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 PTQuality 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 PTBigBox 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 PTIn 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.