Arvore's road to becoming an Emmy-winning VR developer

gamesindustry.biz:

Just as there have been Brazilian game developers since the 1980s, so too has the country's creative talent been pioneering with virtual reality from an early stage.

Rodrigo Terra, president of Brazil games trade body Abragames and co-founder of VR studio Arvore Immersive Entertainment, has been working with VR since 2014, having experimented with the Oculus Rift DK1 "way back before Facebook bought Oculus," he laughs.

"When VR first appeared, I thought it was amazing because I could drop the screen and live in a place, be in a world, and live an experience, not just looking at a screen," he tells GamesIndustry.biz.

However, the market for virtual reality in Brazil is currently quite small, although Terra tells us this hasn't dissuaded the major players in this space from trying to establish a foothold in the region.

"[The big companies] trying to market VR headsets as productivity tools, but they're not there yet," he tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Apple is doing a good job in this direction, and Meta is making the right investments in another direction, and that's the best way to foster [growth]. But here, [adoption] will take time.

"Access is important. Smartphones are popular here because there was a public policy that made it possible to manufacture smartphones [in Brazil], and that cut the price in half. VR [doesn't have] the same thing."

But the VR community in Brazil is growing, he says. As with other products hindered by the country's limitations on importing technology, determined developers have found other ways to bring headsets into the country – "you can import them directly, put them in your bag, or whatever" – so there are some VR players in the region.

"It's a niche, but that's why we're looking at the global market at Arvore, not just the Brazilian market," he explains. "We know the Brazilian market will take time to grow. If Meta, Google, and Apple start selling here officially and invest here, I'm pretty sure we can change this momentum and the adoption will