Mighty Coconut, the indie studio behind Walkabout Mini Golf (2020), announced it’s reduced headcount by 25% n addition to raising future DLC prices to offset costs. Might Coconut founder Lucas Martell published a blogpost explaining some of the difficulties the studio is facing amid the backdrop of an admittedly “challenging” VR game development landscape. After staff reductions
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth offered the first bit of insight into the company’s recent Reality Labs shakeup, publicly acknowledging that Meta’s metaverse efforts suffered from a “lack of focus” that ultimately hurt the user experience on Quest. Speaking at Axios House in Davos, Switzerland alongside the World Economic Forum last week, Bosworth discussed several issues
Every game is the result of thousands of choices. Some of these choices are creative, some technical, and some concern the scope and budget. After pouring sweat and tears into a project, there is nothing more heartbreaking for a game developer than realizing that some early choice made long ago was not the best one
Google-owned XR studio Owlchemy Labs announced that its breakout VR hit Job Simulator (2016) has now surpassed six million installs. Job Simulator has been one of the most successful VR games over the past decade, having not found firm footing as a launch title for the original HTC Vive, PSVR, and Oculus Touch back in 2016, but
Luke Ross, the prolific VR modder, was recently involved in a DMCA takedown issued by CD Projekt for his paywalled Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod, which the studio claims breaks its terms of service. Now, Ross has removed access to all of his various VR mods in response. Patreon immediately removed Ross’ Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod following
Lynx has unveiled the Lynx-R2, a significant upgrade over its original R1 mixed reality standalone which aims to capture the enterprise and prosumers market. The France-based startup considers R2 is a significant step forward, featuring new aspheric pancake lenses from Hypervision which are said to deliver 126° horizontal field-of-view (FOV)—notably larger than R1’s 90°, or
Distance Technologies has unveiled the Field Operator HUD (FOH), an AI-enhanced AR system designed for military vehicles ranging from light utility platforms to main battle tanks. FOH is said to combine Distance’s own optics with AI-assisted data processing, which the company says improves situational awareness, survivability, and visual workload management in land combat environments. Having
While a flurry of VR studio cuts and closures in the last 12 months has painted a picture of a deeply struggling landscape for VR developers, modern Quest success stories have largely flown under the radar. The free-to-play title UG, for instance, has exploded in both popularity and earnings, matching top titles like Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber in
AR glasses maker XREAL is taking its competitor VITURE to court over a patent dispute, claiming that it’s selling and/or importing units into the US that infringe on its intellectual property. Viture claims however that Xreal is using the suit as a weapon to unfairly compete in the market rather than as a legitimate defense of
In light of Reality Labs’ reorganization, which has seen recent internal studio closures and layoffs, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey calls the doomer narrative “obviously false.” The News Luckey literally kickstarted consumer VR more than a decade ago with the founding of Oculus, which in 2014 was acquired by Meta (ex-Facebook) for $2 billion. Having departed