Facebook to close Oculus VR animation studio
Friday, May 5, 2017 at 3:28AM 
Henry | Oculus Story Studio
The award-winning Oculus Story Studio is going to be shuttered by Facebook so it can focus more on supporting third-party creators. The two-year-old unit was behind the short film Henry, which won an Emmy in 2016 for Outstanding Original Interactive Program. But recognition doesn’t seem to be what Facebook wants to focus on. According to Oculus Vice President of Content Jason Rubin, “We’ve been looking at the best way to allocate our resources to create an impact on the ecosystem. After careful consideration, we’ve decided to shift our focus away from internal content creation to support more external production. As part of that shift, we’ll be winding down Story Studio.
Rubin, in a blog post, emphasizes that Oculus isn’t giving up on producing VR film and other creative content for the platform. He says they’ve even invested US$250 million last year on third-party content creators. “We’re going to carve out $50 [million] from that financial commitment to exclusively fund non-gaming, experiential VR content. This money will go directly to artists to help jumpstart the most innovative and groundbreaking VR ideas.
Source: CNET