Oculus closes VR content studio

Facbook-owned virtual reality company Oculus has announced plans to “wind down” its VR content arm, Story Studio.   

In a company blog post, Oculus’ vice-president of content, Jason Rubin, said that the company had decided to shift its focus away from internal content creation to “support more external production”.

“Now that a large community of filmmakers and developers are committed to the narrative VR art form, we’re going to focus on funding and supporting their content,” said Rubin.

“This helps us turn our internal research, development, and attention towards exciting but unsolved problems in AR and VR hardware and software.”

He added: “We’re still absolutely committed to growing the VR film and creative content ecosystem.”

Oculus set up Story Studio two years ago to “prove the possibility and allure” of VR storytelling.

Last year Facebook committed an additional US$250 million to fund VR content from developers around the world. Rubin said that Oculus is going to use U$50 million of that to fund non-gaming, experiential VR content.