Starbreeze's StarVR cancels developer programme

StarVR, the joint venture between financially-troubled Starbreeze Studios and Acer, has officially put its month-old developer programme on hold owing to 'uncertainties' surrounding Starbreeze's future.

Starbreeze announced its intention to break into the virtual reality market back in January 2016 with StarVR, a location-based arcade-hall-style offering which would place multiple high-end headsets in specially-designed facilities to allow for pay-to-play gaming. A few months later the company announced it was turning StarVR into a joint venture with Acer, but by October 2017 it would pull its pledged funding leaving Acer holding the bag. While in August this year the company was still showing off next-generation hardware, the reason for its reluctance to pour more funding into the StarVR JV became clear late last month when the company confirmed it was planning a swathe of cost-cutting measures before filing for reconstruction, a process similar to bankruptcy protection, over a lack of liquidity.

Now, just one month after it opened a developer programme offering would-be StarVR supporters access to pre-release hardware, the joint venture is putting its plans on hold - and there's no news for how long. 'We believe it is the most responsible course of action to put the StarVR Developer Programme on hold while there are uncertainties with our key overseas shareholder,' a StarVR spokesperson confirmed to Upload VR, referring to Starbreeze, 'and also while our company is in the process of going private, which may entail some changes to our operations,' referring to the decision by the Taipei Exchange to delist the company from its Emerging Markets section.

Starbreeze, which has had an office raided and an employee arrested over alleged insider trading seemingly related to the company's reconstruction filing, has not commented on StarVR's cancellation of the developer programme.