HTC Vive Studios Launched for Development of VR-Based Games and Apps
HTC is introducing a new development and publishing studio for virtual reality experiences. Vive Studios, as it’s called, will announce both games developed at HTC and ones from external studios. Its first title, from an internal studio called 2 Bears, is named Arcade Saga — an arcade-inspired combination of games like archery and Breakout.
Along with its Vive Studio, HTC has also introduced its first title from the division - Arcade Saga, as per a report by Venture Beat. Arcade Saga was developed inside by company's 2 Bears Studios and is a collection of three games that make use of Vive's room-scale VR. The approach behind creating the in-house VR content with Vive Studio is to push the sales of the hardware product over time, Vive Studio division's head Joel Breton told VB.
The Arcade Saga is now presented for HTC Vive on Steam at $30 and will be made accessible at company's VR app store Viveport in China. The company will be acting as a first-party publisher like Microsoft and sony, who have their own studios to develop games for PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles.
In the coming months, Vive Studios is also looking to allocate cinematic experience that focus more heavily on storytelling. However, the studio will likely collaborate with third parties on those experiences, said Breton. HTC’s goal is to have “several dozen” pieces of content available to consumers by the end of next year, he said.
One obvious inspiration behind the launch of Vive Studios is to have more exclusive content available to Vive owners. But, Vive Creative Director J. Epps argued that it was also about highlighting the capabilities of the device itself. “The most important part for us is to show what’s great about the Vive,” he said.
According to the report, the studio will not just create gaming content but also create content spread across categories like "education, cinematic, design, social, real-estate and sports as well as tools and applications that can revolutionize areas such as media, retail, health care, and location-based entertainment centers and arcades."
It will be interesting to see the content that is developed by Vive Studios going forward and whether it will be able to push the sales of the hardware or not.