VR studio Fast Travel Games is stepping into the world of publishing

Fast Travel Games, the Swedish VR studio behind Budget Cuts 2 and Apex Construct, has cut the ribbon on a new VR-focused publishing division.

The company intends to offer a range of publishing services to other VR developers, and claims the move reiterates its commitment to the virtual reality market.

Patrick Liu has been brought in to oversee the nascent publishing arm, having most recently served of head of games at Minecraft developer Mojang Studios.

Fast Travel CEO Oskar Burman believes VR is currently experiencing a "turning point" thanks to accessible hardware like the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, and has expressed a desire to further support what they describe as a "maturing" ecosystem.

"We’ve seen fantastic growth over the last year. Our store gross revenues more than doubled if you compare H1 2020 with H1 2021. The Oculus Quest ecosystem is really maturing, with lots of new great content, and even more players looking for games to play. We see increased competition between platforms looking to secure content for their HMDs, both from western companies, but also from China," said the CEO, speaking to Game Developer.

"Looking ahead we have exciting new hardware on the horizon such as the next-gen VR for PS5, and the long rumored HMD from Apple. The VR games market has come a long way since its inception in 2016, and it’ll only continue to grow from here."

In terms of what developers can expect from Fast Travel, Burman explained the studio will be looking to fund or co-fund development. He also pledged to support creators with market data, analytics, and insights, help them troubleshoot technical challenges such as mobile porting, and assist with platform certification.

"Towards the end of development we’ll help with QA, localization and bringing the game to a multitude of platforms," added Burman. "Finally, as we launch we’ll help with PR and marketing, reaching the right influencers and media outlets, as well as building up hype in social channels, and all other launch activities you would expect. We want to be a partner all the way from prototype to launch, and beyond."

When asked about the company's broader ambitions for the publishing arm, Burman said Fast Travel wants to address what it views as a "clear need for VR-specific game publishers."

"Over the last year we’ve been approached by other developers over and over again with questions and requests for support on how to bring their VR game to the market, and there’s very few VR publishers in this space today," they continued. "In the near term we hope to be able to publish our first externally developed games next year, but in the long-term we aim to build a recognizable brand."

As for what sort of projects Fast Travel is looking to sign, Burman described the company as "agnostic" when it comes to specific genres, and hopes to find titles that are built from the ground-up for VR and "utilize the power of the medium."