Valve to offer Vive Developer Edition free to qualifying devs

HTC Vive

Veeve? Vyve? I still haven't figured out how I'm going to pronounce it, but I do quite fancy having a go on Valve and HTC's VR thingamajig. One way to do that for free would be to become an indie developer, then apply to Valve for a Developer Edition of their headset—they've just announced that they're going to be providing them (and the peripherals) to qualified devs sometime this Spring, in an effort to ensure that there will be plenty of games available at launch.

Valve's Doug Lombardi revealed the news to Ars Technica, stating that the developer kits "will be free, at least initially". He added that "More info and 'sign up' forms will be available to all interested developers, big or small, via a new site coming soon". That's "coming soon" meaning likely next week.

There's no word on what it will take to qualify for Vive's Developer Edition, but I'm guessing it will involve more than a simple "i make gam send me vive pls" email. *frantically deletes email draft*. So far, Valve have provided Vives to a select few developers including Bossa Studios (Surgeon Simulator), Owlchemy Labs (Aaaaaa! For The Awesome), and Fireproof Games (who made The Room).

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Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.