At Casual Connect Europe 2016, Tommy Palm, CEO, Co-founder, and VR Guru at Resolution Games, gave a talk on what he felt VR could learn from mobile games.

He started by talking about the lack of standardised controls in VR, with controllers which he finds "alienating" to full-bodied experiences, but noting that nothing has really worked yet.

Meanwhile, smartphones have worked because of their "intuitive" nature, which allows for easy use because of the tactile nature of the devices.

Getting a feel for things

Mobile VR is currently hard to develop for because that tactile nature is removed, and so working out a control scheme makes it even harder.

But even so, as Palm says, the VR market is predicted to grow rapidly over the next few years, and games will be important in this growth because they're "always important in pushing technology."

"There's a great opportunity here for players who like to play things on their smartphone", he said, as these more casual gamers are less likely to buy more "hardcore" technology, but mobile VR is already proving to be a cheaper entry point.

An extension of you

And as well as this, a lot of people own smartphones, and it's something that people carry with them at all times.

"If your phone breaks or you forget it at home, you fix it or you go back and get it," he pointed out, "but you're less like to do that with an Xbox."

Palm noted that people using VR devices are usually quite "isolated", but added that "if you add a multiplayer element", the social aspect is heightened thanks to the immersion in the game.