Over the last few years, a handful of former Maxis employees left Electronic Arts to pursue new opportunities with Facebook VR. One of the many projects Facebook is working on is the Facebook Spaces project which takes place in a real life setting with real life people.
The platform allows friends and family to create and use custom avatars and meet together in a virtual 3D world. With features like taking photos, going live, and creating 3D objects, Facebook Spaces seems to be working towards a gamer friendly experience.
In July 2017, EA CEO Andrew Wilson acknowledged that there will eventually be a mass market opportunity for virtual reality in gaming, but until augmented reality becomes a bit more mainstream in the gaming world, they are taking a back seat and watching closely.
Facebook Oculus, Social VR, and Facebook Spaces are currently being led by former Maxis GM’s Rachel Franklin and Lucy Bradshaw, with JM Sudsina (SimGuruJM) being the most recent SimGuru to join Facebook as Associate Producer of Rift Core 2.0. With the creative freedom given to them to work on projects like this, it wouldn’t surprised us to see games in the future directly targeting players in the sims community. Can you imagine building in a 3D world and sharing your creations in real time with real players across the globe?
What are your thoughts on this type of experience? Is VR something you can see yourself diving into in the next few years? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
