One of the questions often asked about the VR games market is “when will we see a hit VR title?” That may have been answered recently, as Resolution Games announced that its Bait! game for the Samsung Gear VR has been downloaded over 700,000 times. That’s even more impressive when you realize that Samsung’s Gear VR currently has an install base in the neighborhood of one million units. And now, Resolution Games is announcing its first additional content for the game.
“We’re very excited about the interest in Bait! from the VR and games communities, and even the general public,” said Tommy Palm, CEO and co-founder of Resolution Games. “We’ve had lots of requests for more content and we’re hoping Treehouse River is just the beginning as we expand the game and explore new destinations and fish species to add. We think the virtual anglers in Bait! will find Treehouse River just as serene and yet exciting of an environment as they pursue all the new fish we’ve added.”
Palm joined [a]listdaily to further talk about Bait! and the growing market for VR games.
Congratulations on reaching 700,000 downloads. Did this level of response to Bait! surprise you?
We knew we had a pretty high quality VR gameplay and visual experience with Bait! at launch. But, I don’t think we could have anticipated garnering this large of the market share in such an early day in the market. Even though Bait! has been a relative success, we still have a lot more work to do to bring more users on to VR, keep them engaged in content and create experiences that will truly capitalize on the amazing benefits to come as VR matures. We have learned so much in creating Bait!, listening to users along the way, and adapting to changes in the market and across platforms. Right now we’re focused on taking these lessons learned and molding them into best practices that will help define the industry and hopefully bring that maturation to market sooner than later.
Bait!‘s number of downloads represents a significant share of the total install base of Samsung Gear VR. What marketing did you do for the game?
We haven’t done any marketing, really. We’ve had some great press at the launch of Bait! and saw the game get featured shortly after, which of course gave a pretty good boost. However, we’ve seen a steady flow of new installs and healthy player retention along the whole life of the game since its launch in March.
What part of your marketing efforts has been most successful, and why?
At this stage it’s really all about putting any and all efforts into making the best possible gameplay experience so that when users play Bait! they want to share that experience with their friends and family. And, that’s really what Resolution Games is all about. We want to make the content that people think of when introducing VR to others for the first time. We make our games so someone new to VR, or even games for that matter, could put the game on, have fun and get it within minutes, while also creating the quality gameplay and visuals to challenge and engage even the most avid gamers or VR enthusiasts for hours.
What do you think the VR market will look like for the rest of 2016? Will we see significant growth in the install base for any particular hardware?
Absolutely. It may not be significant in 2016, but within this year most of the anticipated large players will have devices in the market. And, this is just the first iteration of those devices and manufacturers. New ones are emerging on the market and challenging the standard. The VR industry is growing at a faster rate than almost any other we’ve seen. Much of that is due to the impressive state we’re at with processing power, which just keeps getting better. But, on the content side of things, we have the luxury of having had battled it out on mobile and other platforms and now can take the relevant lessons learned from there and apply where it makes sense for VR. This has created a compass that has enabled us to move at a much faster pace. Although, I must note that VR content must be dreamed up and created for VR from the ground up.
Are you looking forward to the launch of Google Daydream devices, and do you plan to support it? What sort of response do you expect to Daydream over the next year?
Very much so! We were actually one of the first game developers to commit to creating content for Daydream when it was announced earlier this year. We’re actually full throttle into creating an amazing game, Wonderglade, that will be live when Daydream is publicly available later this year. The game invites players to explore a whole world of carnival-themed gameplay and will be accessible so everyone can get in on the fun and revisit the wonders of new and familiar carnival games. We think Daydream will play a big role in taking VR mainstream, which is a big part of our vision and mission for VR as well. It also shows that mobile VR is taking the lead in the VR headset space—something we have always felt was important for making VR accessible to not only early adopters and hardcore gamers, but the whole family. And, Resolution Games makes perfect content to introduce new users to VR, something we think Wonderglade will be ideal for.
You’ve just launched your first add-on content. What are your plans for marketing that, and for future add-on content?
We’re mostly focused on ensuring the game is so exceptional that players are compelled to share their experience and have it spread organically. However, we do have some fun ideas that may come to life around integrating virtual fishing tournaments with real-world tournaments, and things like that. We’ll see. For now, the most important thing for us is to focus on creating great content and experiences to make initial VR users’ first impressions exceptional in an effort to help grow the market as a whole.
Do you think your marketing strategy for Bait! and other VR titles will be changing over the next year? How will it change, and why?
Yes. We’ll likely switch our thought process a bit as VR is more proven, more devices are in the market and more eyes are open to experiencing new VR content. We see it maturing from an educational and first impressions tone to one more similar to what you see with mobile eventually. However, unlike the luxury mobile games have in users being able to link to content and experience marketing through their mobile platforms, VR will be very different. Although it’s yet to be seen how open to marketing VR users will actually be over time, there is the inherent challenge with interrupting such an immersive experience for marketing purposes, while also not being able to link through across VR, web and mobile. Needless to say, there are still many challenges to face in this rather young market.
What’s your prediction for the growth of the VR market in 2017?
Next year will likely be the year that we see a good portion of the market shaken out with those content creators and hardware manufacturers who have truly innovated rising to the top. This will only make the ongoing VR experiences better, which in turn will grow the market of users more substantially. I think we’ll also see that many of these initial unknowns will be answered as so many entrepreneurs and innovators are drawn to the platform like we are and really want to see it take off.
