I’m not a VR developer but I’d imagine if I were one of the most exciting things to see, after huge sales and enjoyment from my hard work, would be recognition. There are several small-scale award shows for the VR industry right now, as well as the new VR category in the annual Game Awards show, but we’re still waiting on interactive entertainment’s breakout prestige moment.
HTC isn’t aiming for their Viveport Developer Awards to fill that hole, but they still don’t want people to forget that Viveport is a thing. So here we are.
For those unaware Viveport is basically HTC’s own direct-to-consumer digital marketplace and VR portal for those who don’t want to or can’t use Steam. It’s suffered from a lot of issues over time, but is poised to get some neat updates this year. There’s a lot of the same content on it that you can find on Steam, but it’s got a decidedly scaled-back focus on gaming and aims to instead highlight more educational and experiential pieces of software instead. The award categories reflect that focus.
According to a blog post from HTC’s Thomas Gratz, this year’s Viveport Developer Awards are split into five categories with two nominees each, adding up to a total of 10 nominees as follows:
Entertainment
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone
Education
Arts & Culture
The Kremer Collection VR Museum
Enterprise
Arcade
Winners will be announced on March 19th at a special GDC event. Until then, let us know your picks for winners (or forgotten nominees) down in the comments below!
