Kent Bye (Voices of VR)

Reflecting in Tokyo with my time off... Thought hard on what happened to VR industry this past month... This is a long read: I've been in VR since 2013 when I first helped start up Survios. You can imagine how the Meta VR fallout devastated me in really unique ways. Totally and absolutely crushing. I can't even really explain it fully. It's hard to express how personal it all is being in it for so long. And I'm not saying that was smart to allow. I believed in VR too much and let it get there. The best-laid plans of mice and men, right? But this was very consequential to the entire VR gaming industry. While there are always paths to raise capital, traditional gaming is already struggling and VR focused gaming is even worse now. It's a bloodbath. For everyone. So when Meta pulled the 1st party plug I said watch 3rd party- we've already seen major shake ups. Now wait until the entire year runs it's course. This is especially so now with Steam Frame delayed and component prices rising rapidly. It all conflicts with promising myself in 2013 when I left AAA for VR it would be my only focus. VR became my requirement for opportunity. Period. I put VR first. I refused all work not VR related. It's been 13 years now in "VR only" and I've done a lot, worked on many titles, and certainly hit some dreams... And 6 years ago I started a family right into the whole 2020 turmoil. Anyone from the game industry knows the challenge of living any nornal family life. And XR as an emerging technology frankly made that dynamic even tougher. Everything since that 2020 year has slowly but surely recalibrated me. Those years added even more complex pressure as my grandparents passed away in the lockdown. I never understood it when I was young but you really do change once you have kids and really go through it. So I'm exhausted caring so much while watching apologists dismiss and sugarcoat how major this tide going out really is. As if AI glasses will save VR! "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked." Well get ready to see some birthday suits out there. Many studios are already retreating. Some will go under. So I need to be honest with myself... My framing: First I quit college and entered gamedev in 2007 to make games. It's all I ever wanted to do. Then I quit AAA and entered VR in 2013 to make the VR medium I believed in succeed. I tried the DK1 and could not stop talking about the potential of VR to the frustration of my traditional gaming peers. This crunch life I've now spent nearly 20 years in, while it has given me many gifts, has taken quite a lot of my time. My advice to hedge for new young XR devs- If I were to continue the "emerging tech" race here in XR I would go hard into AR AI design for incoming mixed reality devices. And I think they will do very well in mainstream. I would urge people interested to explore it. However, this isn't a box for my own passion. I can't pretend it is. I love VR. I love gaming. AI glasses do not excite me. Even traditional gaming is a better fit for me than glasses tech. This all puts me at my current decision- I will adjust my efforts and shift to XR being a great feature of my games, not the focus, and this will also reflect in my posting which will evolve toward more traditional gaming. So instead of putting all the eggs in one basket like launching first on Quest platform or even try to shift as a Steam Frame exclusive, I'll instead build traditional flat with "VR as a feature" Anyone who knows me well will understand how hard this decision was. But as an avid PC/PCVR gamer, I'm going to my gaming roots first. I don't see a path for me with glasses tech being pushed everywhere. Can't lie to myself and fake enthusiasm for emerging tech I'm not that interested in. I'm not going into mobile apps or building for a generative AI platform. I'm here to create what only games can. I want people to experience worlds.