Epic Games founder believes VR technology will “completely change the world”

By Stephany Nunneley

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney is a big believer in virtual reality, which he feels will “completely change the world.”

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Speaking with Polygon during GDC 2014 in March, Sweeney said Epic was investing heavily in researching VR.

“We’re doing a huge amount of research in VR, working with Oculus kits,” he said. “We see this as a technology that will influence every game and every platform.

“It’s technology that I think will completely change the world. I think It’s going to be a bigger phenomenon than smartphones. You have to put it in perspective and realize we’re in maybe the [first-generation] iPhone stage right now where you have this really cool device, but it has some real flaws that prevents it from being a pervasive device for everyone.

“There might be an audience for 10 million users of the current tech, but as it improves with each generation, the audience is going to keep growing until eventually you’re going to reach a critical point where you can put on one of these devices and have an experience that is effectively indistinguishable from reality.”

Epic revealed Couch Knights, its Unreal Engine 4 developed Oculus Rift title during GDC as a multiplayer game, where players control half of a battle set in a living room scene.

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