Cloudhead Games’ advice on jumping into the VR Market

According to Statista, the VR and AR markets are steadily rising. Within the subsequent 5 years, virtually a 3rd of individuals may have a headset of some description, and there’ll be about 2.5 billion gamers. The typical income per consumer? Possible round $14. Far increased than the $0.13 that hyper-casual games get.

However making a VR sport? Nicely, the method isn’t all that totally different. It’s a profitable alternative for builders. So we requested Ed Lago, government producer at Cloudhead Video games, for his recommendation on getting into the market.

Who’re Cloudhead Video games?

Although they had been based again in 2013, their founder – Denny Unger – has been within the VR trade for the reason that 90s. A self-proclaimed “VR storage hacker”, he made associates with Palmer Luckey, founding father of Oculus, and managed to get his arms on some prototype {hardware}. Since then, Cloudhead Games has created multi-award-winning titles like Pistol Whip and The Gallery sequence. And collaborated with trade giants like Meta, Sony, HTC and Valve.

With that in thoughts, what’s been the key to their success?

Ask in case your sport is smart for VR

Whereas there are some similarities between VR and cellular video games – they need to be straightforward to study and have easy mechanics – a VR sport is absolutely all about fantasy fulfilment. The participant ought to really feel like they’ve develop into another person in one other world.

“As somebody who made the leap from cellular video games to VR, it’s all about understanding the know-how and the very best use instances for it,” Ed defined. “Not all kinds of video games work correctly on this medium due to the various kinds of {hardware}. Cell builders will usually have a neater time making video games for {hardware} just like the Quest 2, as a result of they’re used to creating video games on much less highly effective tech. Going from cellular, to cellular VR, to PC is simpler than the opposite approach round. Devs who’ve solely labored with PC VR and consoles will usually battle making video games run correctly Quest 2 {hardware}.”

That is notably true relating to how the participant really controls their character and interacts with the world.

“In cellular video games, it’s essential concentrate on the important thing strengths, which embody utilizing the contact display screen, swiping, tapping,” Ed added. “In VR, it’s essential think about the consolation stage of the consumer, the physicality of your expertise, the quantity of load cognition, and the immersion issue when the consumer places on the headset.”

So builders want to consider how their mechanics can translate throughout to VR. What do they should do to get the identical consequence? Take an endless-runner model of sport. On-screen, it’s easy sufficient to swipe left and proper to make the turns.

However how will that work in VR? Does the consumer bodily transfer? Which may imply the degrees want fewer turns, so the participant doesn’t really feel sick. Or do they swing their arms? If that’s the case, does that actually really feel immersive?

Study out of your errors

Everytime you enter a brand new market, you’ll have teething issues. You’ll be too formidable or create a mechanic that’s just a bit too sophisticated for VR. That’s effective. It’s a brand new house; everybody remains to be determining the very best practices.

“With The Gallery sequence, we actually wished the participant to have company and really feel like they had been the hero in a film,” Ed stated. “Looking back, these video games had been too superior for VR on the time. The onus was on us to not solely educate the participant how you can play the sport, however how you can use VR.”

By 2019, although, Cloudhead Video games utilized that lesson to Pistol Whip, their newest title. The core philosophy is similar – assist the participant fulfil a film hero fantasy – however the gameplay itself is way more refined.

“How might we make one thing that was enjoyable, tremendous straightforward to simply choose up and play, however laborious to grasp?” Ed stated. “These questions resulted in us growing Pistol Whip so the controller scheme is useless straightforward and makes use of one button or movement to do a number of issues. We wished a sport with low cognitive load – the other of what got here out of The Gallery sequence.”

Get to know the {hardware}

The principle limitation and problem of all VR video games is the {hardware} itself. In actual fact, there are three kinds of {hardware} you need to be conscious of:

• Standalone headsets. These have a cellular chipset and will be worn anyplace in the home.
• Console headsets. These are powered via a selected console.
• PC headsets. These plug immediately into somebody’s pc.

It’s not merely that you just want barely totally different variations of your sport to run on every of those, however the {hardware} itself can differ considerably.

“Making a product for all a lot of these {hardware} – that are so totally different from one another, with their very own set of controllers and unique options – and making the sport feel and appear good is an enormous technical problem,” Ed stated. “That is very true as a result of the customers of every one in every of these platforms are involved about their platform being the very best for the model of the sport they’re taking part in.”

Know the method is similar, however tougher

When you’ve determined how you can sort out the {hardware} and design challenges, the method itself isn’t all that totally different from what you’re seemingly already aware of.

“All the things is fairly comparable,” Ed stated. “We at all times undergo the cycle of ideation, prototyping, pitching, market analysis, funding, getting the greenlight, pre-production, manufacturing, and so forth…”

However all through that course of, you want to keep in mind that the gamers themselves are a distinct beast to cellular gaming. Cell gaming is sort of acquainted to virtually everybody. VR? Not a lot.

“Your product can actually be somebody’s first-ever VR sport. And it may very well be their final if they’ve a nasty expertise with it,” Ed defined. “We nonetheless must persuade lots of people that VR is legit and that you just really can have a superb time taking part in it. So if there’s a nasty expertise, there’s an enormous probability this individual received’t consider within the medium anymore.”

Whereas making a VR sport is tougher, it’s nonetheless well worth the effort. The alternatives in VR are countless, and the market is far much less saturated than the cellular trade. It’s a lot simpler to get noticed. However how do you get the phrase out and market your sport?

We spoke with Cloudhead Video games’ advertising staff, Alex Blahout (digital and social media advertising) and Lindsay Sherman (advertising supervisor), to get their recommendation on the subsequent step. Their first piece of recommendation? Get entangled with the group. There are lots of particular VR communities you may develop into part of and study from.

“Our gamers’ suggestions has been invaluable and helped construct the muse of our success,” Alex identified. There have been three most important areas that they targeted on:

• Discord. That is the place the Pistol Whip group primarily resides.
• Social media and Reddit. Right here they’ll have enjoyable conversations with gamers.
• Retailer platforms and boards. That is the place they discuss information, help and solutions.

When you’ve engaged along with your group, it’s time to construct hype round your sport.

“To know a sport like Pistol Whip, it’s essential see it in movement,” Alex defined. “Teaser movies and trailers have usually been the advertising precedence. As we proceed into 2023, we plan on making extra video content material than ever, so our gamers can actually get a way of how a lot taking part in Pistol Whip is like being dropped into an motion film.”

In these movies, the secret’s to develop a story round what it’s prefer to expertise the sport. It’s not all concerning the mechanics.

“Constructing an commercial for any title requires telling a narrative,” Alex added. “Your advertising technique requires language and visuals that clearly talk the worth: getting match, feeling like a film hero, having fun with the action-rhythm, and so forth…”

Observe information inside and outdoors your sport

Your in-game analytics will assist you spot the place to enhance your design, identical to with a cellular sport. However with VR, it’s essential monitor information from extra sources.

“To gauge participant satisfaction and the sort of expertise they wish to be immersed in, we use issues like retailer evaluations and feedback,” Alex stated. “For instance, between Might and September of final 12 months, the engagement price for our social posts on Fb, Instagram and Twitter doubled. That reveals we’ve a wholesome relationship with our rising group.”

What you monitor is subjective. However there are some helpful metrics that everybody ought to control. And take into account information from VR shops, social media platforms alike.

“We have a look at our Lively Person information (DAU, WAU, MAU) to see how many individuals hold coming again to Pistol Whip, in addition to to see what time intervals had essentially the most in-game engagement,” Lindsay stated. “We additionally monitor information inside retailer platforms for common efficiency, demographics, Person Acquisition, and Advertising Attribution.”

However know that the outcomes won’t at all times be what you anticipated.

“The important thing distinction for VR versus some other platform is, primarily, the excessive adoption barrier to proudly owning a headset, mixed with the (relative) newness of VR,” Alex added. “This results in fewer alternatives to collect vital information and discover related benchmarks.”

Maintain bettering your design

These metrics will help you iterate and evolve your sport. For Cloudhead Video games, they had been in a position to hold monitor of how gamers had been responding to their updates and new content material. Again in June 2022, they launched Contracts – new methods of taking part in Scenes (ranges) and including in new challenges each day, week and month.

“We analyze sure in-game analytics to trace progress,” Lindsay stated. “What number of gamers are taking part? What are they participating in? Which Contracts are they finishing? Are they going via the extra vigorous month-to-month Contract?”

With that data, Cloudhead Video games can work out which of those challenges are profitable and the place they’ll enhance them to be extra enjoyable, snug and difficult.

Begin your journey

In the event you need assistance with retaining monitor of the information in your video games, our free software has SDKs that work throughout all the foremost VR platforms. So plug in and get to growing your first prototype. Get started.