At the opening ceremony of Valve’s DOTA 2 tournament, Valve head Gabe Newell explained that he’s been focusing much of his attention on the company’s VR initiatives.
While VR’s potential is undeniably huge, it’s still a small, if growing, market compared to the overall gaming industry, which makes up Valve’s core business of game distribution through their Steam platform. But that doesn’t mean the company isn’t making VR a priority; as pointed out by GeekWire, Valve’s head honcho, Gabe Newell, explained on stage at the opening ceremony of ‘The International 2016’, the company’s DOTA 2 tournament:
“For the last year I’ve been spending most of my time with the VR team,” he said. “We have a bunch of VR systems set up above the Secret Shop [a location in the venue], so if you have a chance, go check it out and let me know at gaben@valvesoftware.com what you think.”
Newell’s mention of attention on the company’s VR efforts presumably refers to the DOTA 2 VR Hub—which allows players to watch live matches and hear commentary in VR with friends—that Valve launched in advance of The International 2016. Yet one can imagine that the company has been working on much more that has yet been revealed.
Valve is of course also responsible for developing the Vive VR headset and Lighthouse tracking system, and partnered with HTC to build it. The company has also focused heavily on making Steam a leading source of VR game and software distribution.
We noted recently that Valve’s The Lab has soared to be Steam’s top reviewed game, among more than 9,000 other titles. The company confirmed to us that they had no plans to stop there.
“We are certainly continuing our work to expand Steam VR for developers and aspiring content creators, and working on our VR content,” Doug Lombardi, Valve’s VP of Marketing, told Road to VR.
With the polished lathered upon The Lab, and it’s success as one of the best introductory VR experiences—not to mention a history of some of gaming’s most beloved hits—it seems Valve very well could be attempting to brew the ‘killer app’ that the consumer VR gaming space is still seeking.