You'd think that device manufacturers would then subsidize content development to differentiate, but that didn't seem to pan out either http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/oculus-story-studio-shu...
Well they do own Oculus, so they have a vested interest in making sure VR succeeds, whether it is a demand or not.
Do they react to what the player is looking at or where they're standing? I think what the GP meant was that "you can't have David Attenborough going on about the lovely penguins whilst the user is staring at some polar bears."
The form of presentation impacts blocking and scene-changes. Theater in the round would result in different staging than a traditional auditorium, for example.
A 360 degree movie is essentially the inverse of the theater experience. Instead of fixed locations pointing towards the action, the viewer is in the center of the world with potential for action all around.
People will pay attention to what's happening, there's no need to worry too much about someone simply ignoring the action. Besides, even casual YouTubers do positional sound nowadays, which can be used to "lead" the spectator.
In contrast, it feels like the whole mobile app paradigm was a more emergent trend that rose from the hardware getting better and it being an 'obvious' thing to do with software on that hardware. Like, smartphones weren't designed specifically with apps in mind, but they emerged as a phenomenon naturally, in response to demand. But maybe that's just hindsight talking, maybe it too was ultimately pushed from the top down by companies building apps and promoting them. Hard to say I guess.
If any company can push VR into the mainstream, or at least accelerate the process, Facebook has to be one of the best positioned, and I hope it works. I just wonder if the hardware doesn't need to get dramatically (5 years) better before it becomes obvious that ordinary people will want to incorporate it into their daiy routine (and then, possibly more in AR form than VR form) - indeed, to be fair, at F8 a very similar message was delivered in some talks.