My talk from AWE Upload VR Day: The Coming War for Control of Distribution in VR

1. Tony Parisi
The
Coming
Distribution
War

2. who will be…
 The App Store for VR?
 The Steam of VR?
 The YouTube of VR?
 The Netflix of VR?
 The Console of VR?

3. App Stores

4. App Stores: The Good
 Discovery
 User Ranking
 Monetization
 Curated content
– nobody wants bad VR… or do they?
– thank you for making sure I don’t hurl
– um remember that porn you promised…?

5. App Stores: The Bad
 Deployment, distribution and discovery are
bound together
– On Gear VR you can’t deploy without going through the store,
and users can’t find you outside of the store interface
– You can’t deploy Cardboard VR apps without going through a
store UNLESS web (more on this later)
 VR store interfaces, though good, are limited
 App packaging doesn’t always make sense
– A separate app for a Paul McCartney video? Really?
 Curated content
– um about that porn… ?

6. Fun Fact!
In 2013, 60% of developers were below the
“app poverty line”, i.e. earned less than
$500
per app per month (all mobile platforms) 1
1 Developer Economics Q1 2014: State of the Nation
http://www.visionmobile.com/product/developer-
economics-q1-2014-state-developer-nation/
2 Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-01-
07/apple-users-spent-10-billion-on-apps-in-2013
Apple’s 2013 App Store Revenues: $10B 2
Apple’s 2013 App Store Take: $3B 2

7. When you play
the game of
apps,
you win or you
die. There is no
middle ground.

8. #thoughtfortheday
the Metaverse might be too
big of an idea…
for an app store

9. Downloads

10. Downloads: The Good
 Discovery, ranking – Steam’s interface
works.
 Monetization – PC games still making
great money! Even after 30% Steam cut

11. Downloads: The Bad
 Big downloads and installation requires
core/midcore interest level and
commitment
 Consumers don’t like to install stuff on
desktops

12. Fun Fact!
Valve is a private company. It doesn’t publish
Steam revenues. But they must be good. And
developers generally don’t seem to be
complaining.

13. (tries to imagine people
downloading a VR history
experience on Steam)
#headdesk

14. Browsers

15. Browsers: The Good
 No downloads
 Instant publish/update
 Deployment, distribution, discovery are
decoupled – the full power of the Web
 HTML5 lowers barriers to entry for
developers
 Hyperlinks

16. Browsers: The Bad
 Monetization – not so obvious
 Second-class support; WebVR catching
up to native features
 Performance gap, though small, is critical
for many apps
 Browser UIs are getting long in the tooth,
not designed for navigating the Metaverse
 Uh-oh… watch out for bad VR :-o

17. Fun Fact!
YouTube creators get $1.50-4.00/1k views 1
1 Quora
http://www.quora.com/How-much-money-can-you-
make-on-YouTube-if-your-video-goes-viral-and-is-
monetized
2 WSJ
http://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-
profit-for-youtube-1424897967
YouTube grossed $4B in 2014 2

18. #ihaveadream
creating VR will be as easy
as making web pages,
sharing VR will be as
simple as sending a link,
and experiencing VR
happens
at the touch of a button

19. “Winter is coming.”

20. Survival Strategies
 Be platform-agnostic
– Cross-platform solutions like WebVR, OSVR are in
their infancy
– Unity’s a good bet… but you’re still cooking an app for
each platform
– We could AT LEAST figure out a portable, cross-
platform video format… ?
 Be platform-specific
– Choose a side
– If you choose well, you will live to see another
day

21. Tony Parisi
tparisi@gmail.com
@auradeluxe
The
Coming
Distribution
War