Earlier this week, HTC celebrated the one-year anniversary of its Viveport app store for VR content at the VRDC Fall 2017 conference, where the company announced three major additions to the platform, benefiting both consumers and developers alike. To begin with, developers will benefit from higher revenues throughout the rest of the year, and secondly, the Viveport Arcade Manager is set to enter open beta testing. Lastly, HTC is introducing a new SDK which will allow developers to create comprehensive VR previews of their applications, allow prospective buyers in the Viveport storefront to make more informed purchases than before.
To celebrate the one-year anniversary of its Viveport platform, HTC is foregoing its platform fee and will allow developers to keep 100 percent of all the profits from sales of their VR applications. This will be a limited-time offer which will begin in October and will last throughout the rest of 2017, including the holiday season. Additionally, HTC has announced the early release of a new SDK for developers called Viveport Scene. It allows developers to create immersive VR previews of their applications, featuring interactive 3D environments as well as 360-degree preview images designed to surround VR users while browsing the Viveport store’s content grid. Lastly, HTC has announced some changes to the Viveport Arcade Manager, which is similar to the Viveport storefront but designed solely for developers and arcade machine operators who want to bring VR content to the public. Up until now, the Viveport Arcade Manager has been limited to a trial period with the help of over 50 operators located in more than 15 countries, but with the new changes, the VR arcade platform is entering open beta, allowing more operators to employ the company’s VR technologies and storefront. In addition, the developer revenue share for the Viveport Arcade Manager will increase from 50 to 70 percent.
Fourthly and as an added bonus to the three main changes mentioned above, HTC also announced that it has become a strategic partner and key investor in VRChat. This is a VR platform designed to allow users to create and share their virtual worlds with other people around the globe, and the application is now available for download from the Viveport storefront. For VRDC attendees, HTC is showcasing the new Scene SDK and Arcade Manager at the Viveport Partner Pavilion, booths 201 and 207.