One of the biggest problems plaguing the current VR scene is the notion that various developers have been offered money by various VR headset makers for exclusivity rights. The new OSVR Developer Fund hopes to counter that with a five million dollar fund that would hopefully encourage developers to sell their game code in order to freely allow their games to circulate among the ‘VR ecosystem’. The fund is being spearheaded by Razer, renowned gaming peripheral giant.
The lead for OSVR, Christopher Mitchell has stated the rational behind starting up this fund:
“The OSVR Developer Fund allows us to directly support the efforts of VR pioneers across the breadth of this developing industry, while at the same time ensuring that content is available to everyone in the industry. It is our contention that if everyone who is constructively contributing to the VR ecosystem succeeds, then VR will succeed. Closed doors in the world of development are a death sentence.”
The fund will be available for both independent and major development teams – provided they qualify for the fund. The project is still looking to expand with even more partners to contribute to the fund. Currently, aside from Razer; Leap Motion, Intel, Gearbox Software, Sensics and many more have already pitched in to this program.
In the meanwhile, OSVR has already introduced the HDK1 and HDK2. Devices that are completely open source and will be used to play VR games from any headset on the market. The device itself touts the same sort of specifications and technical capabilities as current devices on the market including the Rift and Vive. By purchasing keys from the developers, the team hope to bring the game to the HDK devices where the games will be open source, rather than limited to specific headsets.