slayemin

I'm a Seattle based indie game developer working on our very first VR game called "Spellbound" (embarrasing pre-Alpha game play trailer). In March 2015, I decided our studio would go all-in with VR and make the very best VR game we can, from the ground up. Our ambitious goal has been to create a VR game which not only does VR right, but also advances the VR industry so that future VR developers will follow in our footsteps. Our small team has been working really hard to get where we are today and we're getting close to release. We are tentatively going to launch our game in March 2016.

My biggest challenge right now is financing. To date, I've been funding everything from my personal savings account, which is drying up quickly. My limited funds put staffing, scope and time constraints on the game content we can produce. I believe that in order for VR to flourish as an emerging industry, the content creators need to be invested in to become well established long term content producers. I know Oculus has been sponsoring select VR game developers and I'm curious to know more about the requirements and terms. Who would be the best person to talk to at Oculus?

-Will Oculus be hosting an online store/platform for distributing VR content? If yes, what are the terms and conditions? What is the process to get my VR content posted (ie, greenlight)? How will people discover and access the store? Will the store front be VR enabled?

-With the $600 retail price, I'm worried that a lot of consumers are going to be priced out of the early VR market and that's going to affect my early sales. Can you give us a cost break down to support the price tag for the Oculus Rift? How much do the bundled games and accessories contribute to the final price? Will future generations of hardware come down in price?

-Properly immersive VR uses hand gesture input. Currently I'm using Leap Motion for that, but it's a stop gap measure pending access to a better solution. Can we get a set of Oculus Touch controllers for the development of our game? Do we have to wait for the consumer edition to be launched to add support for it?

Thanks for your time and good luck with your launch,

Eric N.

Not to mention, 90% of indie games fail to even get to launch, so you’re taking a 10% chance to make an average of $10k for the lifetime of your games release.

I don't understand why anyone would be trying to go through your personal belongings when your project is open source...

I used to be a 'hacker'. I wrote an app which spoofed a login screen and stole usernames and passwords from my local college and got around 50 accounts (including admins). I was eventually caught because I left my dev code laying around. My main motive was intellectual challenge and curiousity. I decided to stop going down that path. I think it's more intellectually challenging to work constructively than destructively. I've gone forward to do good things :)

Anyways, it's my opinion that anti-virus side is fighting a losing battle.

--Polymorphic viruses and root kits are nearly impossible to detect. You can only detect them by a change in behavior on your computer (if you're lucky).

--Virus writers have the luxury of time on their hands up to the moment they release their virus into the wild. They should have plenty of time to test and perfect their code.

What are your thoughts on the current state of computer security and what do you predict will be particularly troublesome in the future based on the trends you're seeing today?

Is it worth investing in anti-aging medicine? If a cure for aging came out 5 years from now in the form of a pill you take once a month, would you take it? How much would you pay for such a pill? Should a pill like that become widely available for all humanity? Or should it be restricted to certain people based on merit? How long should a person live? What if a person gets a 150 year prison sentence for some heinous act and is forced to serve it all by feeding them anti aging pills?