Kevin Joyce is the editor-in-chief at VRFocus, and he talks about how they’re covering everything to do with virtual reality gaming and entertainment at VRFocus. He talks about how it was founded and funded by nDreams CEO Patrick O’Luanaigh, who is working on a number of VR experiences and noticed that there wasn’t a site in the UK covering VR in a comprehensive way.
At the moment VRFocus is just Kevin and Jamie Feltham, who has been tracking a lot of the online communities and breaking news in the VR space. VRFocus does a lot of excerpting from other articles to pull out the newsworthy bits of information, as well as a lot of original reporting, live blogs at conferences, and video interviews.
He talks about some of the things that need to happen for VR to go mainstream, and how VRFocus is trying to help communicate what’s happening in this space beyond to the wider video gaming community. He says that VR needs to make incremental steps towards going mainstream, and sees that one day VR experiences will be prolific and the standard norm for people. There’s so many things that VR can do and that we’re just only starting to scratch the surface.
TOPICS
- 0:00 – Intro. Worked in video games journalism, and VRFocus funded by nDreams’ Patrick O’Luanaigh. No VR website in UK, and started a site where he has full editorial control. Launched in February 2014. Focusing on VR as entertainment
- 1:00 – VRFocus as the beat reporter of the VR space. Aim to cover video gaming and entertainment and how VR is changing VR gaming
- 1:39 – SVVRCon coverage. Did liveblog coverage about VR gaming. Conducted 28 video interviews and released over time.
- 2:27 – What got you excited about VR? Only touched on briefly on VR before getting the job at VRFocus. Independent game developers are driving a lot of VR innovation and showing what the power of VR is
- 3:10 – VRFocus’ Jamie Feltham tracks a lot of the online communities and breaking new stories.
- 3:58 – Just Kevin and Jamie putting out 12-14 articles a day
- 4:15 – Pulling out news bits from existing content. Aimed at non-VR audience and push beyond your normal audience and share what’s going on in a way that’s consumable.
- 5:30 – Measuring the response. Doing a lot better within the VR community than the larger video gaming community. Trying to let people know about what VR is
- 6:04 – Reaching out to new audiences. Finding the middle ground, and the big projects excite a lot of people. Cover Sony because it’s closer to the larger audience
- 6:50 – Events to cover for VR. Meet-ups and conferences like SVVRCon, GDC, & E3.
- 7:44 – What types of games he’s personally experienced. VirtualReality.IO isn’t a game, but was a compelling experience to show the seamless interface to be able to go from game to game without leaving VR. VR needs something like this to go mainstream.
- 8:38 – People projecting what they’d expect would be a great VR experience, but they find out it’s not as great as they expect. VR needs to be incremental to minimize simulator sickness.
- 9:48 – Most surprising is to see the general public’s reaction to VR without ever hearing or knowing anything about it.
- 10:24 – There will be a time where VR is the norm, and it’ll be standard. So many things VR can do, and we’re just only starting to scratch the surface.
Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.
[00:00:11.924] Kevin Joyce: I'm Kevin Joyce, Editor-in-Chief of VR Focus. And VR Focus happened because I worked in video games journalism for about 12 years. And Patrick Olunek, the CEO of Endreams, which is a development studio in the UK, he was very much a fan of VR. And he noticed there was no VR-dedicated sites in the UK. So we sat down and we talked about the idea of launching a new website. And we came up with an agreement that suited me because it gave me full editorial control of the website with Patrick as a financer. And it went from there. I left my job three months early and spent that time researching what VR was and what people wanted from a VR website. And we settled on the idea of an entertainment website first and foremost. A little bit tech and education and other instances in the background, but it is very much VR as entertainment. And then we launched in February of this year and it's been going very well ever since.
[00:01:00.417] Kent Bye: So yeah, in the virtual reality space, I kind of see VR focus as the beat reporter, you know, kind of reporting the daily or, you know, very consistent, maybe smaller, but also incremental stories. And maybe, how do you see yourself in terms of what type of things that you're covering within the VR space?
[00:01:16.710] Kevin Joyce: That would be a very accurate assessment of what we do. We aim to cover everything that happens in video game entertainment and VR. As I say, we do catch on to other bits and pieces when they happen, but it's all about video games and how VR is changing them, and VR is changing them, and that's what's important. So yeah, we obviously have news stories and interviews and features and reviews and previews and anything you can possibly imagine in terms of getting VR games into the public.
[00:01:38.783] Kent Bye: Great, and maybe you could talk a bit about the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference and what type of coverage you were able to get from that.
[00:01:45.293] Kevin Joyce: Sure, well obviously Carl and Bruce worked together and Nala as well worked very hard to create this conference so we all wanted to be a part of it from the start. Those are great guys and they work very hard. So I flew over to, we live-blogged all of the speakers that were relevant to games. There were some that weren't so relevant so we, obviously Jamie Felton, the staff writer we have back home, he kept an eye on those if there was any news stories that came out of them but we made sure we live-blogged all the ones that were important to gaming. And also while I was there, I conducted, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think it was 28 interviews, which was a fair amount of content, considering they were all on video, and they are being released over time as and when we get time to edit them, because obviously we do have to keep up with news in the meantime. But it was a great conference. I'm very proud of what those guys achieved in such a short space of time as well.
[00:02:27.212] Kent Bye: And so what was it about virtual reality that got you really excited that you wanted to focus in on this topic and really dive into it?
[00:02:35.199] Kevin Joyce: I'll be honest, in my previous job as a video games journalist, I only ever touched on virtual reality. I didn't actually own an Oculus until I got this job. Previous to this, I had obviously tried the Oculus. Morpheus wasn't announced at the time, that wasn't even a thing. But I had tried Oculus Gamescom, and I was impressed by it, but it didn't blow me away. It was only when I got involved in the community that I understood what VR really was. And it's the indie projects that empower VR. They're the ones with the ideas. You can play EVE Valkyrie as much as you like and go, yes, this is a fantastic experience and this is a high-quality game that VR needs to promote to the mainstream. But it's the indie games that are really showing what the power of VR is.
[00:03:10.675] Kent Bye: I see. And so how are you tracking the news in terms of what's up and coming within the virtual reality community?
[00:03:17.290] Kevin Joyce: Well, that's a very difficult thing to do. Jamie is the news guy, I'll be honest. Jamie Felton, he's a star when it comes to news. He's everywhere. So he follows not only what works well within our audience, but what works well with the VR audience at large. Obviously, we are an internet-based publication, so he's on the internet all day long. finding out what it is that are drawing people into our website, and also what it is that people are talking about on other websites, finding out what is popular. I hate to mention names, but places like NeoGAF, and what is being discussed there, and there's a massive VR community on Reddit, and he follows Reddit constantly because he just enjoys being part of those communities. And that's a great thing, when you've got people that are actively enjoying being part of the audience as well, as well as actually working for the industry. It means you've got all your bases covered.
[00:03:58.583] Kent Bye: And how many people are behind VR Focus then?
[00:04:01.114] Kevin Joyce: It's just me and Jamie currently. We have plans to take on board more staff in time for when there's a consumer product, but it is just me and Jamie. And on average we're putting out between 10 and 14 articles a day, so that's a fair amount of content for two of us.
[00:04:13.703] Kent Bye: Yeah, one of the things that I've noticed is that VR focus will be kind of going through a lot of the rich media or other content that's out there and maybe doing pull quotes and kind of pulling out highlights from stuff that may be out there, but nobody's sort of really pointing at. One example is like the interview that Reverend Kyle and the Ubercast crew did with Palmer Luckey and sort of taking that and trying to pull out news bits from that. So maybe talk about that process in terms of taking content that's already out there, but then pulling out what you see as the highlights for the VR community.
[00:04:45.637] Kevin Joyce: Sure, well obviously the majority of that is aimed at a non-VR audience, people that don't understand what VR is yet and it's the highlight for people who are coming into VR but don't necessarily own their own Oculus yet, people that are looking towards VR. This obviously comes back from my experience as a journalist, it's pushing beyond the boundaries of your normal audience. You and I can sit here all day and talk about what Palmer Luckey is doing and what John Carmack thinks about VR, but not everybody knows who these people are. And it's important that you do tell people what is going on inside this community in a way that is consumable. And in order to do that, you can put an hour-long podcast up, but it's only the VR community that can respond to that. There could be a five-second line that will go much further than that. And that's the way that journalism works. You have to get out to a larger audience, and that's what we aim to do.
[00:05:29.984] Kent Bye: And what has been the response so far, and how are you measuring that?
[00:05:33.505] Kevin Joyce: Well, obviously, you know, you have analytics sites which tell you how fast you're growing, and you can compare to other websites, I say. I've worked in journalism for quite some time, so I'm well aware of the way in which you measure incremental growth as well as massive growth. And the measurement we have, we have a measurement for how well performing in the VR community, and then how well performing in the video games community at large. And there's a very big difference, as I'm sure you can imagine. There are a lot of gamers, as I say, who don't really know what VR is yet. And they need to know. And they need to know soon.
[00:06:03.162] Kent Bye: I see. And so, what type of things are you doing in terms of trying to reach out to these new audiences beyond sort of the early adopters and innovators who are already kind of sold on the idea of virtual reality?
[00:06:13.872] Kevin Joyce: Well, it's finding a middle ground, finding something they can relate to. As I say, for me, it's indies that are driving VR, but for many people, they're waiting for the epics and the deep silvers and Sony themselves. That's the point which is going to sell to them. That's why Morpheus is featured very heavily in VR Focus's content, because Morpheus is by and large, closer to being sold to the mainstream than Oculus is. Oculus is a fantastic, the DK2 is an amazing piece of hardware, but it's still not yet at the point where a consumer can relate to that. Morpheus is shiny and pretty, and people will go and buy that straight off the shelf at a PS4 because they know it'll work. So yeah, that's why Morpheus is featured quite a lot in what VR Focus does, because it is that much closer to a larger audience.
[00:06:53.204] Kent Bye: And what are the big major events that you see happening over the course of the year that you say that you definitely have to be there to cover what's happening from the perspective of virtual reality and gaming?
[00:07:04.947] Kevin Joyce: Well, these meetups are great. SVVR and SFVR and VRLA, they're all wonderful places to be, but they are very costly, obviously, for us to fly over from the UK every time, so we cover them when we're over here already. SVVR, Conan Expo we had to be here for, and GDC, and obviously now E3. I like to do extended trips, though, so while I'm over in America, I will tour around many different places, such as this event we're at today, the immersion event. because while I'm here there are many more people in VR that I do want to meet and I want to speak to that aren't necessarily going to have the money to run a big booth at E3. In the UK we have a lot smaller events which VR does appear at but it's nothing like what you guys have over here.
[00:07:44.790] Kent Bye: I see. And what type of games have you experienced in virtual reality that you see as some of the most compelling that you've had so far?
[00:07:52.477] Kevin Joyce: That's a very tricky experience. I try and take myself out of my personal preferences when I'm writing about games because obviously we all have our own favorites. I'm not the biggest sports fan but I will play FIFA and I will tell you how good the next FIFA game is compared to the last one because that's my job. Personally, it's really strange because one of the most exciting experiences I've had is actually VirtualReality.io. It's not a video game at all. It is literally just a distribution system. But for me, it was one of the first things that I touched on before VR Focus launched. And I loved the way it was done, the way that everything is inside that headset, from choosing your game, finding out about a game, picking it, downloading it, and then booting it. It's all one sweeping experience, and that's what VR needs to be. That's where VR needs to be, to be a consumer experience. You don't want to be taking the headset on and off. It needs to be, I'm buying this game, I'm playing it now.
[00:08:39.349] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think that's one of the interesting things that some of Bruce had said to me that I think really stuck with me in terms of, you know, people projected all these ideas of things like Mirror's Edge or Call of Duty or these things are gonna be great in virtual reality and they get in there and it's not necessarily the greatest virtual reality experience. And so I'm curious if you've had that or how are you gonna deal with people who have all these ideas of what would be the best virtual reality experiences in gaming, but then it turns out it's completely different.
[00:09:05.450] Kevin Joyce: Totally. Me and Jamie actually have a running joke where we talk about the idea of big budget games, for example, Call of Duty or Battlefield or something like that, coming with a better with VR slogan on the front of it, when it's actually really not going to be better with VR. That is not the kind of experience that you want. And we've spoken with Oculus a lot about this, the idea that VR needs to be incremental. We'll start with something like EVE Valkyrie, where it's an intense arcade shooter, but you are stationary and you're stationary in the game. So the chances of simulator sickness are far greatly reduced. and you have to atone your audience. I'm very interested to see Lucky's Tale this week. I don't know, by the time this goes out we'll have probably seen it. But currently all we've seen is a logo and been told that it's a platform game and I'm a lover of Mario. So I'm very keen to see how that one turns out. That'll be very interesting indeed.
[00:09:47.351] Kent Bye: And what's been one of the more surprising elements of virtual reality that you've come across when you've been covering this topic in this space?
[00:09:54.776] Kevin Joyce: I think it would have to be the public's reaction when they haven't played VR before. Obviously we can sit inside our little bubble talking about VR and video games and we all know what we're talking about. But you slap a headset on someone brand new who has never even heard of an Oculus before and the reaction is 95% of the time positive. And that's great, that says that we are an industry that is doing something right, something positive. Whether you take it from a gaming perspective, or a health perspective, or military perspective, or whatever you're looking at VR to do, the fact is that it can achieve that on its first instance is wonderful.
[00:10:24.019] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as the ultimate potential for virtual reality and what it can bring to society through gaming?
[00:10:30.606] Kevin Joyce: That's a big question. Through gaming, I do believe there will be a time when VR is the norm. When VR games are... You don't consider it a VR game. That's just a video game. That's what you do. Whether or not you'll still be using a headset at that point is another conversation, but I do see it becoming standard. What it can do for the population as a whole is a question that will take an hour to answer. There's so many things that VR can do, and we're only just scratching the surface.
[00:10:56.959] Kent Bye: Great. Well, thanks so much. Thank you.
