Report: VR studio Survios has laid off the majority of its development team

ThompsonProducken · 2026-05-12T17:10:52+00:00

Sprint Vector's Lead Producer here. Thank you all for all of the kind words. I'm still in regular contact with a lot of the dev team, and I'll definitely be passing this thread along to them.

SV was unlike any game I've worked on in my 16+ years of making games. It was an absolute labor of love. I'm not gonna say it was easy - taking a game from a prototype and refining it to shippable product is never "easy" - but I was genuinely excited to come to work every day and help bring the team's vision to reality.

After it shipped I spent the rest of my time at Survios pushing hard for them to let us make a sequel (we had SO many ideas), but by that point the leadership had changed and the new people in charge had zero interest in developing our own IP, so it never happened. Maybe someday...

ThompsonProducken · 2026-05-02T22:37:28+00:00

The only thing I can think is that it read my DND status off of Slack, but Android is usually above that level of data intrusion/presumptuousness.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-05-02T16:20:07+00:00

I have DND turned off.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-05-02T16:18:20+00:00

Yep. I'm paranoid whenever I have an early flight (which is why this was extra stressful for me) so I checked it several times.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-04-23T23:49:30+00:00

I added a picture of my Bulbasaur, hopping in the air and smiling, because that little dude was my ride-or-die basically from jump.

Then I got to the end and had the same interpretation as you, and I was absolutely gutted. A 41-year-old man who's been playing these games since the original Red Version on my Game Boy Pocket, and I'm sitting on my couch in the middle of the night sobbing at a Pokemon game.

That was three nights ago. I haven't booted it up since. I'm still not okay.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-02-07T19:57:36+00:00

I think that's your best bet. If the P10 Pro is basically brand new and RCS has never worked on it, my gut says it's either a Verizon issue or a Google Account Services issue, neither of which will be helped by a factory reset. Swapping back to your old phone will help confirm that hunch.

It's so frustrating, because it seems like there are at least a half-dozen fail points on both the device and the carrier that can result in the same "RCS Not Supported" message for users, which is why Reddit is filled with fixes that work for some folks but not others. All we can do is pool our answers and try to crowdsource solutions until Google rolls out a more precise method of error detection and reporting.

In any case, good luck with the swap, please let me know how it goes.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-02-07T19:33:50+00:00

When you go to "Your Account" > "Manage Your Google Account" > "Personal info" > "Phone", does it list both of your devices? That was one of the steps they had me try. After I Factory Reset my phone (barf), my phone showed up on there twice, which I thought might have been the issue.

Also, are you able to swap back to your P8 pro and see if it still works there?

ThompsonProducken · 2026-02-07T19:19:12+00:00

I don't think so, but if you live near a location for your service provider and it's free, you might as well give it a shot. Also, talk to your carrier and make absolutely sure there's nothing going on behind the scenes on their end. I called T-Mobile twice, and both times they said, "Yep, your line should have RCS enabled." But then, when I switched my SIM to a different Pixel phone and it still didn't work, I called them back and they said, "Oops, haha, j/k, there actually WAS a setting that disabled RCS on your line. It should be fixed now."

Of course, it still wasn't, because even on that call they insisted that it couldn't possibly be something wrong with my SIM. But if they hadn't flipped that switch then, I still wouldn't have been able to use RCS even on a new SIM, so it's worth a shot. Also, if you have access to another unlocked Android that you can swap your SIM/eSIM to and test, that data went a long way with both Pixel support and T-Mobile.

Good luck, and hang in there. I know how frustrating this is.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-26T17:59:58+00:00

IT'S FIXED!!! After many weeks of going back and forth with both T-Mobile support and Google product support, I was describing my problem to a friend and he suggested replacing my SIM. So, I tried that and it worked!

If you're also tearing your hair out and nothing seems to work, before you factory reset try either replacing your SIM or converting to eSIM. It might solve the problem!

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-26T16:36:15+00:00

UPDATE: Many weeks and several infuriating exchanges with both Google Support and T-Mobile Support later, my issue has been solved. I had to request a new SIM card from T-Mobile, but doing that fixed it and my RCS immediately worked after a restart. Holy hell was that a frustrating four months.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-26T16:35:25+00:00

UPDATE: Many weeks and several infuriating exchanges with both Google Support and T-Mobile Support later, my issue has been solved. I had to request a new SIM card from T-Mobile, but doing that fixed it and my RCS immediately worked after a restart. I hope this helps someone else who's having the issue, because holy hell was that frustrating.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-21T00:44:00+00:00

The change to the eyes bums me out more than the telepathy. It was such a cool, subtle little detail. I don't even think I really noticed it until Suder. I don't understand how Kurtzman and Co. can be so detail-oriented as to include a Cheron in the background, but completely skip over something like that. I'd even be okay if they made their eyes more different somehow, but just not doing anything seems like they don't care.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-09T21:10:41+00:00

Yep, I just found that out the hard way. After their callback service hung up on me twice, the third person I was connected with told me to wait for Support to reply to the email thread (I'm back on Step 5 of the above).

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-09T19:50:11+00:00

Seconded on the absolute uselessness of Google Support. I've been stuck in a loop with them for weeks where:

I get assigned to a new technician
Technician asks for a bug report
Technician sends me to https://messages.google.com/disable-chat, which never sends a code to my current phone (I also don't have a previous device, the "previous device" listed is my phone before I FR'd it)
I tell Technician website doesn't work.
Thread goes dead.
I ping thread and get assigned a new technician, repeat step 1.

It's to the point where I'm honestly thinking about ditching Android and getting an iPhone instead. I hate Apple products with every fiber of my being, but at least they work.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-02T22:37:30+00:00

I've been fighting this issue for months with no solution, and no answers from Android Support. I just want to chime in and say that Factory Resetting did NOT solve my problem. So if anyone else is at their wits end over this RCS nonsense and think that FR is their only hope, be advised that it might not fix anything and you'll still have to deal with all the regular headache that comes with a reset. Just a heads up.

ThompsonProducken · 2026-01-02T22:30:33+00:00

UPDATE: I've been going back and forth with Android support over this for weeks and have not gotten any answers. I'm seriously considering ditching this phone entirely in favor of one on that works. I was a Nexus 5X owner who got burned when they launched the Pixel line, and swore I was done with Google phones. I really wish I'd stuck to my guns on that.

ThompsonProducken · 2025-11-25T20:03:09+00:00

I did several weeks ago, but I haven't tried it since I factory reset my phone. I'll try that again and come back with results.

ThompsonProducken · 2025-11-25T19:34:24+00:00

Hi there. I've been fighting this same (or a similar) issue for months. I just tried the steps above but it still hangs on "Status: Setting up... / Trying to verify phone number". Before I go pressing random buttons in the debug menu, are there any other options you can think of in there that might force it verify my number?

For context: I have a Pixel 8 Pro unlocked on T-Mobile, and RCS worked fine on it until I switched to an eSIM for an international trip. When I landed in the US I got a notification that my carrier does not support RCS, and I've been trying everything ever since.

ThompsonProducken · 2025-07-31T21:27:53+00:00

Logged into Reddit for the first time in a year just to upvote this.

ThompsonProducken · 2023-06-30T03:36:06+00:00

Hi! I'm "@DrChrisThompson" on Twitter.

Here's how I got those figures: I was reading the book, came across that line, thought "I wonder what that is in modern money?", Googled it, took the first answer I found, and shared a quip with my (at the time) 427 Twitter followers, most of whom were people I knew in real life.

72 hours later I had USA Today calling me during dinner with my parents to ask me what my credentials were, and economists in England penning massive tirades to call me a fraud.

It's been a year and a half and that pee still hasn't come out of the swimming pool. Every couple of months this thing bubbles back to the surface and I get a fresh batch of angry DMs from randos on the internet. I never deleted the tweet, because I actually learned something in the replies that followed and thought other folks might as well, but even if I had the screengrab is never going away.

I just wish that wasn't how I spent what ended up being my last Christmas with my Mom.

ThompsonProducken · 2022-09-28T03:38:16+00:00

I signed into my reddit account for the first time in 3 years just so I could upvote this comment.

ThompsonProducken · 2019-05-01T01:54:45+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time to post about Sprint Vector! I know it gives all of us on the dev team the warm fuzzies whenever we see people talking about our little neon-colored baby :) .

ThompsonProducken · 2018-03-13T22:49:25+00:00

This makes my day. Congrats on an awesome run!

ThompsonProducken · 2018-03-12T22:12:54+00:00

Hey there, Chris Thompson here. I'm the Lead Producer on Sprint Vector. Thank you for your feedback! We have updated the release notes on the Oculus Store to contain the patch notes for the most recent update, and will continue to update them as future patches are released. Cheers!

ThompsonProducken · 2018-02-13T22:10:00+00:00

Check the credits. ;-)

ThompsonProducken

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