A trailer for Blood & Truth from Sony’s London Studio, like a preview Oculus showed earlier this month for an upcoming war title from Titanfall creator Respawn Entertainment, makes it clear that Sony and Facebook are financially supporting what its executives think gamers want to play in VR. The goal: drive the sale of more headsets by giving the likeliest consumers more reasons to buy.
But are investments in bloody shooters by the industry’s largest companies really necessary? I argue no. Shooting games like Pavlov VR and Onward are already being made by independent developers who are quickly responding to the requests of their earliest buyers. Both those games are early access titles that are shaped in a tight feedback loop with buyers. Something only gets added to those games if buyers want it and developers decide it’s a good idea to add. In contrast, Facebook and Sony are farming out projects to trusted teams and insulating these creators from community feedback. Without that community feedback they risk making mistakes in their choice of narratives, emotional impact and gameplay that could fall flat or worse — drive creative developers and curious buyers away from VR headsets.

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