Oculus offers $10 million to help indie developers make VR games
Oculus' top brass showed a slew of new VR games at a special event today -- including a closer look at the badass-looking EVE Valkyrie -- but they need more than big-name developers if they want the Rift to be a hit. That's why the company is earmarking $10 million to fund indie game makers who want to build the new big thing in virtual reality content. Coders, you'd better get crackin'.
The potential paycheck is new but Oculus has been nurturing its loyal VR innovators for ages now, most recently with a Mobile VR Jam that saw some seriously cool entries. Developers crafted some 61 games that'd run on Samsung's Gear VR headset, with the winners taking home a cool $200,000 for a co-op game that forced two people to helm and arm a steampunk submarine. Could a big-name software house have cooked up something similar? You bet, but remember -- these competitors had less than a month to go from wild-eyed pitch to playable build. That's exactly the sort of crazy spirit Oculus needs to fill its catalog with stuff people didn't even know they wanted to play. Right now there's no public word on how developers can submit their stuff for consideration (though Oculus has probably already talked to a few promising candidates), but hopefully bonus points will go to folks who figure out how best to use the company's new hand-based Oculus Touch controllers.
