Valve stimulates development of VR games by giving an advance on income

Valve gives game developers money to develop virtual reality games. However, with the financial contribution they do not have to develop exclusively for Valve’s VR platform, but VR games can also be made for competitors.

That’s what Valve CEO Gabe Newell said in an email posted online by a Reddit user. Newell describes financing VR projects as providing ‘pre-paid Steam revenue’. However, it is not explained exactly what he means by that. It is likely that there will be an advance on possible future revenue from sales via Steam, but Newell states that developers are not expected to develop exclusively for Valve’s own VR platform.

The financial compensation that game makers receive can be used at their own discretion. You can also choose to use the funds to develop for competing VR platforms, such as the Oculus Rift. According to Newell, enforcing exclusivity deals would be bad for developers and gamers alike.

Some time ago, Valve released SteamVR, a VR platform for games. HTC has collaborated on a headset that runs this software; the Vive. Earlier this week, Bethesda announced that it was making a VR version of Fallout 4, which will be released for the Vive.