There were dozens upon dozens of virtual reality (VR) experience and videogame demos available for Oculus Rift Dev Kit 1 and Dev Kit 2, and the fact is that many of them have been lost to time now. Indie developers, one-man teams and those simply tinkering about out of interest created so much content for the early Dev Kits, and the fact is that most of these demos are no longer playable on more modern head-mounted displays (HMDs).
Well WEARVR are apparently sick of not being able to play the demos and experiences of yesteryear on modern retail devices, and as such are offering a bounty of $10,000 for a high quality update to one of your older VR demos.
WEARVR is a site that was founded thanks to the wealth of interesting demos available for early VR HMDs, and they don’t want to lose all of the content that was created; “These early demos are what compelled us to launch WEARVR and give the experiences the dedicated audience they deserved,” says WEARVR COO, Andrew Douthwaite. “Having tried and tested nearly every DK1 and DK2 demo out there, it’s sad to see that some of them haven’t made it to the consumer headsets. However, it’s understandable when you consider that these were largely created by new, or one-person teams.”
What they’re called the WEARVR Remastered Competition, the challenge sees VR developers enhancing and updating their old Dev Kit content and making it fully functional with the latest HMDs.
Douthwaite doesn’t want to lose the legacy of how VR started and became mainstream; “What we’re trying to do with REMASTERED is give new VR users an opportunity to try these short experiences that helped the new VR industry grow so fast, as well as creating a bit of nostalgia for the VR veterans.”
“There are many developers who, perhaps, created a demo with no intention of selling it. This gives them an opportunity to monetize their demos, through WEARVR, whilst having the added bonus of prize money for best in class,” concludes Douthwaite.
If you want to enter your own VR software for consideration, you can do so on the WEARVR website. The closing date is May 1st 2018, so get in fast.
It’s a good opportunity for early VR devs to revisit their earliest projects, and hopefully get paid for them too, if they win or decide to update the software to a saleable point. For all of the latest on VR demos and money making opportunities for you developers out there, make sure to keep reading VRFocus.