Jon Favreau Wants to Use Virtual Reality to Tell Stories Differently
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 04: CEO, The Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger (L) and director Jon Favreau attend The World Premiere of Disney's "THE JUNGLE BOOK" at the El Capitan Theatre on April 4, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Let's talk about Gnomes and Goblins. People already have access to a demo of the game. As you dig deeper into VR, is that feedback impacting how you’re thinking about the technology?
We didn’t want the experience to feel like a game. We wanted everything to be intuitive. We didn’t want to have text bubbles instructing people what to do. We wanted somebody who wasn’t a gamer to be able to just throw on the HMD [head-mounted display] and lift the hand controllers and, once they learn how to interact with the world, freely explore. We felt that the naturalism of that experience would feel more like a simulation than a game, and that people would be accepting of it even though it didn’t feel like other VR games or other games. Other VR games tend to have their roots in 2-D gaming and console gaming. We kind of took a leap of faith. The reaction to it has been so strong that we feel that we can continue to explore that area. We didn’t have to back off of our initial goal and vision.
See the full story here: http://fortune.com/2016/12/28/jon-favreau-virtual-reality/