Game developers bet mobile virtual reality has mass-market appeal

AMSTERDAM — In a few months, consumers will have multiple high-end virtual reality devices to choose from, but many developers may stick with mobile solutions instead.

Smartphones and their VR peripherals — like Samsung’s Gear VR for its Galaxy phones — offer an enormous opportunity for game developers, according to a talk Resolution Games chief executive Tommy Palm gave at the Casual Connect Europe event today. Palm explained that VR is likely the next step in the chain of computational platforms that started with graphical user interfaces on personal computers and most recently gave the world smartphones with multitouch interfaces. This is one of the reasons Palm and Resolution are jumping into the VR space with games for Gear VR. Other reasons include predictions from investment bank Goldman Sachs and tech advisor Digi-Capital that the virtual and augmented reality (a related tech that combines real and digital imagery) business will grow to somewhere around $110 billion to $120 billion over the next several years.