Austin appears to be on its way to become a virtual boomtown... as in a place where virtual reality is taking off among video game developers, filmmakers, researchers and media.
Here's a partial list of some of the companies and groups working on VR-related projects. This is far from a complete list, but I'll continue to update it whenever we hear of new ones emerging on the scene.
Owlchemy Labs -- Maker of several VR games including "Job Simulator," a launch title for the HTC Vive.
Chaotic Moon Studios -- Was early with games for Oculus including "Death From Above" and "Shark Punch." Their latest public demo was "SlayTime" for the HTC Vive.
Gunfire Games -- Among the company's games are "Herobound: Spirit Champion" for Gear VR and Oculus Rift and the Oculus RPG "Chronos."
Thrillbox -- Self-described as "A behavioral analytics platform for immersive media content generators and distributors." An iOS app is available.
WaveVR -- Austin is part of a multi-city team developing "TheWave," a music VR platform for each of the major VR devices..
Meta 3D Studios -- Maker of games including "VR Metaverse," "VR Poltergeist Manor" and "VR Alien Attack."
Dell -- The PC maker has been working with Oculus on PC hardware that can power the graphics-hungry VR headset.
AMD -- AMD graphics cards are powering some PCs used for virtual reality and the company has been working on VR initiatives with groups like The Associated Press.
Viewer Ready -- Production company behind "Pitch-Hit," a VR baseball game as well as animation and videos such as "VR Bedtime Stories."
Phaser Lock Interactive -- Game development house behind the game "Final Approach" for Oculus and HTC Vive.
Fox Game Studios -- Fox Buchele's studio has made games including "Williams Telemetry" and "Vulpine Velocity."
Unello Design -- An indie VR studio behind projects including "Zen Zone" and "Eden River."
Axon Virtual Health -- A VR project to improve patient care through virtual-reality therapy.
Virtuix -- Makers of the Omni treadmill, which brings walking to virtual reality, and other associated products.
Descendant Studios -- Makers of the upcoming game "Descent: Underground."
Rooster Teeth -- The online video company contributed this hilarious video to the VR culture canon: "How To Not Look Stupid in a VR Headset."
360 Photo Pro -- 360 photo service from Austinite Phil Warner.
Ghost Machine -- VR studio with many projects already under its belt including "Golf Masters" and "Orc Assault."
University of Texas GAMMA Program -- Students are working on a science fiction space horror game, "Project Val."
University of Texas Virtual Reality Lab -- Focused on human vision and motor control, its full name is the Vision, Cognition, and Action Virtual Reality Lab.
Texas Advanced Computing Center -- Working on a variety of virtual reality projects at TACC's visualization lab.
ServiceMedia -- Makes a cloud-based, cross-platform set of tools for creating interactive and virtual media.
Gamerista -- An R&D lab, think tank and user experience testing company.
OnlyInVR -- Austin studio focused on music and travel live-action 360-degree video content.
Got others we missed in Austin? Post a comment below or email me with the information and I'll add to this post.
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