News
Viveport - Get ready for a revenue boost through 2021!
Near the end of 2020 VIVEPORT (a VR marketplace support all major VR headsets) gave 100% of all profits to developers selling through their platform, and now they are moving their revenue share from being a 70/30 split (70% for developers) to now being 80/20. This makes it possibly the more lucrative platform to work with from a revenue splitting perspective. If you haven't been considering VIVEPORT it might be time to evaluate the benefits of publishing there along with other stores.
Discover Premium Content with Subscriptions on the Oculus Quest Platform | Oculus
Oculus recently introduced premium subscriptions for developers on its platform as another way to continue to monetize and fund support for experiences. Since the expansion of VR content beyond gaming into productivity, health, and other genres this will help ensure content creators can maintain an experience beyond the initial cost of purchase (sometimes at the low cost of free). This turns some apps from a labor of love that the community embraces into a sustainable business that can support its community into the future with new features and bug fixes in a timely manner.
Business
Inception | VR App & Platform for Virtual Reality Content
InceptionVR is a content distribution platform that allows VR and 360 video creators access to a large and active audience of viewers. They are very well established with premium content creators and large brands, as well as having a network of funding partners and fairly generous compensation agreements. Content on the platform is viewable on standalone VR headsets, mobile devices, and anyplace a VR viewer can run so you aren't limited to just an audience who have purchased HMUs.
Become a VeeR Creator
We first featured VeeR back in Issue 22 for their partnership with CannesXR to host their submissions and viewings, but we also mention them again since they are another popular distribution platform for VR film makers. Aside from their partnerships with a global community of artists and creators, VeeR also helps fund noteworthy projects (up to $50,000 USD with exceptions) along with providing support and guidance where needed.
OpenSea: Buy NFTs, Crypto Collectibles, CryptoKitties, Decentraland, and more on Ethereum
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have become quite popular to sell unique art and experiences directly to private owners. Being paid one time for your perceived value of a piece is not very different than selling an original painting rather than selling prints, but with a bit more work "minting" the NFT on top of making your creation. The market for them is increasing as more well known creators and brands enter the space expanding their own portfolio of products.
Buy and Sell Spark AR Templates, Patches, Shaders, Games | Catchar
Catchar marketplace allows you to sell your Spark AR assets, or buy digital assets to build and deploy AR experiences for Instagram and Facebook faster. You can also monetize your templates, shaders, 3D assets, and tutorials for sale to other creators to jumpstart their work.
Learning
How To Record Oculus Quest Gameplay in WIDESCREEN & BETTER QUALITY
Getting high quality footage from the Oculus Quest isn't straight-forward but it is possible. There are some occasions where you want to let users see the actual experience rather than renders or promotional footage. In this video you'll learn how to setup your Quest to record and store higher bitrate widescreen footage straight from the headset.
Development
VIVEPORT Developer
Releasing your experience for the VIVEPORT platform isn't vastly different than other platforms, and this link is where you would start you documentation journey to familiarize yourself with the store's requirements and policies. Including learning the pros and cons for allowing your content to be included in the subscription service or only allowing paid downloads.
SteamVR Developers - Steam Support
Steam is the largest marketplace for PC gaming, with 50 -70% of the world’s PC game downloads take place on Steam. The link we're sharing is to the Steam Developer Support page to help get you started understanding what it takes to get your experience onto Steam. Every large documentation website needs a good overview and a place to start, and if you're getting curious (or getting started) on Steam this would be the page.
How to Prepare for a Successful App Lab Submission | Oculus
If your team will be submitting your experience to the Oculus App Lab this is a must see. With the large number of failures causing app review times to take 4 to 5 weeks it is good to hear advice from Oculus on how to be successful. Preventing failures and resubmissions will save you valuable time and ensure you launch on time, instead of entering another development and review cycle. The tips here are applicable to any project you'd want to submit, so definitely worth watching.
One More Thing
AR STEM LABS
An AR electronics tutor isn't a new idea, but the system put together by Arlektra teaches electronics and circuits with an amazing amount of clarity. Hands-on projects merged with Augmented Reality 3D instructions and animations through your phone or tablet make this one of the most advanced electronics instructional systems.
Commentary
First we would like to apologize to those of you looking for our articles on the Other Realities Journal for the last few weeks. There was an issue with our blogging platform that unpublished the posts that we did not notice until this week. We have published the posts again and are working with the platform to make sure this doesn't happen again. Parts 1 and 2 in our series "Imagining the Future" are now live and showcase some of the features we'd like to see in future head mounted units (HMUs) that could help expand the adoption and usefulness of HMUs.
Another item we'd like to address is that we haven't mentioned the rumored Apple AR glasses (though it's seeming less like a rumor) due to lack of announcements and information coming from Apple. Speculation is fun but often leads to misinformation, and we'd like to stay clear of sharing something we don't know you can actually experience or pre-order whenever possible. Apple is known for its secretive nature around product development, but with the substantial increase AR/VR/MR/XR adoption it only makes sense that they would be getting into that market to expand their Apple App Store. The App Store is exceptionally profitable for Apple with a 78% profit margin, and expanding the content there into newer technology will help keep it relevant and profitable further into the future. We do hope this becomes a real product, and would replace our glasses with an Apple AR unit if only two thirds of the rumors are true.
With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, this issue's focus is on some of the ways that creators can distribute and hopefully make money to fund their work. At some point as creators we all have to self-fund a project or look for a customer that will pay us in order to continue making the things we love. If your content fits the focus of these marketplaces you might consider branching out to broaden the potential for your work to be seen. Not everything we create needs to be commercially viable, and the focus shouldn't be on making the most money over making the most impact.
We're hoping that this issue helps show a few new places or to reconsider places for you work.
Are you working on an interesting project you'd like featured? We'd love to hear about it and spread the word on Twitter, where you can also find more events and timely information that doesn't make the weekly newsletter. We are constantly adding new entries into the Other Realities Directory if you're casually looking for more VR content to explore. And if you have any suggestions for the directory feel free to send them our way.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, and we'll see you next week!
Other Realities