Oculus VR Hires Former Steam Heavyweight Jason Holtman

The man who advocated for Steam sales is now working for Rift.

Oculus VR continues to add high-value acquisitions to its growing employee ranks, this time touting the addition of former Valve employee Jason Holtman. All those Steam sales and the immense range of titles available on Valve’s digital platform thanks to content licensing? You can thank Holtman for that.

According to Oculus, Holtman will be “spearheading the business development and partnership side of the Oculus platform.”

Holtman gave his own view on VR and the potential it holds by relating his first experience with Battlezone, a classic 3D shooter. “That feeling when you grabbed the dual joysticks and pressed your face to the viewfinder was transformative. It was unlike anything else you could play

“Battlezone, although simply rendered, made you believe that you were in that world and that there had to be something beyond those mountains.

“Battlezone is widely regarded as one of the first VR games, and looking back, those mountains still excite me. I want to fly, walk across alien landscapes, and nose around the Great Pyramids. And that’s the most telling thing about VR: the possibilities are obvious, immediate, and endless.”

Oculus is set to release its second dev kit for Rift in July; it will retail for $350.

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