From San Francisco to San Jose lies Silicon Valley, where established companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple are situated along with other aspiring startups. Silicon Valley is always full of energy, as passionate people team up to create new technology and innovative products.

We visited Superstar Games, located in downtown San Francisco. The company is known for its new mobile VR game, Montana 17, named after the famous football player Joe Montana.

Superstar Games’ cofounder Damon Grow greeted us, and began his passionate discussion about the game and his company before we even asked the questions we prepared for the interview.

Montana 17 is a mobile VR game available through Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream. The game does not require expensive devices, and also includes a third person point of view to keep its players from getting too easily nauseated. Montana 17 was designed to attract a broad pool of gamers.
 

The game also comes with social features that allow you to play with your friends, which makes it stand out within the majorly single-player VR genre. Grow stated that this is only the first step in broadening the spectrum of social VR games in the future.

He also expressed his adventurous insight regarding the current state of VR industry, saying that the VR market would grow massively if Half-Life 3 comes out through HTC Vive, or that VR should provide an environment like that of Sword Art Online. Regardless of how feasible his suggestions actually are, we could definitely see how passionate he was in developing VR software.

Grow also expressed his love towards MMORPGs, especially those from Korea such as Lineage, AION, Blade & Soul, and Black Desert Online. He also spoke of his love towards PvP, which seemed to explain his daring and fearless personality.

We sat down to hear more from Damon Grow of Superstar Games. We spoke about Montana 17 and his thoughts about the future of VR industry.

Would you like to introduce yourself before diving deeper into Montana 17?

Hi, my name is Damon Grow and I am the cofounder and representative of Superstar Games. I started making games in 2005 and participated in many different projects, including games for Facebook.

Superstar Games is a startup company that makes VR games, and we received a total funding amount of 23 billion dollars from Electronic Arts’ former CFO Stan McKee and some board members of Zynga. We are currently located in San Francisco, developing the VR football game Montana 17.

How did you come up with the idea to make a VR game with football?

I had a chance before to meet football player Joe Montana, and he suggested making a VR game together. At that time, there was already a Joe Montana game for Nintendo, and it has made about five million dollars of profit. Making a Montana game brought on a lot of pressure at first, but I was able to sort things out and make progress as Joe Montana himself became the cofounder.

We also received a request from Samsung at GDC last year to participate in its booth for Gear VR, and that’s how we established a partnership with Samsung. Google also suggested a partnership last summer, and we decided to join. The NFL Players Association also helped us a lot by giving us an official license to use players’ data.

Would you like to introduce your game, Montana 17?

Montana 17 is a mobile platform VR game, which basically comes in a 1v1 format. The game takes you to the locker room at the start, and the game begins out in the field. You can choose different strategies before you throw the ball, and the green light on other players indicates that they are open and ready for your pass. Then you simply press the button on your controller to pass the ball.

I think the strength of Montana 17 comes from the fact that the game is easy, even for those that do not have as much knowledge about American football. The controls are simple, and even if you don’t know the rules of the game, you can easily catch up with the game once you play a couple rounds. We are planning to release the game for the Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream, and even eventually for Oculus.

This is a VR game after all. What is the reason you chose to make this game use a third-person point of view instead of first-person?

We wanted to show different camera angles in the game. We also thought that third-person view would be better in allowing the players to measure the distance in between players. Minimizing dizziness while playing the game was another thing we had to work on. I myself found it hard to enjoy VR games because I would feel dizzy and nauseated after only playing the game for a short period of time. I wanted to ease things out for people like me that easily feel nauseated in a VR environment.

Is there a game mode other than 1v1? For example, maybe something like 3v3 or 5v5, in which many people can play together?

We so far only have a single player vs. AI mode. It is more difficult than it sounds to invite multiple people to play together in a mobile platform. It would be easy to do that with a console, but we decided to just go with 1v1 because we knew the limits of a mobile device.

What engine did you use?

We used Unity for Montana 17. At first we tried Unreal Engine 4, but it was way too heavy to make a mobile game with. Unreal Engine 4 is good for those trying to make games with stunning graphics. We decided to care less about the graphical quality of the game, and Unity suits us well because it is much lighter and faster.

Is there any particular reason why you decided to make VR game out of sports instead of other things?

We are focusing on making VR sports games because VR is not yet popular to the general public. We thought we needed something familiar for VR, something that many people can access and enjoy easily. We thought that something was sports.

On top of everything else, we also thought that there would be great synergy between VR and sports. Through VR’s power to create a realistic experience, we can make people feel as if they are actually running on the field.

Using sports also allows us to sit on a higher ground when it comes to marketing. We once uploaded a video clip of NFL players playing Montana 17, and that video became popular not only among gamers but also sports fans. NFL players posted their impression about the game on their SNS later on, and all these chains of events led to the successful marketing of our game.

Is the game free, or should players buy it to play?

Everything comes free of charge. All we want is to see more people try out Montana 17. We are not sure what decision we will make in the future, but we are not thinking of making cash items at the moment. We don’t want to go too far and invest ideas and assets in making cash items.

Then what would be Montana 17’s profit model?

There has yet to be a good profit model in the VR game industry, and I think that is something we VR developers should all think about. We are currently thinking of making profit through in-game advertisements. There are many spots in the game’s stadium where we can place banners. Just like how there is a long banner in actual stadiums with multiple ads displayed, we are trying to make that in Montana 17.

You said earlier that Superstar Games is a studio specializing in sports games. Is there any other sports game that you are planning to release after Montana 17?

I am thinking it might be baseball, because it is a popular sport not only in America but also in Asia. We already have the necessary assets through Montana 17, so I think we will only need about half of the time it took for us to make Montana 17.

When do you think Montana 17 will be released?

We already finished making the game, but we are still figuring out whether we should release it first on Google Daydream or Samsung Gear VR. We wanted to release the game during the Super Bowl season but that was tough, so I think we can instead try to collaborate with other events related to the Super Bowl and reach out to more people. The game will be released to fit with the Super Bowl’s schedule.

VR has just begun to grow. What do you think is the problem with the current state of the VR industry?

I think the first problem is that it requires a lot of money to play VR games. Not only are VR devices expensive, but they also require an expensive PC to smoothly run the games. Facebook games can still be played without a high-end PC, but there is a lot to prepare in order to play VR games.

That is what’s keeping VR games away from popularity. I think what we really need, in order to make more people set up an environment in which they can enjoy VR games, are smash-hit apps. If there are games that people really want to play, purchase of hardware naturally follows. Microsoft knew this when it launched Xbox in the past, and released Halo through Bungie. I think it is no different for VR. We need killer apps to make VR devices more common, and we really hope Montana 17 will be able to do that.

Lack of in-game social content is also a drawback that is making VR less competitive in the industry. It is easy to chat with people in online games, but there is no such thing yet in VR.

The fact that it is hard to establish a profit model with VR games is also what’s making things tougher. For example, if you think about Clash of Clans, people spend money because they don’t want to invest as much time. However, in VR, there is not yet a stable profit model that we can benefit from.

What is Superstar Games’ survival strategy in VR industry?

We are focusing on social VR. The vast majority of VR software that has been released so far is single-player. There were many games that were highly regarded among critics with spectacular graphics and playing experience, but in the end they are games that you should play alone, by yourself. You have to be alone while playing the game, and we wanted to make players do so, but with their friends.

That’s how we came up with the locker room feature and introduced a 1v1 game. There are lots to improve because it is only the beginning, but we will try to make it possible for players to join in even with the people that are playing on a non-mobile platform.

What would be your ideal VR game?

MMORPGs have a lot of social features, and I think it would be a huge success if we make a decent VR MMORPG, like Sword Art Online. This is the type of VR game that the gamers are looking forward to, and what I am also personally waiting to see in real life.

Why do you think we are not seeing such games in VR yet?

Game publishers want both profitability and stability. They are aware of the demand in the VR market, but don’t necessarily think the market is big enough yet. It’s also true that it is not so common to have a VR device yet.

Do you think the VR market will continue to grow?

Of course. This year has been filled with exciting news that seem to promise a brighter future, and it also seems that investors are making their moves. AR is also drawing much attention, but I think VR will become popular in a shorter period of time. However, in order for that to happen, I think we should keep encouraging people to buy VR devices and make them feel more certain about such a decision.

My son once had a chance to walk around as a dinosaur in the Samsung Gear VR. Although he didn’t get a chance to see an actual dinosaur, such an experience gave him a sense of how big dinosaurs are.

I think VR has a lot of potential not only for games, but also for educational purposes. Children of this age will naturally learn and play with VR as they grow up. That’s what makes me more interested in VR and interested in continuing to develop VR games.

There was once an experiment in which a male and a female wore an Oculus and experienced life as the opposite sex. Through this experiment we found out that while sex is assigned physically, our mind might not always follow the biological sex. Experiences like that are just a glimpse of what VR can give us.

Nowadays, we can explore different parts of the globe through VR. Instead of physically traveling to a certain place, we can go anywhere; from Bora Bora Island to the north pole. If different industries other than the game industry also actively participate in making VR software, I think VR will grow explosively.

What about in the game industry? Will VR game industry continue to grow?

I think mobile VR devices such as the Gear VR and Daydream will be more popular than the Oculus or Vive. PS VR requires a PS4 to operate, and the Oculus and Vive require a high-end PC. Samsung already sold over five million Gear VR devices, so the future looks bright for the mobile VR market.

Also, as I mentioned before, well-made software can have great influence in popularizing VR devices. VR can succeed if Half-Life 3 comes to Vive, or if Portal 3 comes out as a VR game.

Software developers should also try hard to make improvements. The majority of VR games that are out in the market right now are simple, casual games. What gamers want is not the type of game in which you throw a ball to hit objects, but a game in which you can immerse yourself in a vast world and an intriguing storyline as the game’s protagonist. The more depth there is to VR software, the bigger the VR market will be.

I hope Korean game publishers like NCsoft would also invest more actively in the VR game industry, and by that I mean Superstar games. [laughs]