In this article, the author analyzes the ways in which the practices of virtual reality design are being standardized, focusing specifically on the Oculus Best Practices Guide (OBPG). Instructional writings like the OBPG are fruitful documents from which theories of practice can be extracted and, for companies like Oculus, they serve as alternative mission statements, articulating what Oculus wants and needs the standards and practices of its nascent product-medium to be. The author argues that the OBPG serves to create standards and practices that emphasize and maintain virtual reality (VR) user immersion in order to mitigate the weaknesses in the technology and better conform with VR’s idealized, hypothetical presentation in fiction and marketing rhetoric. The Guide plays a key role in Oculus’s larger attempts to mitigate market risk through the standardization of content across its distribution platforms in order to shape an inchoate technological object into a stable and lucrative entertainment medium. More broadly, the OBPG serves as an example of the specific ways in which market forces act on the development of new media practices, turning ‘standards’ into ‘industry standards’.

中文翻译：

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开发虚拟现实设计的“最佳实践”：新兴媒体前沿的行业标准

在本文中，作者分析了虚拟现实设计实践标准化的方式，特别关注 Oculus 最佳实践指南 (OBPG)。像 OBPG 这样的教学著作是可以从中提取实践理论的富有成果的文件，对于像 Oculus 这样的公司，它们可以作为替代使命陈述，阐明 Oculus 想要和需要的标准和实践的新生产品媒体。作者认为，OBPG 旨在创建强调和保持虚拟现实 (VR) 用户沉浸感的标准和实践，以减轻技术中的弱点，并更好地符合虚拟现实在小说和营销言论中的理想化、假设性呈现。该指南在 Oculus 通过其分发平台的内容标准化来降低市场风险的更大尝试中发挥了关键作用，以便将早期技术对象塑造成稳定且有利可图的娱乐媒体。更广泛地说，OBPG 是市场力量作用于新媒体实践发展、将“标准”转变为“行业标准”的具体方式的一个例子。