make like I'm you know again I have a very myopic view of like I like to make video games and I like to like bring Choice people and like I feel like the point of games is to like have fun of course it's also a business that's the problem it's always being important like well how do we actually like you know how do we how do we take you know how do we charge players to play the game and you know I guess it would be just to try to like get some kind of fair uh exchange of like fun for money but then sometimes you know it feels like it's kind of predatory of like let's just make some kind of like addicting system that will try to extract as much money out of the players you know um so I think you know everyone got

super excited by everyone having to be stuck at home I guess and uh suddenly seeing such huge spikes of you know people working remote and playing at home and they thought that they could they thought the world was never going to change again you know they thought the world could never change how it changed for covet and they thought oh well now there's no way it's going to change again and it did well people are saying going to the movies was dead ah dude it's gonna it's just it's just taking a breather right now you know right so I mean we have ROBLOX right so like Roblox is sort of a metaverse and we are seeing so many kids play that and they're gonna keep growing up with that and I think again just today I think the news was that they announced that they're allowing 17 plus um like basically more mature experiences to be created on Roblox um and um you know so a lot of the confusion from metaverse is like this term just became

so loaded like what does it mean you know people read again like snow crash watch movies they like see one thing versus like what we have now and this whole concept of like web free or it's like the few the web of the future which on one hand can mean like spatial internet kind of like um like AR VR like being able to like sort of like go inside your websites or like instead of going on a boring like maybe not boring but pretty looking 2D website of like shoes and like scrolling through shoes like you could go inside of a virtual like shoe store and like put on a shoe in your avatar and see how they fit or whatever right so that's that's one exciting kind of like vision and the other one is well you know decentralization uh so you're no longer depend on like one single service and just another edition of currencies as well so that you know maybe like some of the like don't tread on me folks uh probably like really excited about that so like no longer you know speak trolled by the government and have like free flow of currency

um and uh kind of like virtual assets and like these two things kind of like combined together in some ways and um you know and the concept of like connecting everything together like it's not really clear how it's going to work so like Roblox is sort of creating like one set of interpretation for that where like well we just have one platform for creating experiences and you can quickly jump between any of these experiences because it's like it's all our platform so in some ways you can view it as like a web browser right but like it's still you know you want to jump from like roadblocks to like a um fortnite experience like that's so basically now we have a world but like Chrome goes like one set of websites and like Microsoft Edge goes to another set of websites like how does that make sense yeah there's there's still here's the thing with all right with metaverse right I'm glad you mentioned Roblox because the sneak attack is Roblox and what epic is doing right

where they're buying all these like uh companies and game companies like they bought fall guys they bought um rocket league right they have fortnite right they're they're building their metaverse for the sneakily with you know a gamer focused mine right because in reality metaphors is is a game right is a game that we own I think the argument or the vision is conflicted right now because a lot of tech tech Bros is taking a game concept and ignoring the game developers out of the equation I have so many friends at these companies who are dedicated game developers very senior whose opinion is usually outweighed by execs or people outside of the game development space right they're just making these decisions because the reference movies or books and then completely ignore like the last two

decades of the game developers making these type of universes these ecosystems function right really well right growing communities and social interaction is part of the DNA of MMO right of every genre that we have that we have distinguished and accomplished I mean you're talking about basically every game at blizzard that have built this components of what makes a metaverse right and I just feel like and continuously being ignored I mean the minute that John Carmack wasn't a part of meta anymore I was like ah so it's like that's the direction they're going uh and it's I think it's a huge mistake because you're ignoring a lot of experience there to create these World function right I always complain it and equate it to uh I mean how many game companies we've been at where like you let designers kind of go wild right because I think you know

every game is a good balance of all disciplines but you know designers I think for a while and still right they they always Champion The Hub it's like oh instead of the instead of a menu with options what if it's a physical space that you can walk around and you can start the game and then you can go off and change audio it's like why would I want that just go let me play it okay so I feel like we're kind of in this weird conversation again it's like oh is it wouldn't it be cool we're in the hub you know and we can try shoes on one thing it was like that is not cool at all this why would I want to walk to a virtual store and then go through the physical you know uh stress of putting things on and and and and like you know mind that it's like well there's nothing cool about that experience right I mean I having an avatar spin around like fortnite and just throwing clothes on is good enough you know I just feel like

the the uncool part about the ux basically experience for the user app will have a better handle on things they they put that in the front lines all the time like all their devices all about the user experience and it shares the same DNA as as game developers it's about you know the user experience from the beginning to end and I feel like a lot of these tech companies don't understand that right and uh I feel right now that is a crisis at meta where nobody wants a zoom VR like who's asking like I every time I'm on a zoom call I'm counting the clock you know of when I can leave it I mean that is the you know and I'm sure Zoom people are are constantly combating this like yeah people are using us because they have to but the number one complaint is nobody likes being in a zoom meeting there's

nothing fun about meetings right so like if I have to meet or work with you and you know all these demos showing like yeah you know you look at these legless avatars that are your co-workers I don't want to see my co-workers there's nothing about my co-workers I want to see you know can I shoot them right can I push them around like Fall Guys right can we race through obstacles I mean that's what I care about I don't want to talk to you about like in front of whiteboard so I at that com that that misunderstanding of what VR and the potential of what makes VR great is completely thrown out the window especially at meta I feel like you know they need to get their stuff together and just let the game developers go in there and and do you know create fun experiences again uh because I think that is the number one driver like when I look at the Apple stuff it's a lifestyle stuff uh mostly right there were no games but as a game developer and gamer I was super impressed because it showed like look at these experiences and the theater mode you know I mentioned this

before was nothing new I mean meta has its own version right not as polish right presentation is everything and execution but like I've seen versions of that I played with versions of that but Apple just takes to the next level right and you just like hey you can change you know who knows how how well it works but you can change the your actual real world settings to kind of match with your virtual setting I was like dude they're they're understanding what people want to use this for and uh the whole idea with the metaverse again you know if you just take it away you know from the VR space they're misunderstanding what you know what's cool about metaverse and I think it's going to be up to the you know the other game developers experienced game developers to actually make the metaverse um to kind of respond to like you know is there having these different IPS is there an interest a real interest in that right so like the closest thing you know I'm thinking about this of course Ready

Player one is the number one reference that I feel like visually like okay I kind of get it right but like realistically it's kind of like walking in Dave and Buster's right and you have all these different arcade machines and different experiences that you can play with and you just walk around with your friends uh so I think at the earliest version it's going to be something like that is like can I walk into a space and then hang out with my friends with these different experiences and uh and it's gonna be a lot of uh uh obstacles because now we have like 10 different metaverses do people want that do I want the Microsoft metaverse versus the you know Sony metaverse right and you know we only like one thing mostly which is the Smash Brothers on Nintendo right everything you know there were so many companies trying to make Smash Brothers but we always go back to Nintendo because they do it right um I think the same thing's gonna happen eventually there's gonna be one metaverse or maybe two that people just flock to

just like and it's nothing it's not a New Concept it's like I I buy blizzard games versus Riot games right because I like blizzard games are better than riot games or whatever right and and that's gonna happen and it's I assure you it isn't going to be Facebook that that makes me wanna it's gonna be epic or Roblox or like actual game developers who that understand that experience that that they're gonna win right because they're funny enough they're not they're not I never really hear Roblox right I I you know epic got a round of funding you know to coining metaverse but they don't really go all out in their monthly newsletter saying hey this metaverse is coming you know I know you're waiting for it they're just building up fortnite unreal fortnite uh unreal editor for fortnite you know getting the user generation there get the Roblox money into their ecosystem and they're just

building it you know and you know not just walking the walk and I think they're probably gonna get there faster than most people um but I I think with tech I I just have this continued frustration of how game developers are constantly in the backseat of our creation right um I don't know how you feel about it there's a long rant but like there's this feeling that we're constantly being ignored and these problems aren't new that they're trying to solve yeah I mean if you work in uh as you know my experience going from like a startup to you know bigger and bigger company um you know eventually you know you lose a lot of creative freedom like you there's a lot more you know business kind of uh

business decision decisions being made um so uh it's much more I mean it's but you know if you raise money if you're if you're answering to investors like you're also you know giving away so many Freedom right so um yeah I suppose I don't I don't know if I guess like maybe there's like an alternate uh Universe kind of like those uh Marvel CC alternate universes where we can like look at like what a world where all the decisions I make games is up by game designers and like what kind of chaos that causes um so it's um I think like with with meta you have a somewhat unique I feel situation where Mark has kept so much of his as far as I understand um kind of control of the company yeah where I think potentially that's causing the

situation where it's like an Eco chamber where so much of the kind of like direction is kind of being pushed down uh from top down decision making and it's like maybe people are not being heard um on the other hand you know when you have a situation where you have like kind of like one key decision maker um you're able to make much more drastic changes faster theoretically Like For Better or Worse like I don't know if if Mark wasn't in charge they would be pivoting so fast to focusing on VR right because they're understanding that VR is the future uh or I'm biased of course AR XR whatever um but at least from their perspective you know they're slowly seeing even though Instagram is still you know massive user base you know they like Facebook user base as far as the same kind of fell over time and you know Instagram is you know kind of having to

uh fight a big fight now with like Tick Tock and you know it's all about capturing I guess getting your getting the kids hosting your product it's really possible because then they're gonna then they're gonna grow up and you know stay hopefully as a users so um and uh until you know because that's the issue like products basically become less cool over time especially once like a lot of the older people start using them so it gets kind of flock to new things and I think I just saw news that meta has announced that there are now allowing like like officially allowing uh 10 year olds to use the platform they're going to have some kind of probably additional parental control systems or whatever um I mean fact of the matter is you probably already had like millions of like nine-year-olds playing and still playing um like gorilla tag or something like rec room on Quest right uh but they are you know adapting the platform

um and you know um pulling whatever uh League of rules and such to make sure that it's hopefully a safe safe environment for 10 10 years 10 years of class because like the other concern for XR was like how is it how does it impact like the eyes and such so I'm assuming we've gotten enough data at this point to know that hopefully it's not you know making everyone blind like you know parents in the 90s kept saying you know don't sit so close to the TV and now we're literally strapping the TV to our faces um so um I think you know I think uh For Better or Worse um meta is trying to adapt to the times you know and you know grow Beyond just being kind of like a social media platform right so you gotta give them of course they're still trying to be the social media platform on VR and that's where I think I think they're struggling right so yeah I think the vision the vision kind of makes sense I think it's just a

little bit too early I think like you know it's like yeah maybe you don't want to like go inside a shoe store and simulate like having to put on physically a shoe with a shoehorn but you might want to just be able to like look at a shoe and it like appears on your on your feet and you're like okay these do look good on me like I'm gonna order them and they're going to come to my house tomorrow because it's like Amazon or whatever yeah or whoever taking a cut in this instance um Apple yeah I think once we are in a situation where the form factor is so good and uh there's enough use cases for you to stay in these like devices all day long like I don't see like already more and more people are making like friends online like they just have like online only friends like playing Roblox or whatever it is so conceivably like you could see the world continuously going that way but it's just you know just creating a metaverse and declaring it's the metaverse but then not actually having I think like good fun experiences to back it up that's the issue because

it's not creating enough of reason for people to like be like want to go there and actually spend time there right so it's it's sort of like when we had the Mad Dash to like for Esports like a few years back and then so many games you're just like saying okay we're building an esport game but like you're kind of or like the same with crypto right like people were just like from the beginning were saying okay we're gonna build like a web like a blockchain game but the problem is they don't have a good game first made yeah and you can't like go from like a you you're reversing the order of like what needs to be done first you need to create a good fun experience first it's engaging for people that wants make someone to stay yeah and I think yeah it's just uh going back to the drawing board of making a fun game this is it seems to be like such a simple answer but it's like the hardest part you know making a fun experience that people can buy in uh I I definitely agree like there were a lot of positives too that Zuckerberg just spearheading

I mean in in a lot of in retrospect preemptively renaming the whole company after the metaverse and then you know it's all about AI now um uh but you know there was a lot of positive that came out of that a lot of attention obviously but uh you know there's a lot more units now because of it and uh if anything uh laid the foundation for Apple to come in and and be a competitor right to kind of like take what's there and and be able to elevate even further and then hopefully there's a back and forth between the two um and uh I I don't think he was wrong saying that it's a 5-10 year Endeavor right before it has massive appeal uh I the the the cool thing about the VR set obviously that isn't you know like blockchain or all these other

terms or technology that came out of the covet is that it's it's practical you put it on you get it right I still don't know what blockchain is I have no idea what what it is nft I I have no idea who was buying it right I never really met anyone though I know I knew a lot of friends that were selling it right and uh I was like dude like it was so it was so scandalous man when they were telling me they were selling nfts like well people are buying us I guess um and uh you know and when it's funny it's funny that the flip side right after covid was suddenly AI art being controversial it's like now you know nft could have solved that problem you know but uh but yeah uh we're I'm super thankful for you coming on you know I'm always open to kind of get educated in this space I always have like I go off of my gut feelings on things

right and so in in terms of like the VR landscape I'm excited that you know we're we're coming out of this like coveted period and into it because I think that space is is is above every uh experience I've had with games like it like even graphically if it doesn't even meet you know standard graphic Fidelity that we're used to with AAA right because of the hardware limitation you put it on you don't even care as much you know you're you're instantly immersed and there's so much more potential uh and I think these Hardware barriers are are soon going to be figured out and uh you know I'm just hoping Apple just pushes us a little further right and it kind of kind of wake up the meta guys a bit I guess we need that back and forth and uh Sony's kind of

doing their own thing the funny thing is Sony's probably doing both of those things right but you know they're all for just PlayStation 5 owners so you know they are in sort of a bubble uh whatever Innovation they have you know you don't really hear outside of that bubble as much as The Meta or apple Vision Pro um for before I kind of kind of shut up and hand over the mic I do have one last question for the newcomers out there right for the people who are going into game development right uh the funny thing is even though we're using the same tools you know developing for VR right which is more limitation how what would you what advice would you have for those people who are looking to VR space to kind of um be their first job second job their job or making the jump from traditional AAA development mobile development like

what are the things that usually you look at as being impressive to like hey this is this might be a good route for you instead yeah I mean there's so much overlap between traditional gaming and uh virtual gaming we're using a lot of buying the same engines um practically speaking it's mostly unity and unreal uh actually I hear it's 80 Unity uh for VR games nowadays um wow the teams are smaller yeah I just heard that number from uh maybe take it from Grant assault from uh vectella like to see the CEO of uh Unity at uh one of the uh organizer World Expo talks uh I mean I can believe it because there's just uh so many more kind of like smaller I think um like VR experiences and also the the the biggest uh VR kind of platform is technically on mobile platforms the quest um so um you know what VR makes different is

the immersion the fact that you know the player is in the game interacting with the game using their head their hands now eyes essentially if you're on PS3 too and hopefully future platforms um you know fingers so like you know hands and such so it's a very different user experience um so if you're focused on uh player Tech like user user interface player movement their interactions with the game controls game feel then VR is a very different um uh kind of uh development experience for you um of course like you could be an AI engineer working on creatures but if they interact with the player in close quarters then of course then there's like some considerations of the fact that you're working in virtual reality um but a lot of your skill set and a lot

of technology is going to carry over otherwise right like an enemy outside of like how it gets close to you and interacts with you once it's in your like kind of like immediate space is probably going to be very similar in some ways um like a lot of like Locomotion animation Tech uh any techniques and um you know cinematics for example like there's a challenge of making sure that the player is looking at where you want to look but outside of that it's still you know if you're for example he's not real you're just gonna be using sequencer and uh you know keying things and making sure things flow well um so um you know another big thing to learn about is like performance um vrs uh has very high performance uh requirements unless you're like on PC developing um but uh you know the PC is where you're going to iterate on the most so if you're like starting out I think you could probably build some uh interesting experiences as initial proof of concept uh to see if that's something that

inspires you or potentially like even release something else like Early Access on Steam first and start building a community um and yeah uh you know VR is you know I think it's like I think you got to give credit Quest the credit you know they they have just showcased kind of the latest slate of games are coming out later this year um at the uh the quest showcase um so we're seeing more like IP licenses but also like uh games like with new IP from dependent developers um so yeah there's a lot of things to play for inspiration Beyond Half-Life Alex of course Half-Life Alex kind of set the bar for you know really interactive physicalized kind of environments and I think that's that is like a big key part of uh kind of like next-gen uh VR quality experiences like being able to interact with the world around you and um uh natural way like um

I Heard the term like interaction density um interaction density is much higher in Dr versus traditional games because players just kind of expect to be able to touch and interact with everything um so if you have like that eye for wanting to add a lot of uh like detail to your environments like there's kind of like Superfluous really to in some ways to like the core gameplay Loop just uh just adding almost like fun ways for the player to interact and explore just for the sake of that rather than like the direct like you know maybe combat Loop um then uh uh Dr is probably a thing that you'll enjoy working on for sure well I I want to uh this is the part of the podcast where I just shut up hand the mic over to you to kind of you know let you talk directly to the listeners how to find you right further discuss things with you or uh you know what the next thing they can

pick up that you worked on uh or to look forward to sure uh yeah so uh I guess you can reach me in uh uh my company email it's uh alexarbius.com um I'm pretty passionate about um you know engineering problems like uh you know we use Unreal Engine I love figuring out how to like push that engine uh especially for you know making you know again high quality virtual reality experiences um and yeah we'll work on this uh on a game based on the aliens movies they're pretty excited about it we're trying to create really something that feels like next-gen uh VR um and uh yeah I'm excited to show more about that but in the meantime you know uh would love for you all to try one our you know long library of different kinds of virtuality games spying across all genres um from shooting to racing you know we have uh uh you know Korea's a big hit but we actually have a big library of

games um that came out starting from like the pcvr days like data Sprint Vector about awake we have a Walking Dead uh TV show licensed game called Walking Dead Onslaught we also made a pcvr on the game based on the Westworld game uh Westfield TV show um there's a puzzle Bobble which is a puzzle game probably remembering forgetting like at least one um yeah so I think VR is getting really exciting also like I said uh the quest to Showcase a um then the next layer of games and psvr also had their own showcase I'm pretty excited about the next games that are coming out just this year and you know next year um so level you know the industry is still growing and you know the more people are buying games and you know talking about them the the more it's going to help you know the entire industry really so and I

love playing everything that um other fellow delts are creating it's great for inspiration and entertainment I mean that's why I basically got into this industry because I love games awesome man don't sleep on VR yeah [Applause] well I want to thank you for coming on man uh and it was a pleasure meeting you talking with you and kind of learning from you uh it's always a pleasure to kind of have experts like yourselves in that space gauging your experience your reactions to to the news it gives me a better gauge of like what's going on with all my brothers out there so uh thank you for coming and see you guys all next week hello everybody Brandon here I want to talk to you today about something very special we've been on this wild ride together haven't we from my early days as a

senior employee feeling a bit lost all the way to Leading multiple Studios transitioning to smaller Indie teens into the mobile industry and now running my own game studio for the last six years throughout this time you've been here listening and learning along with me sharing this never-ending journey of Discovery this year I'm kind of on this quest of meeting serial Studio Founders discussing Acquisitions or exploring what it takes to grow Studio to over 100 Developers I've always tried to find an exciting topic to delve into and every year is a little different the focus is a little different because that's where I am in my career currently and I want to be able to share what I'm learning with you guys so I've always been to dedicate to asking the tough questions bringing you insightful answers from industry leaders and experts and now I want to share with you how I'm applying these answers to my own Journey this is why I'm excited to announce that for just 1.99 per month you can now subscribe to our exclusive content series these bonus episodes will give you a deeper look into my personal experiences and how I'm putting into practice what our esteemed guests are

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