Vreal, the premier place to stream your VR game and allow viewers to explore your world, has officially shut down. This comes after the company raised $15 million in venture capital, and after they laid off their entire staff. The official announcement can be found on the company website, but to save you from a few clicks, we have provided the official statement below.
“Moving on to new realities…
Vreal started with an ambitious idea – VR is immersive, and VR content should be immersive too. For those that are a part of the VR community, it’s always inspiring to see the wonder and awe on a friend’s face when you first put them in your VR headset. VR is magical, and the Vreal team wanted to share that magic with everyone.
We achieved that, and we are incredibly proud of the work we’ve done. Unfortunately, the VR market never developed as quickly as we all had hoped, and we were definitely ahead of our time. As a result, Vreal is shutting down operations and our wonderful team members are moving on to other opportunities.
It’s been an incredible journey and we want to thank our community, our partners and investors for the support they’ve given us along the way. We will be keeping the Discord server open for a week or so if anyone has any questions or wants to connect.
Much love from the Vreal team”
Back in 2018 the company received over $11 million in Series A of investments, but it ultimately wasn’t enough. The idea of sharing your virtual world with the people watching your stream is a good one, but it seems as though the industry wasn’t ready for it yet. Although Vreal wasn’t able to make big waves with VR users, they have created a path for others to learn from. The idea is there, and now the execution needs to be refined.
They company touches on this idea above, and how the “VR market never developed as quickly as we all had hoped, and we were definitely ahead of our time.” This statement rings true. Once VR is adopted by more, viewers are going to want to experience the world with their hosting streamer. It is inevitable. The idea wasn’t the flaw with this startup however, it was the accessibility and the audience.
The only way to view the streams was inside of VR, as well as the only way to produce streams. It was made for an exclusive group that not too many are a part of. Although VR is gaining popularity, it was hard to find a mass people that were willing to spend hours in VR to watch a stream. It is not the same group of people that you will find on Twitch.
In the final months of the company’s life, Vreal was trying to push out an experimental web browser viewing experience, but it never full released. If this was released with the Vreal software initially, we might be writing a completely story today. This seems like a case of too little too late. You can’t fully put the blame on the lack of including non-VR users, but there is no doubt that played a role in the company being shut down.
It is a sad day for Vreal, but this opens the door for more companies to step up in the virtual reality streaming world. Vreal wasn’t the only good idea out there, so we are excited to see what rises to the top of the industry as VR gaming and experiences pick up momentum each year.
