Ahead of a larger Game Developers Conference planned for July, the organization is hosting a virtual event next week, called GDC Showcase, from March 15th to 19th. Oculus, which has historically used GDC for major announcements and developer outreach, announced it will participate in two sponsored sessions.

While we don’t know if Oculus is planning to drop any significant news during the GDC Showcase, the company confirmed this week it’s supporting the event with two sponsored sessions:

Future of Gaming: Quality and Connection

Speakers: Jason Rubin (VP of Play, Facebook) | Michael Verdu (VP of Content, Facebook Reality Labs) | Denny Unger (CEO, Cloudhead Games) | Michael Carter (CEO, PlayCo)
Moderator: Dean Takahashi (Lead Writer, GamesBeat at VentureBeat)
Date: March 17th, 9:00–10:00AM PT

Quality Games and Player Connections Drive Healthy And Robust Gaming Ecosystems – Join Michael Verdu and Jason Rubin as they discuss the Oculus Quest Store and Facebook Instant Games catalog philosophies. They’ll share the evolution of both platforms and how each supports developers in creating high quality games. They’ll be joined by Denny Unger, CEO of Cloudhead Games, creator of Pistol Whip, and Michael Carter, CEO of PlayCo, creator of CatLife. Unger and Carter will discuss the shift in their studios’ focuses as they create quality games and social gameplay features for these platforms and others. This fireside chat will be moderated by Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat.

Squad Up! – Social and Multiplayer in VR with POPULATION: ONE

Speakers: Chia Chin Lee (Co-founder and CEO, BigBox VR) | Gabe Brown (Co-founder and CTO, BigBox VR) | Omid Yazdanshenas (Game Producer, Oculus)
Date: March 17th, 2:40–3:10PM PT

BigBox VR brought the battle royale genre to Quest for the first time last fall with POPULATION: ONE, a game where up-to-18 players can team up and face off in an immersive VR battleground. Now, after just a few months, POP1 has surpassed $10M in Quest revenue, with ongoing updates and events to bring their community closer together. Join BigBox VR co-founders Chia Chin Lee and Gabe Brown for a conversation with Oculus Games Producer, Omid Yazdanshenas, that explores multiplayer social games in VR and how they architected the success of their VR mega-hit, POPULATION: ONE.

And, though not Oculus specifically, the developers of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners are planning a postmortem of their hit game in a session during GDC Showcase:

Making Great VR Games: A Postmortem on Skydance Interactive’s ‘The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners’

Speakers: Chris Busse (Head of Studio, Skydance Interactive) | Guy Costantini (Vice President of Global Interactive Marketing, Skydance Media)
Date: March 18th, 10:05–10:35AM PT

In this discussion, Skydance Interactive will offer insight on creating an innovative VR gameplay experience and the challenges of working in a market that is still relatively nascent. They will also speak to their experiences working with Skybound Entertainment to create a compelling, original story set in The Walking Dead universe, bringing a comic book franchise to new life in VR and how the team is working to deliver even more great content for their best selling VR game.

All sessions will be streamed, and you can watch them with a free registration for the GDC Showcase.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
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    Denny Unger should shill a bit quieter.

    • kontis

      Remember how he switched from shilling Oculus to Valve when he got early Vive devkits? How times have changed.

      But I respect his work and tenacity, especially for the Gallery. He did risky bet on VR when many doubted it.

      • Ad

        Yes but many people did and they’re gone now. He had a lot of talent but also tons of connections and probably some luck. I just wish he was less of a mad scientist about VR with so much tunnel vision.

      • Denny Unger

        Oh I’m still “shilling” for Valve, for Oculus, for Sony, for HTC, for whoever makes the right moves to make VR the paradigm shifting thing we all want it to be ;)

  • VR

    Thank you for sharing this!

  • kontis

    as they discuss the Oculus Quest Store and Facebook Instant Games catalog philosophies.

    Will you also talk about the philosophy of store-locked hardware platforms with the only intent being full control of the digital lives around the globe and getting money in a monopolistic manner from everything people dare to do with their devices?

    Will Apple participate in the discussion? You share a lot of ideals.

    • shadow9d9

      Store locked hardware, like all consoles for the past 40 years?

      • MasterElwood

        This! *facepalm*

      • GUEST

        Yes, a console that watches everything you look at and will sell that info to the highest bidder about four years from now!

      • Corellianrogue

        You can go into any physical shop that sells videogames or browse any online shop to buy physical versions or even some downloadable versions of other console games. You can only officially buy Oculus Quest games (and I think Oculus exclusive Oculus Rift games?) from the Oculus Store. (SideQuest & Itch . io aren’t official and I don’t think they sell any of the games available on the Oculus Store, only officially rejected or unsubmitted Oculus Quest games.)

  • I don’t expect announcements, but for sure these will be interesting talks