Developing virtual reality (VR) videogames can be a difficult and costly process with studios not guaranteed a return on investment due to the small but growing user base. One of the most important aspects of making money is exposure, ensuring people around the world know about your videogame, if they haven’t heard of it they can’t buy it. So Pocket Gamer publisher Steel Media in association with China’s DeePoon created the Global VR Challenge.
The competition looked to identify the best new VR development talent and concepts from the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, and help bring them to China. Out of 80 entries a panel of judges from the VR industry reduced that total down to the 20 seen below.
The judging took place in London on 23rd-24th June. Resolution Games’s Tommy Palm, nDreams’s Patrick O’Luanaigh, ex-ARM developer outreach director Nizar Romdhane, DeePoon’s Leon Zhang, ustwo’s Peter Pashley plus Steel Media’s Craig Chapple and Simon Aubrey Drake made up the panel.
The chosen videogames are:
Alice VR by Klabater
BAMF VR by Mikael W Bergene
Chick’n’charge by Orkitec
Cloudlands Golf VR by Futuretown
Flying Aces VR by VR-gameplay.com
Flying Fowl by Rogue Guardian Studios
HordeZ by Zenz VR
Lightblade VR by Andreas Hager Gaming
QUBE 2 by Toxic Games
RC Soccer VR by Beatshapers
Reflections by Broken Window Studios
S.P.Y. Robot by CEO’s Pet Software
Smash Wars VR by FaunaFace
Space Box: The Journey out of the Box by Tom Graczyk
Stifled by Gattai Games
SwingStar by ComputerLunch
The Town Of Light by LKA
Vantage Point by Coatsink
Vrapids by RGBird Games & Niobium
Wrath of Loki-Vr Adventure by The House of Fables
Then on 20th July a final round of judging will take place to decide the ten projects to go through to the grand final in Shanghai, China. Each developer will get thier own booth on the Deepon stand at ChinaJoy which takes place on 28th-30th July. There’s a $35,000 USD prize pool up for grabs, with results announced on 30th.
For all the latest VR news keep reading VRFocus.