The Oculus platform's games and apps will be rated on more than just quality

Eve Valkyrie
Eve Valkyrie is great fun, but it could be too intense for some

There are plenty of developers making games for Oculus Rift, and not all of them are guaranteed to be hits.

It's inevitable there will be some duds in virtual reality, but Oculus isn't worried about that as much as the ways that games will be rated, Oculus Vice President of Mobile Max Cohen told TechRadar at Oculus Connect 2014.

Cohen, who helped court many of the developers currently creating apps for Samsung and Oculus's Gear VR, said the company doesn't want good games to have poor ratings simply because they're too intense for some users.

That's why games on Oculus's store platform will have separate ratings for quality and for "comfort level," he said.

Bad VR vs. boring VR

"Yes, bad VR is a problem. But so is boring VR," he said. "We want to make sure that that put-on-and-play experience is good for everyone, but for the people who want to dig deep and try all sorts of neat things in VR, we don't restrict them."

"We don't want to be sitting in a room picking what types of games are good or not," he continued. "We want developers to have free reign to make whatever they do as long as consumers are appropriately educated."

That's why virtual reality games on Oculus's platforms will have separate ratings for quality ("stars") and comfort level.

"You don't want to say 'I tried a game but I was uncomfortable, therefore it's a terrible game' and give it one star, because it might be an amazing game, but just not for you," Cohen explained. "All of our brains work differently. We just want to make sure people have the information and can make informed decisions."

He said his priority in terms of Gear VR experiences is to have "as wide a variety as possible," and that means catering to people who want more extreme options. But as far as Oculus's first-party games, the company is more interested in making "super-comfortable experiences," Cohen said.

"Neither I nor anyone has all the answers yet," he continued. "I'd say that our job at Oculus is to make the platform as accessible as possible for developers."

Michael Rougeau

Michael Rougeau is a former freelance news writer for TechRadar. Studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Northeastern University, Michael has bylines at Kotaku, 1UP, G4, Complex Magazine, Digital Trends, GamesRadar, GameSpot, IFC, Animal New York, @Gamer, Inside the Magic, Comic Book Resources, Zap2It, TabTimes, GameZone, Cheat Code Central, Gameshark, Gameranx, The Industry, Debonair Mag, Kombo, and others.


Micheal also spent time as the Games Editor for Playboy.com, and was the managing editor at GameSpot before becoming an Animal Care Manager for Wags and Walks.