12 Key Genres for Virtual Reality – the KZero VR Radar Chart
The KZero VR Radar chart shows 12 key segments for consumer virtual reality games, demos and experiences. We first published the VR Radar back in January, with another update in March. Following announcements in recent weeks (as well as at E3 this week) we’ve updated the chart to include new titles and upcoming games. Busy times!
For each title, we’ve assigned what we believe to be an average user age based on the game mechanics, genre and overall user experience. The launch status of each title is also indicated as either red, meaning the title is released or available as a demo or open beta or orange meaning it’s in alpha or announced.
A segment of the VR Radar chart is shown below, containing the Sports/Leisure/Gambling category, Space/Flying and Existing Game Ports.
The Existing Game Ports segment contains existing games that have been (or will be) made available with virtual reality versions. Mirrors Edge and Half-Life 2 are two examples here.
The Space/Flying genre is an extremely popular one for virtual reality games. A number of early demos and games have already been released in this category including Lunar Flight, Ambient Flight and War Thunder. Two upcoming games (with comparatively larger development budgets) to keep a close eye on here are Elite: Dangerous from Frontier Developments and EVE Valkyrie.
The third segment shown is Sports/Leisure/Gambling although it’s only sports and leisure games that feature at present (we expect this to change in 2015 with gambling VR games coming to market). Along with several Oculus Rift games already available, primarily based around rollercoasters and racing we’ve also included Durovis Dive titles Bubble Cars and Dive City. The upcoming Racing/Driving games in this segment are the Project Morpheus titles Project Cars and Street Luge, as well as Radial-G.
A high-res version of the KZero VR Radar chart can be ordered here. And finally, this is a fast-moving market with new games and experiences being announced almost daily so we’ll be updating the charts on a regular basis.
