IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2016 - 26

The inaugural VR First lab at Istanbul's Bahçesehir University.

form is only a few months old, although
the original concept for the medium
dates as far back as the 1950s. Some
skeptics today point to early hardware
adoption rates as evidence that VR in
2016 is experiencing a false dawn;
however, our view from the inside gives
us ample reasons to believe there is a
different narrative in play.
For us, VR is an agent of disruption
that unifies technologies of the past
decade to pave a logical future for digital media. From the moment mobile
technology evolved enough to put HD
displays in all of our hands at an affordable price point, the stage was set. Previous attempts to bring VR to the
masses had failed largely because of the
lack of visual fidelity needed to make
virtual experiences feel truly immersive;
they gave users a sense of being in a
new three-dimensional (3-D) space, but
it was typically one occupied by low
resolution shapes that only vaguely
resembled things from the real world.
Not so today-just check out some of
the VR games developers have already
brought to market this year. Other factors, such as the increasing convergence
between production methods for movies

26 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

The inevitable rise of VR
as a consumer platform
underscores the value of
nurturing new VR developers with a program like
VR First.
and games, the evolution of 3-D media
as a mass market medium, and the public's insatiable appetite for what's next,
also point to VR as a natural destination. When Facebook acquired VR
hardware developer Oculus for US$2
billion in 2014, the message was
clear-VR was expected to go mainstream in the very near future.
The inevitable rise of VR as a consumer platform underscores the value
of nurturing new VR developers with a
program like VR First, but our overall
vision for the initiative goes beyond
simply equipping individuals to create
cool VR content. At the heart of VR
First is a desire to grow a community
of VR developers around the world
who not only share knowledge with
one another but are also connected to

OCTOBER 2016

the games industry in a meaningful
way, making their transition from students to professionals as seamless as
possible. We hope the program will be
marked by collaboration at every level:
between the students using VR First
labs, the universities that host those
labs, and the games industry and graduates who have sharpened their skills
through VR First.
That's where collaborations like the
one we've entered into with the IEEE
are so important. Not only does the
association share our belief that VR
will have a huge impact in all industries in the future, their existing connections to universities around the
world also lend credence to VR First
as a benchmark for academic excellence and will help us to ensure the
program is delivering exactly what it
should to participants.
That will be the ultimate test of VR
First-whether students and schools
who engage with the program feel they
are benefiting. With participating universities signing up from New Zealand
to Oklahoma, we have certainly seen a
clear indication that dozens of academic institutions believe in VR as well.
We've been inundated with requests
from schools that want to be a part of
what we're doing, and we believe that
as people emerge from VR First labs in
the years ahead, they won't just be
equipped to make their passion their
profession, they'll also be equipped to
become influential voices within the
VR development community.
We think VR First represents a great
opportunity for everyone who engages
with it, and as a company who knows
the value of seizing such opportunities
when they present themselves, we can't
think of a better way to give back to the
industry that has been so good to us over
the years.
For more information on VR First,
visit www.vrfirst.cryengine.com.

http://www.vrfirst.cryengine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2016