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Is VR finally going mainstream?

Hello! This week in Protocol Gaming, your weekly guide to the business of video games: Facebook's success with its new VR headset, Geoff Keighley's perspective ahead of The Game Awards, and what's the use of cloud gaming?
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What good is cloud gaming? How would you explain to a normal consumer why they should care if the game they're playing is computed in a server farm rather than inside the device in their hand or that box in the corner?
But that message seems only vaguely interesting to most actual gamers, which is why Microsoft, in particular, is talking about cloud gaming not as a standalone service but as one component of a larger ecosystem.
Rather than devices, the compelling message would be about content: "You should care about cloud because the games are better." That's it. That is what gamers are waiting to hear: how cloud computing will make their games richer, more interesting and enable new forms of multiplayer interaction. Rather than distributing the same old games to new screens, the real promise of cloud will be realized when we start seeing brand-new entertainment experiences that could only be enabled by cloud resources.
And those may be coming a bit sooner than many people expect. Microsoft's leveraging its full technology stack to deliver the stunning new Flight Simulator was one step in this direction.
Of course, new uniquely cloud-based game experiences will come along with new advertising and monetization experiences as well.
Since its inception, cloud gaming has been about distribution. It should be about content. For more, check out this vital Twitter thread from Genvid CEO Jacob Navok.
— Seth Schiesel
Make next level games with Microsoft's own AAA-grade development toolbox, including the battle-tested solutions of Azure and PlayFab, powering some of the world's biggest games.
Since my Quest 2 arrived last week, I've barely left VR. And it turns out I'm not the only one.
By all accounts, the launch was a giant success. "We really couldn't be happier," Facebook Reality Labs' Chris Pruett told me. "The device is selling quite well," he said — "faster than Quest did" and "maybe a little bit beyond what we expected."
And it seems these users weren't just upgrading from the original Quest. Rec Room's data showed that 80% to 90% of new users had never had a Rec Room account before, Whiting said, indicating that these were people trying VR for the first time. Pruett agreed: "I think most of these folks are new to VR."
The implications of that could be significant. "I think it's the best shot that we've ever had at VR going mainstream," Whiting said, with Unger noting that the combination of the technology and price point means the Quest 2 "has everything going for it to truly break into the mainstream." Skydance Media's Guy Costantini, meanwhile, called the release "another important milestone for VR," adding that "it's what our industry needed." After years of being a growing niche, this might finally be VR's iPhone moment.
That could reshape the industry. "As the ecosystem grows we're seeing larger and larger investments," said Pruett, pointing to the new Walking Dead title as one that "probably could not have existed in earlier generations of VR because the market simply wasn't large enough to support it."
The big question is now how large the VR market can get. On Twitter, analyst Benedict Evans suggested it was always likely to be a subset of the overall gaming market, given the intensity of the experience. The way Facebook talks, though, it has bigger ambitions: It clearly wants VR to be a new social platform. "Our intention is to make this device something that is very reasonable to find in any home," Pruett said.
This holiday season could provide a sense of whether that's likely. "We are anticipating aggressive growth leading into the holiday and into the new year," Unger said, adding that the device is in many ways "a perfect gift."
Whiting is also feeling bullish about the holidays, saying he expects Facebook to spend a lot on marketing the Quest in the coming weeks. Whether it sells will be a good test of if people actually want VR, he said. "If you can't sell a VR headset to people for $299, of this quality, during a global pandemic — I don't know what better shot or what better timing there could possibly be."
— Shakeel Hashim
Every week we ask a leading industry figure five questions. Geoff Keighley, founder and producer of The Game Awards, is the best-known media personality in gaming. The 2020 Game Awards will stream live on Dec. 10.
What was your first gaming system?
My first gaming system was an IBM PC in the mid-'80s. First I learned how to read with the game Reader Rabbit, and then started playing the early adventure games from companies like Sierra On-Line like Space Quest and King's Quest to improve my reading! Not long after I started playing on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
What is the most important trend in the game business in 2020?
It's exciting to see the proliferation of cross-platform play and content. Games should be more accessible in more places to more people. For so many years I would get frustrated when I was traveling and couldn't play my consoles and games on the road. Now with cloud and mobile, the barriers are coming down. One day soon I can just pack up my PlayStation or Xbox controller in a suitcase, and start playing my console game on a hotel room TV or certainly my mobile phone. When you combine this shift with new business models like Game Pass and free-to-play games, there has never been so much content for fans to sample.
What has been the most overlooked aspect or development in the game business over the last year?
It's exciting to see games and gaming technology power more and more of entertainment. Travis Scott's Fortnite concert was a watershed moment for our industry, and it's fascinating to see the Unreal game engine power virtual events and TV shows like "The Mandalorian."
2020 is the year when the wider world has come to realize that games and game technology are at the center of all entertainment. It's easy to look at this industry and only see it as being about competition and skill, but there's a much larger opportunity for interactivity and game technology to sit at the center of all entertainment.
There's been a lot of talk about the "metaverse," and it's finally starting to emerge.
Games and game technology are the evolution and the next phase of social networks. The real question is whether the top social networks become more like games, or if games end up leapfrogging the social networks over the next five years.
What new technology or technical development are you most looking forward to?
As a big fan of narrative or story-driven games, I'm excited how advances in artificial intelligence will intersect narrative to create truly emergent and replayable stories. Imagine the narrative richness of a game like The Last Of Us Part 2, but with a flexible plot and procedurally generated dialogue. Back in 2014, Ken Levine (creator of BioShock) gave a great talk at the Game Developers Conference about what he called "narrative Lego blocks." I think we're on the verge of some pretty exciting developments in this space that will impact traditional story-driven games and also online experiences. We aren't that far from "Westworld."
What games are you playing recently?
I've been spending a ton of time playing Fall Guys over the past few months; it's fun to see a pick-up-and-play game get so much traction. Among Us has also been a huge discovery. It's inspiring to see that a team of three developers can build something that successful. But honestly the game I've been playing the most the past month is Super Mario All-Stars for Nintendo Switch. Mario 64 is one of my favorite games of all time. It holds up incredibly well in 2020. Nintendo's games are timeless.
Atari has a plan for going up against Sony and Microsoft this holiday season: blockchain. Its new Atari VCS device will let users spend its new Atari Tokens cryptocurrency on in-game purchases, part of a broader plan to create an industry-wide currency. Nostalgia plus crypto: It's the perfect 2020 product.
— Shakeel Hashim
Make next level games with Microsoft's own AAA-grade development toolbox, including the battle-tested solutions of Azure and PlayFab, powering some of the world's biggest games.
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