The VR industry finds itself positioned this year somewhere in what Gartner’s Hype Cycle refers to as the trough of disillusionment. This is a time where, as it gains momentum, the industry needs to rally together and push its ecosystem to the next stage of market adoption.
The established hardware players like HTC, Oculus, Google, and Samsung have the most at stake and the most to lose, but it’s the startup community that’s driving market adoption by creating content that’s strong enough to attract users to adopt the necessary gear.
The fate of both are inextricably tied, and the powers that be know it. Case in point: Facebook committed $250 million last October to specifically fund VR content in addition to a previous $250 million pledged by Oculus. That, alongside the pool of funds that HTC, Colopl, IMAX, and The Venture Reality Fund have put into play, marks content as a particular priority.
The hardware players will need to take a hard look at the library of content that is being churned out by creators and figure out what strategy they need to take in order to minimize cases of underwhelming content, which is the industry’s biggest threat.
First-time users trying out VR content and not feeling compelled to repeat the experience is a big problem. Part of the reason why the ‘replayability’ factor is so low is because VR content creators aren’t investing enough time or using the right tools and resources to properly vet their ideas as they evolve into market-ready products.
That’s where accelerators and incubators come in, the first wave of which includes the likes of Boost VC, Tokyo VR Startups, Seoul VR Startups, UCCVR, and HTC’s ViveX.
“There’s incredible entrepreneurial interest and dynamism across the globe for VR/AR; thus it’s really the best time to offer a dedicated platform to help them accelerate,” Marco DeMiroz, general partner at The Venture Reality Fund, told me. The VR/AR-specialized VC targets early-stage…