EVE Online CEO says "you can't build a business" on VR as it is

CCP CEO says that the closure of two of its studios is partially down to the fact that VR isn't as big as expected.

Following the closure of Eve: Online developer's Atlanta and Newcastle studios, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson has said that the slow uptake on VR is somewhat to blame.

"We expected VR to be two to three times as big as it was, period," he said in an interview with Destructoid. "You can't build a business on that."

CCP shut down two of its five studios last year, letting go of around 100 employees.

"May of last year (2017) is when we started to figure it out," he said. "Was it a surprise? Maybe. But the picture was filling in that there would not be a way to continue with VR as heavily as we were."

Talking about the recently revealed Oculus Quest, Pétursson added that "if it does take off, and I mean if, we'll re-assess.

"The important thing is we need to see the metrics for active users of VR. A lot of people bought headsets just to try it out. How many of those people are active? We found that in terms of our data, a lot of users weren't."

Despite this, Pétursson says that he "remain[s] a long-term believer of VR."