Come April, Oculus will hold a Mobile VR Jam with prizes totaling $1 million. The company is incentivizing the creation of virtual reality games and experiences for the Samsung Gear VR headset, which Samsung built in collaboration with Oculus.
The Mobile VR Jam 2015 starts on April 13th, and will challenge developers to create compelling mobile VR experiences for Gear VR, that fall into two tracks, ‘Game’ or ‘App/Experience’. Developers in the ‘Game’ track will be competing for a top prize of $200,000 while those in the ‘App/Experience’ track will battle it out for $100,000. Beyond that, 24 other developers will win smaller sums of the remaining $700,000.
See Also: Oculus Rift VR Experiences Take Top Spots in Leap Motion ‘3D Jam’ Contest
For those heading to GDC 2015 next week, Oculus is holding a ‘Mobile VR Jam Launch Event‘ at the conference on March 4th, where they say you’ll “meet members of the Oculus team, learn more about the Mobile VR Jam, and check out the latest demos for the Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition.”
As for the Jam itself, there are four major milestones for developers to follow:
Milestone 1 Submission: The Pitch – Due by 4/20 9:00 am (PT)
- Initial description of your project
- Images that show concepts or planning
- Track selection: “Game” or “App or Experience”
- Entrant type selection: Organization, Team, or Individual
- If entering as a Team, enter all team members’ ChallengePost ID’s
- Oculus ID’s required for each person
- (optional) Video embedded from YouTube or Vimeo (5 min max)
Following Milestone 1, we will email the terms of this competition to each individual, organization, or each person on a team. If these terms are not electronically signed within 4 days, you will be disqualified.
Milestone 2 Submission: Screenshots – Due by 4/27 9:00 am (PT)
- Screenshot(s) of your “Game” or “App or Experience”
- Updated description and track
- (optional) Video of current build embedded from YouTube or Vimeo
Milestone 3 Submission: Video – Due by 5/4 9:00 am (PT)
- Video of current “Game” or “App or Experience” running
- Updated screenshots, description, and track
Milestone 4 Submission: Final Build – Due by 5/11 9:00 am (PT)
- Upload your final APK, and post the link to your globally-signed build
- Updated video, screenshots, description, and track
Developers can register starting today at the Mobile VR Jam ChallengePost page.
Official rules can be found here. The Mobile VR Jam FAQ notes that Oculus reserves the right to deem what subject matter is or isn’t appropriate, “including but not limited to pornographic or extremely violent content.”
Regarding the use of previously used content, the competition explicitly prohibits “entries that you previously submitted to other contests or publishing sites,” and “direct ports from Oculus Share,” though they do permit the reuse of existing art and assets.
Unlike Oculus’ 2013 VR Jam, which made available the DK1 in ‘Playtest Hubs’ in major cities, those without Gear VR won’t have access to the hardware, save for finding some team members who own one.
Given the ‘Spring’ specification added to the logo, we may be in for another VR Jam before the year is up.
In 2013, Oculus held their first VR Jam which was focused on the Oculus Rift DK1. At $50,000, the prize pool was less than a tenth of the Mobile VR Jam! The competition launched a number of VR games and experiences, many of which have gone on to become familiar names in the development space: games like Ciess (now Darknet), Sightline and Dreahalls.
