Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
The co-creator of one of the most addictive computer games of all time has re-emerged, and is looking to create a more social virtual reality experience with his new venture.
John Vechey, who was the co-founder of PopCap Games and helped give birth to the hit match-three puzzler Bejeweled and several other popular video games, left the studio after 15 years and took a short break from the industry, according to Engadget.
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Now, five months after leaving PopCap, Vechey announced his new venture: an augmented-reality and virtual-reality studio known as Pluto VR. As he explained to the website, his goal is to create social experiences and software that is not only considered good “because it’s virtual,” but is actually “better than [being there] in person.”
“We live in an increasingly connected world,” he said in a statement provided to VentureBeat. “With video-conferencing, social media, and online gaming, we can communicate and play with others like never before. However, talking into a phone, sharing a video, or looking at a webcam aren’t natural ways of communicating and don’t come close to what it is like to sit across the table from someone and share an experience.”
Never talk to a person in real life again!
“With augmented and virtual reality technology, it is now possible to feel a sense of presence with other people, allowing you to communicate, collaborate, and connect from anywhere in the world, as if you were in person. This is what Pluto VR is building,” Vechey added.
Other co-founders of Pluto VR include Jared Cheshier, who previously worked on several VR and augmented reality projects at a Seattle-based mobile and emerging technology development firm; Forest Gibson, who has a background in VR, video and marketing; and Jonathan Geibel, who served as director of technology at Walt Disney Animation Studio for 14 years.
The company is looking to develop for devices such as Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, and the Samsung Gear VR, and is looking to get started by working on technology that can make multi-user virtual reality easier to program, Vechey told Engadget. Once that is completed, he and his colleagues will look to come up with concepts that can bring people together virtually.
Among the project currently in the planning stages at Pluto VR are a virtual conference room, complete with an interactive whiteboard, the website said. They are also exploring concepts such as shared virtual workplaces and party games similar in nature to Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity – both of which would be build around similar baseline tech, said Vechey.
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When asked, hypothetically, how quickly he would be able to supply software if consumer VR hardware was announced at next week’s Game Developers Conference, he said that it would be only a matter of weeks before they could have something ready for release on such a device.
“I think we have enough lessons [learned] that we could get something out that was simple enough and was still cool and usable, [but] it wouldn’t be world-shattering,” he told Engadget. “That’s a really long-winded answer saying ‘Yeah, we have something! Would it be Wii Bowling? I can’t say, but would it be something that we stand by and allow people to think about VR differently and allow for something fun and useful? I think so.”
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