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Google acquires Owlchemy Labs

167 points| ptrptr | 9 years ago |theverge.com | reply

33 comments

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[+] giblaz|9 years ago|reply
Having known Alex in college, it's crazy to me to see how far he's come. I just remember him as the chill guy who smoked me in Halo worse than I ever had been ever. All I have to say is what a great guy he is and that if anyone is deserving of this, he is. He is a hard worker and has a vision - they are very important attributes to have to achieve at that level.
[+] lquist|9 years ago|reply
Having met Alex (founder/CEO @ Owlchemy) a year ago, this strikes me as a no-brainer. Owlchemy has put in the time and work to start to develop a new language for the new medium that is VR. They are not just porting over old tropes to a new platform. When I met Alex, he explained his vision as wanting to continue to create this new language, and to sell devtools that would help other folks build VR-first experiences. Congrats, folks!
[+] Negative1|9 years ago|reply
The company knows how to make great VR experiences but this is a bizarre move by Google. Historically, they've not been great in the game space (look at Ingress, or does anybody remember Lively.com)? I suppose you could argue this is their response to that but its not clear what their end goal is here (more exclusive content)?
[+] flor1s|9 years ago|reply
I loved Ingress! Of course after spinning off Niantic (the team behind Ingress), that spinoff went on to develop the highly successful Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go contains many of the gameplay elements of Ingress, but the packaging is a lot better. It seems like Google spun off Niantic because under Google they did not have the opportunity to make licensing deals with companies like Nintendo. Some of the motivation behind selling Niantic can be found here: https://www.recode.net/2016/7/12/12153722/google-niantic-pok...
[+] killin_dan|9 years ago|reply
Ingress is great, what are you talking about?
[+] hkmurakami|9 years ago|reply
Ingress was a social phenomenon in Japan and a smashing success.
[+] zitterbewegung|9 years ago|reply
Their end goal is to give more resources to a VR developer so that they can increase the adoption of VR games and devices. When they do that their VR ads ( which currently show up on YouTube I have seen one or two) will get more click through and engagement . A good VR ad can give you minutes of engagement and people signing up with their email (went to a VR meet up where this occurred).
[+] max_|9 years ago|reply
Pokemon Go ?
[+] msabalau|9 years ago|reply
Hopeful about having more Daydream content, as well as content for other VR setups.

(Though what I'd really like is a Tilt-Brush, even a "lite" version, on a next gen Pixel or PSVR,

[+] CobrastanJorji|9 years ago|reply
Hrm....the Daydream remote is great for pointing at stuff and clicking, but it's probably not going to be good enough at careful 3D positioning for a 3D drawing app. I wonder if someone's manufacturing a third party Oculus Touch type thingy that could work with phones.
[+] shostack|9 years ago|reply
Half the problem is discovery. There is no "Daydream VR enabled" filter in the Play Store. So instead I have to search for that.

Most times it brings up Daydream apps, but I lack a good way to find out about new ones, and other VR apps that do not support Daydream headset also show up.

On that note, I'd love any suggestions anyone has for finding out about new Daydream apps and games to try.

[+] FLGMwt|9 years ago|reply
Interesting to see this as Oculus is dumping their content generators (defunding Oculus Story Studio)
[+] DannyBee|9 years ago|reply
I dunno. Historically, the console makers all went it themselves. Tried to get others to do AAA titles, etc.

I expect they found they never could get the results they wanted because they all later went and acquired content generators.

[+] thenomad|9 years ago|reply
On the upside, this is great news for them - congratulations!

On the downside, I fear it means that their Mixed Reality plugin for Unity (which looks awesome, and I've been waiting impatiently for) will be a long time coming now :(

[+] lux|9 years ago|reply
As someone who's also chomping at the bit for their plugin, I hope this accelerates getting it into our hands. Being so focused on their releases up til now, they probably just didn't have the resources needed to get it polished up and out the door.