EA's DICE begins recruiting for small VR team

Despite executive scepticism over the potential for virtual reality gaming, publishing giant Electronic Arts has begun recruitment for a VR-specific team to work on the Frostbite engine.

While virtual reality has been hailed as the next big thing in everything from gaming and passive entertainment to healthcare, EA has warned that it is taking things slowly. Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Conference last month, EA's chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen warned that the VR market may be too small for the company to target - comparing it to the like of the Nintendo Wii U and Sony PS Vita. 'We'll build software for various VR platforms,' he told attendees, 'but we'll really wait and see how big the market is going to be.'

While the fiscal arm of the company may not yet be sold on VR's benefits, the company is forging ahead with developing software support. EA's Johan Andersson posted a recruitment drive to social networking service Twitter, calling for applicants to work at his DICE studio on adding virtual reality support to the Frostbite game engine. 'We're building a small & collaborative VR team,' Andersson explained, linking to job listings for roles including a creative director of virtual reality alongside senior technical artist, software engineer, gameplay engineer, and rendering engineer roles at the company's Stockholm headquarters.