Should games supporting Oculus Rift cost more than the unsupported versions? That's a question we'll see answered hopefully sometime this year.
Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe noted that as a hardware vendor, there's not much they could do about the prices of games that support the Rift, but he wouldn't be surprised to see a premium price tag stapled to the premium experience.
"It's going to be up to the developers," he told Gamesindustry International. "There will be some who make casual, simpler experiences - maybe bite sized. There are going to be Indie developers that make bigger experiences. And there are going to be bigger teams that make really big experiences. ... And some that we've seen early prototypes of... Well, we've seen some that, boy, would I pay a lot to get that experience in virtual reality."
Aaron Davies, director of developer relations at Oculus, added that in VR, objects suddenly have value, and that there will be opportunities for developers to monetize them. But how much will gamers be willing to pay? As Gamesindustry points out, gamers are still feeling the bite of moving up from $50 to $60 USD. They even retaliated when EA tried to jack the price up to $70.
But will support for VR be worth a rise in price? Iribe sees the rise of VR not as an extension of the PC, but a beast all in itself much like the first GPUs in the mid-1990s. VR support will be a game changer bringing an entirely new experience.
"This is the next generation of computing in a very big way," he said. "This is something that's going to change so many things."
So if there will be premium prices, does that mean games will likely cost more than $60? Davies doesn't think so, noting free-to-play games that make revenue easier to gain than slapping players with one huge price tag. The whole concept of charging a premium is somewhat outdated, he said.
"If people are willing to spend a lot of money on VR games, it obviously means we're doing something right," says Iribe.
To read the full interview, head here.
