Rikard Steiber, Viveport President and Senior VP of Virtual Reality, is departing HTC at the end of the year.
Having joined the company in February 2016, Steiber oversaw the launch of Viveport in over 60 markets, HTC’s digital distribution platform for VR games and experiences.
As first reported by Forbes, Bjorn Book-Larsson, HTC’s VP of Product, will now be acting President of Viveport, making for a notable shift in leadership since Yves Maitre replaced Cher Wang as CEO in September.
Steiber told Forbes this about his departure:
“Viveport Infinity is having incredible positive momentum with new top rated content, great product and new subscriber records daily. However, as HTC now is entering a new chapter, I have agreed with Yves (new HTC CEO) that it is a great time for me to move on and take on a new challenge after almost 4 years at HTC Vive. I will go on garden leave today until my contract ends early next year.”
Opening its Viveport Infinity in April 2019, HTC was the first to offer a Netflix-style subscription model for VR content, which lets users download any of the platform’s participating PC VR games and experiences, which at the time of this writing is over 700.
Viveport notably supports all major PC VR headsets, including Vive, Vive Pro, Vive Cosmos, Oculus Rift & Rift S, Valve Index, and Windows VR headsets.
Steiber arrived at HTC from his position as CEO of MTGx, a digital entertainment company based in Stockholm. Steiber came to MTGx after a six-year stint at Google where he held the positions of Global Marketing Director and Director of Product Marketing.
Steiber hasn’t mentioned any future plans yet, however Forbes notes that an official statement should arrive at some point soon, which hopefully will give us some insight into where he’s headed next, be it somewhere in the VR industry or otherwise.
