Looks like Oculus continue to face problems. Not so long ago we told you that it has left the founder Palmer Lucky, and even the court found the company guilty of intellectual property theft and ordered to pay the plaintiffs $ 500 million. This time the Facebook user has made the difficult decision to close the Studio Story Studio responsible for the creation of short VR movies and other entertainment content with a narrative component. This was reported today by the press Jason Rubin, former founder of Studio Naughty Dog, and now Vice-President of Oculus in the direction of the user content.
Studio Story Studio was founded in 2015, and its first project was the short film Lost on lost in the woods a giant robot, as if coming out of the cartoon Iron Giant. Then came a children’s cartoon about adorable hedgehog named Henry, which brought the Studio’s prestigious Golden statuette “Emmy”. The last project Story Studio today was an amazingly beautiful story about mothers and daughters called Dear Angelica, in a voice which was attended by the actress Gina Davis. This cartoon was completely drawn by hand in a virtual reality on its own software Quill, created by specialists of the Studio (you can download it, by the way, anyone can).
“Two years ago, at the dawn of modern VR technology, Facebook was founded the Story Studio to showcase the endless possibilities of a new form of visionary art: storytelling in real time. Experts of Studio have created a series of short films that pushed many famous film Directors to try yourself in a completely new VR-direction. Now we stand on the threshold of a new Chapter in the development of virtual reality, so it is vital to reallocate resources in order to create favorable ecosystem. After lengthy discussions, we decided to shift the focus from internal development of content to support external studios. That’s why the Studio Story Studio will have to close,” reads the official press release.
Oculus really will continue to invest in the development of content for virtual reality. In the near future Jason Rubin promised to invest more than $ 50 million in the creation of various experimental VR content. This money will go directly to the artists and animators who would be willing to create something exclusive for the Oculus. Former employees of closed studios will not remain without work, they will be reassigned to new positions within the core of Oculus.
Guide Facebook decided to close down Oculus Story Studio
Sergey Grey