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Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#11

Post by jplayer01 »

timwaagh wrote: post #9

vr is just expensive and requires fairly high end hardware still. There are also are all kinds of software issues with it. like when i was playing a well known racing game, very often the camera would be somewhere other than the driver's seat. And those are the kind of games that really are quite heavy on vr adoption and are the natural fit for this type of control. many games do not naturally lend themself to vr, an…

> the most popular genres, like fps, rpg, action-adventure

I'm not sure why you think so. I can't think of a genre where VR wouldn't work in some form, but especially anything first-person should work just fine.

edit: Downvoting, classy. Yeah, let's ignore first-person games like Sairento, Budget Cuts, Boneworks, etc. which are fantastic because they're first person and how immersive it is to be inside a game as the player. It couldn't ever work. The proof is right there (not really).

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#12

Post by Kiro »

timwaagh wrote: post #9

vr is just expensive and requires fairly high end hardware still. There are also are all kinds of software issues with it. like when i was playing a well known racing game, very often the camera would be somewhere other than the driver's seat. And those are the kind of games that really are quite heavy on vr adoption and are the natural fit for this type of control. many games do not naturally lend themself to vr, an…

> requires fairly high end hardware still

Not true with Oculus Quest which completely turned me from a skeptic to a believer. Just put it on and start playing. No external hardware required.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#14

Post by jotm »

timwaagh wrote: post #9

vr is just expensive and requires fairly high end hardware still. There are also are all kinds of software issues with it. like when i was playing a well known racing game, very often the camera would be somewhere other than the driver's seat. And those are the kind of games that really are quite heavy on vr adoption and are the natural fit for this type of control. many games do not naturally lend themself to vr, an…

FPS is actually the one amazing genre in VR... when it works right.

Maybe someone will finally revive the First/Third Person RPG/RTS niche (not top down), which I really loved in BattleZone 1/2. I think it will work great in VR.

But yeah, really resource intensive, Pimax says you'll need 2 GPUs (one per eye) to get the most performance out of their 8K headset.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#15

Post by lasagnaphil »

What I think virtual reality would be immediately useful right now: for anyone working on 3D modeling/animating/CAD. It is very finicky to view and manipulate 3d data on a flat 2d monitor, VR headsets and manipulation devices should be a godsend to those professions. (Also, they have a lot more money to throw than ordinary consumers, they would be willing to pay thousands on a superior workflow.) If VR software developers would focus on those programs first, I would see VR being a must-buy for certain niche groups of people (which would be a solid foundation for the VR industry.) Too bad that many of the VR developers are tunnel-visioned and only care about flashy games/entertainment, where the real gold might be somewhere else.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#16

Post by aurbano »

I used to be a casual PC gamer, with a fairly good spec build. Then one day I played some VR games at a friend’s house on PSVR, which blew my mind - not only how much fun I had, but how much fun our non gamer friends had!

After that my wife and me got a second hand Vive for 350, and it’s been amazing. I never play regular games any more, and even she (who never played any games) now enjoys it a lot and plays with me from time to time.

All this is to say that I do think VR is here to stay, it just blows regular gaming out of the water... but it definitely is at its infancy - games look and feel the way PC games did 10 years ago..

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#17

Post by newzombie »

The very main reason VR isn't taking off is because it has no killer app, that is, an app that other platforms can't have, and that people love. End-of-story.

What's to understand here is that it's not said that this killer app "exists". If VR is only a cooler screen, then it will sell like cooler screens. Now maybe it's a killer screen, that is a screen that everybody wants. I guess there is a competitive advantage of thinking like that, but right now, vendors think they are making a software/hardware platform when they have no killer app.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#18

Post by golergka »

newzombie wrote: post #17

The very main reason VR isn't taking off is because it has no killer app , that is, an app that other platforms can't have, and that people love. End-of-story. What's to understand here is that it's not said that this killer app "exists". If VR is only a cooler screen, then it will sell like cooler screens. Now maybe it's a killer screen, that is a screen that everybody wants. I guess there is a competitive advantage…

Like the next Half-life?

https://www.half-life.com/en/alyx

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#19

Post by roenxi »

donkeyd wrote: post #6
FractalParadigm wrote: post #3

> A major issue is that the price of headsets has remained very expensive. They mention it in passing in a later paragraph, but the cost of the headset is peanuts compared to the cost of a system that can provide a consistent, high-framerate, high-quality image. While cheaper options exist (Daydream/Gear VR, Oculus Quest, PSVR) they just don't have the quality or framerate to really send home the "future of gaming" V…

> they just don't have the quality or framerate to really send home the "future of gaming" VR has been sold as Have you actually played with the Quest? I've had many people use mine, also people who used Vive or Rift before and nobody was disappointed with the quality of it. If realism and frame rate were the most important part of gaming, then Pokemon Go and Candy Crush wouldn't be as profitable as they are. The maj…

> The majority of people want [X current product] not [Y under active development].

I've lost count of the number of times people have used that template and turned out to be humerously wrong. My favourite is probably when people tried to use it for Japanese phones > iPhones then the next generation iPhone wiped the competition in Japan.

People want good entertainment more than they want their senses stimulated, but it seems very likely that good entertainment which stimulates the senses more effectively will have a massive market.

We're dealing with something where the output can be strictly better than video in a fairly meaningful way. It'll turn out people want that when someone makes a compelling and high quality game/app. Sure, nobody is going to move over just because the visuals are good; but there is artistic space in VR that hasn't been touched before and some of it is going to be amazing.

I suppose the short version is you are right but we've seen people say that before and it presaged massive changes.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#20

Post by cyphax »

newzombie wrote: post #17

The very main reason VR isn't taking off is because it has no killer app , that is, an app that other platforms can't have, and that people love. End-of-story. What's to understand here is that it's not said that this killer app "exists". If VR is only a cooler screen, then it will sell like cooler screens. Now maybe it's a killer screen, that is a screen that everybody wants. I guess there is a competitive advantage…

I'm gonna argue that VR does have a killer-app: Beat Saber. It was a top seller on Steam in 2019 and it's only just been overtaken by Asgarth's Wrath in terms of popularity, after about a year and a half. It has also sold more than a million copies and is multi platform. I've seen kids play it, adults, even seniors: everybody can do this. If you wouldn't consider that a killer app, what would be in your eyes? :)
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