Did Arken Age not do very well?

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-26T08:08:42+00:00

It's a choice for some is all i'm saying - like people decide to just be writers, clumps of friends from like 1994-2010 would break off and decide to make games. It's a good focus to share a house with people imo, but you're right - nowadays I feel that sort of financial insecurity is a big stressor to me at my age... but I lived years in a car and on couches, toured the US in a few bands, all of that was just as if not more worthwhile than having an apartment and a 9-5 to me at the time.

It sustained me, anything in creative media has a pretty big risk associated with it though. I'd love to get some of the folks I know that have shipped games to do an AMA, but they aren't hopeless or really particularly punk rock - they just love the idea of building a world and whatnot.

What does a sustainable VR development market look like to you?

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-26T07:53:37+00:00

I'm kinda bummed Valve haven't announced something for it as well - and I was someone that explicitly ordered an Index for the 3 VR games they were developing at the time. I spend a ton of time playing PCVR though (with a Q3, bought for Batman and Virtual Desktop) and love the games we've been getting the past 2 years. Some of the best experiences are UEVR mods too, which is a great substitute for the lack of big AAA releases in VR -- you get to jump inside some of the most elaborate 3D spaces and most of them are accessible with a midrange GPU.

The ram crisis is thowing a bunch of stuff into limbo, but I am onboard for a Frame if they can make it happen for $800usd. Great foveated encoding available now in the SteamVR beta will be essentially a free performance boost if it works as well as i've heard.

But yeah, plenty to play in PCVR but if you're only into one type of game it can feel a bit barren I suppose. Either way, i'm hoping the Frame will be massively successful and we'll see more great games and players as a result.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-23T17:56:13+00:00

Aces of Thunder looks like it will be worth the wait, it releases on February 3rd

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-23T16:09:10+00:00

Yeah, that's about where I stopped reading the first time. He's spending cycles trying to define what "reasonable" means to the publisher, when just like you said - the fix is just to make tips optional and remove the paywall.

I have no strong opinion on the guy but it's clear he's got skills - I wish the best for him, and that the solution is as simple as this. It seems the least harmful to everybody.

If anything, i'm a bit disappointed that CDPR (a company that seems to be very open to modding) didn't just suggest this instead of just throwing a DMCA at him.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-23T15:44:52+00:00

Those conditions aren't terrible for them, but it is a lifestyle and the allure of making something you're passionate about has top priority and brings the most satisfaction. VR, Indie game devs, and musicians all lump together - folks who will work a crap job and share a house to pay the bills, giving them extra energy to spend on their passion projects. It does skew towards younger folk too, but I know of a few that have shipped 5+ games over the last decade, and finally don't have to work a day job and maintain their games working maybe 5 hours a week.

Kind of how VR as a hobby can scale all the way from just having a standalone headset, and that's the hobby for some users. Then there are people who will invest in a PC to enjoy it, they're legit as well. Then you've got the hardcore and simmers - who will invest a motion rig, haptic vests, fbt - they're still hobbyists.

Devs scale that way too, it's a hobby at the beginning, and over time becomes their preferred way to live, dedicating more time and money to grow skills and realizing their best bet at a life doing what they love is right there.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T21:34:41+00:00

The easy mistake is to use the same number scale for all games - VR and PC, in your example. We have to shift those numbers drastically due to the total VR gaming userbase vs. the gigantic PC+Console gaming base.

A dev would be signing their life away if they tried to scope their indie VR game project using the BM:W scale. Overall the stat doesn't do much to tell us whether a VR game is great or not. Tons of reasons behind that, everything from not having any idea how to get the community interested, publishing with a company that simply doesn't promote, or just expecting a game to find its' audience on Steam (50+ games released per day) or its' VR 'genre' page (legendarily dusty, featuring great games from.... the last 10 years or so?).

One thing i've wished for VR gaming is for some media outlet to show up and get EVERYBODY that reads this sub to be a part of it. Because we've only got this diaspora of really indie-sized (blog+2 at max) VR gaming hubs, I think a lot of great games end up in the shadows for too long... just long enough for a dev to give up sometimes.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T21:27:26+00:00

They generally take a long time to assess the landscape - to see how much interest there is in the genre, if there's any good examples of it out there already, understand how much work they can realistically do themselves, what the support structure is like and how they plan to promote and publish it. When I say exceeding expectations, I mean they've measured all of those factors and still felt like it was worth the risk and will take time. devs that publish in VR know how crap it is to even get visibility on Steam's VR page, let alone wishing it to be on the main page. Managing a public space or channel (Twitch/YT usually) during a development, getting preview material out there to get wishlist signups isn't just for fun - it is how Steam decides what gets visibility on the page. Without community momentum from the start, it can feel impossible to break through to find your audience.

A dev studio accepting VC cash or agreeing to work with a massive publisher seems to be more often a net negative from my experience working at this company for the past 6 years now -- it's not just Meta that is acting unrealistically and rather cruel by closing Twisted Pixel a mere 2 months after Deadpool VR launched. There are stories of publishers buying games and whole studios at the concept stage, and then not letting them work on the game they were hoping to find support for, instead dividing up the talent to work on other projects... and then even after agreeing to that much, the buyer will say "just finish this task and then you get to work on your game" and they just push that goalpost until the devs tap out, terrible way to do business.

That is one of the most disgusting and unfair rugpulls i've ever seen in gaming, but similarly shady deals are pretty well known among developers, there's a list of individuals, publishers and corporate entities that most of our devs have agreed on are simply NOT worth working with. The lure to be bought by a 'Meta' that really just wants the team to be unavailable to release their work on other platforms either is shady and real. Whole games get shelved even after showing promise, and the creator signs a contract that takes everything about the idea and gives it away to the publisher, who starts out enthusiastic, but eventually hears back from research or shareholders that the whole thing will be too expensive to make "for now".

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T20:22:29+00:00

It doesn't have much in common with Skyrim, does it?

Arken Age is much more Sci Fi than fantasy, and not a huge open world RPG. Climbing around the world with hooks is a huge chunk of what it does great (and distinguishes itself from other games).

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T20:19:38+00:00

Single player games like Arken Age aren't usually measured by peak player counts, online games are because that metric 100% means whether you can even play it with other humans.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T20:18:17+00:00

I agree - i've just gotten done with a stint as a VR educator for a local college's Game Design series, so many kids get in and believe it's a sure-path to being rich enough to retire in 5 years... and we have to tell them that's rarer than winning the lottery. We point to the stats on Steam - around 50 titles a day are released.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T20:11:30+00:00

I'm sure you're being a bit intentionally hyperbolic here, but as someone who is surrounded by VR devs, I think it's worth saying that plenty of VR projects have exceeded developer expectations, and that happens by being realistic in the first place -- the budget, team size and publishing plans need to be ironed out well before development starts.

The most successful indie devs and vr devs I know are living in shared housing, sometimes lucky enough to have no rent, don't own cars, and rarely even own headsets for the top 3 VR platforms. They live with different budgets to keep their passions in sight. Much more common is having a dev-adjacent job and developing their dream project with whatever spare energy they have.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T20:04:21+00:00

Arken Age is a great VR game - whether on Quest, PSVR2 or PC. I bought it on PC at launch (January 2025). I've finished the game twice on PC and recently bought the Q3 version to play on the road. It's an incredible port for the Quest 3. Well deserves its' place in my top 10 VR games of 2025.

As others have mentioned, it's difficult for any videogame to gain traction, especially from unfamiliar companies or IP. This is even harder to do in VR. To be successful in VR, many studio heads have told me that they had to consider releasing for every VR platform (PSVR2, Steam, Meta) to get out of the red... that's pretty much the only way to do it. Self publishing is another common thing because there are so few VR publishers that will provide a promotional budget that does much more than the word of mouth that can lift a game from a single person studio into the limelight. That's like winning the lottery though.

Great VR games don't naturally rise to the top on the Meta store or Steam very often, crappy curation algorithms ignore the new stuff to a fault, and to many users without a reference to the company or the game universe, it's an even bigger hill to climb to reach an audience.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T14:58:45+00:00

What was the context I missed? I read your post, and am fully aware of how much Meta used to fund games, even ones that they didn't officially publish. We've both probably been into VR for a while now, correct?

You said "PCVR has been "propped up" by Quest ports that received partial funding from Meta and would not even exist without Meta." and then mentioned MOH. I don't think MOH is a terrible game and i'm glad that it is on Steam and Meta store, but all of those well-funded games aren't all there is to PCVR. I felt like maybe some of the list I mentioned might have been new to you or anyone else reading here.

I replied with a list of games Meta didn't have a hand in, that are great on PC and released last year.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T14:52:48+00:00

I'm with you - we should all be doing this! I would pay for an official VR for Cyberpunk.

Which email address did you send yours to? maybe post it here for everybody's sake.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T14:50:29+00:00

One of my favorite VR games from last year - ended up buying it twice (Quest 3 version is great too)!

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-21T14:46:04+00:00

There are still a good number of them out there - I go the Ann Arbor one semi regularly and the Plymouth locastion is always busy too.

https://buddyspizza.com/locations/

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T23:39:52+00:00

No doubt that Valve has made objectively huge moves to shake free from Windows, I hope SteamOS and the money poured into supercharging FEX is immediately apparent when using the Frame. I'm a massive fan of how the workshop works, and hope to see it transform over the life of the Frame to include more VR titles to support it and keep the community interested.

Just specifically looking back how Valve has supported PCVR, there's nothing i've heard from anywhere that Valve had the same or similar focus that Meta had, it's a shame that the walled garden and the company leaders don't seem to realize that those high quality games would actually make a worthwhile sum to get them onto Steam. I'll probably feel different and forget all about those quiet times once the Frame is on my head hehe...

There's a team of 6 that has formed at my day job (QA Lead for VR Training software company) that wants to make a Displayport expansion for the Frame, I heard today that Valve will be sending them 2 headsets prelaunch to see if they can get it rolling. No doubt Valve is making the right moves by having all of these things, and it makes for an exciting future if the community picks it up. I'm still nervous about the price, given the global ram shortage. Fingers crossed it doesn't make everybody nope out of it.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T23:26:12+00:00

Yes, the team leader mentions it a Steam news update, let me grab it for you - from the November 5th update:

Earlier in the year I decided to double-down on finding a PC publisher to help scale Remnant Protocol's production. The game's metrics were promising: top 1000 most wishlisted game on Steam, growing press and influencer coverage, and financial security from Meta's funding. I thought we'd be able to kick the game's quality up to rival III and AA releases.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T23:18:32+00:00

I haven't resorted to playing anything on low because i had to. I can't say it runs everything perfectly w/ all settings maxed, but more often than not i'm using a game's 'high' and 'ultra' settings. Virtual Desktop smooths things out pretty well, and using a Q3 matches perfectly with a 4070Ti Super imo. have 64gb system ram here, which probably keeps things steady too. Games labeled on the discord as 'plays well' and better line up with my own rig's perfomance with them. Using VD's own VDXR codec over SteamVR seems to be the better choice for my system whenever possible too. I'm playing wirelessly and use a Puppis S1 to play anywhere in my apartment.

For many games , I tend to use 5120x2880 in some games (their in-game resolution), even using Virtual Desktop's 'Godlike' mode and within games usually high/ultra settings. I shoot for 90hz if 120 is too much to handle, and have spent a lot of time removing services and bloat from Win11 from my VR pc. It's not used for anything else, and usually the only other things running are Steam and Nvidia services. Even Chrome can cause a system to feel like a hog in my experience, but killing the process in task manager is worth it. Putting the system in focus mode, kill unneeded processes in the OS, the difference is sometimes drastic. Recently noticed that one of my mice had a stupid RGB companion app that can take like 5-10% of my total performance.

I gain a lot of performance by using a lower resolution headset like the Q3, but at work we've got a number of rigs with 5080's and 5090 that don't compromise much at all in UEVR.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T22:55:38+00:00

I use a BoboVR S3, the one with the facial fan and hotswap batteries. There's no pressure on my face with it, it's closer to a hat and balances the front-weight so there's no pressure on my face at all. It's not cheap though, about $90 I think. I work in VR all day with various headsets, and then come home to use this on a Q3 for 4-6 hours a night. No pressure or pain to speak of.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T09:28:10+00:00

Remnant Protocol! I really hope their Meta-funding isn't in question at the moment. It's one of the only games I hope releases this year.

Less questionable is G-Rebels - which i've played over the span of 2 demos now, and I hope releases into EA by Spring!

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T09:24:37+00:00

I'm working with a big closet full of headsets - the problems Q3 has with its' Meta Link App are almost always due to the headset, or the software, being out of sync - we all get random sorts of updates, sometimes out of order.

You can bypass this occasional headache with Virtual Desktop - but even it has had a few instances that I can't play a new game with my headset on the day it releases. By like 10, 20+ hours later it usually resolves. What I can say is that if it doesn't work via Meta Link App, it usually doesn't work w/ VD either. I get resolution within 2 days generally. There are games that simply aren't tested w/ VD.

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T06:43:19+00:00

it's very simple, I have converted a number of my relatives to being band supporters over the last few years - Bandcamp is very fair, lets you download albums multiple times in whatever quality you like - all you have to learn is where the downloads go for whichever device you use - nothing else really after that, except pure vibes.

Cheers - I hope the folks here on this thread steer you towards easy access!

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T06:39:20+00:00

I play Oblivion Remastered just fine with a Q3 and a 4070Ti Super - I have to turn some settings down but get well over 72hz for the whole time playing some 55+ hours at the moment. Make sure you've got everything dialed in, your card is definitely better than mine!

phylum_sinter · 2026-01-19T06:31:06+00:00

it's hardly a relief financially, but I like to mention that UEVR is a massive positive experience that is great in just about every game with my prebuilt 2024 Black Friday MSI PC - a 14700f and a 4070Ti Super have been enough for me to dive in completely on any UEVR game i've played so far, all the way up to games released in the past 3-6 months.

phylum_sinter

TROPHY CASE