E McNeill released the first full VR game for Gear VR headsets back in 2014 drawing from big screen depictions of cyberspace.
Featuring hackers taking on the “Darknet” to acquire virtual bitcoin, his strategy game sees you hack computing nodes to purchase stronger electronic weapons.
At the time of Darknet’s original development in 2013 and 2014, a single actual bitcoin could be sold for about $1,000 in the real world. At the time of our talk on January 31, 2025, more than a decade after McNeill originally made the game, a single bitcoin could be sold for more than $100,000.
This means if McNeill had acquired, say, five bitcoin at a cost of $5,000 at the time he added the concept to Darknet, the cryptocurrency would be worth $500,000 today.
McNeill says he acquired no bitcoin.
Instead, he spent the last 12 years as an indie game developer making the first full VR game for Gear VR followed by a series of VR titles for most modern consumer VR headsets.
“There was maybe a brief moment in time when I felt like I was doing super awesome and had struck it rich, and that moment has passed. McNeill says that if he had purchased bitcoin as we discussed at the start of this interview, his experience in developing indie games would have been different. The fact that it has been going for over 12 years now is a miracle to me. If I could go back in time and tell my younger self, ‘if this was your dream, you would be able make it work for atleast 12 years,’ I would think that this was a realisation of a fantasy. Don Hopper played McNeill’s latest action games
, Darknet: Remastered alongside Ironstrike before McNeill left on his leave. I interviewed the developer for more than an hour with Don playing each of the games in the background.IronlightsEventually, McNeill met up with Don and taught us how to cast spells and succeed in combat. McNeill gave Don an in-depth tutorial on Ironstrike, then explained why he chose to use certain weapons in the VR game. Our thanks to YouTube member Arlen for joining us with some questions during the show, and you can check out the full timestamped hour-long conversation with McNeill below.
in the same deep dive format and, in the weeks ahead, we’re starting to line up a schedule for developer interviews that should include us looking at brand new or upcoming releases.Airspace Defender and TablecraftWe only played three of McNeill’s games during the stream, jumping from Darknet: Remastered to Ironstrike and finally ending in Ironlights, but you can learn more about all of his titles on his
.websiteWe’ll be sure to follow up with McNeill in the months ahead.