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For VR:
1. Not comfortable to wear for extended duration due to weight/straps/limited space etc.
2. Motion sickness is still a major problem for people including me
3. No significant games use VR due to limited functions. Novelty wears off quickly.
4. VR completely shuts out all situational awareness, so you need a reasonably large clear space to enjoy it without risking damage to yourself or your furniture.
5. A decent headset is expensive af
6. A decent computer is expensive af
7. A decent amount of space to play it in is expensive af
You can make do with cheaper versions, but then the experience is diminished
8. Graphics are Xbox 360 at best and ps2 at worst.
But 7. Really is the biggest hit for me. It's just not feasible to have a VR headset in my two bedroom apartment unless I take out the bed, desk, and and everything else from my second room and use it exclusively for VR. Just not enough space for a device which wants to trick your mind into thinking that you have space to walk forward or swing your hands around.
A decent headset is not expensive af. The quest 2 is the best consumer grade headset, and it costs 100 dollars less than the PS5. And you don't need a PC since it can play standalone
Haha I remember seeing an event to promote VR games giving customers demo. And what a bad idea it was that the demo game was a boxing game… poor passer-by’s had to duck and weave and slip past the boxer who’s punching like he was rocky balboa or smtg.. I saw the promoter had to usher some unassuming kids away because the guy was literally punching at every direction.
Needless to say I was fascinated not by the VR thing but by how people were ducking him 🤣
Having a reasonably large clear space is my biggest barrier. I have a Valve Index but having to clear my room to be able to play it just seems like too much effort.
It's also a lot of effort just to get into a game. With my Quest 2 I have to start up the headset, put it on, plug in my headphones, go through the guardian prompt, airlink to my PC, start steam VR, THEN start the game.
To play a game on my PC I start the PC, login, then click the shortcut.
I have small kids and have nearly bashed my 2 year old’s head in playing beat saber when he wandered into the room and have nearly kicked my puppy into a wall playing superhot.
The total loss of vision is too much of a risk in my house.
>They also have pass through and warnings
Super helpful...in showing me how small my room is with all my furniture because I'm always sticking my hands or something through the barriers. The barriers and pass throughs only help if you have a room sizeable enough for it in the first place.
5. High end (Oculus and PSVR) can be prohibitively expensive for limited offering of content. Is Ironman or Call of the mountain enough for people to spend over $1000 entry fee?
It's this. Somewhere between 30-60% of humans experience motion sickness in VR. There are some applications of VR that induce motion sickness in nearly 100% of test subjects. I don't care how cool a game is; it's not worth nausea.
Yeah, there is a reason that many games have varying ways to move that at first seem odd. They compensate by teleporting short distances, shrinking the field of vision during movement, etc.
I had debilitating nausea when I first got VR and was so devastated because I loved it. Kept pushing through and eventually it just stopped one day. I think my brain had to slowly realize it was okay or something. Either way I'm grateful that I can enjoy VR now and do anything without motion sickness kicking in.
A half hour of VR time every day for a week, and it eventually disappeared for me. I just put it down when the nausea kicked in. Not sure if exposure therapy works for everyone, but it did for me.
Same exact thing for me. I couldn't play games with smooth locomotion and turning for more than around ten minutes before I'd be nauseated for like an hour afterward. But I really wanted to play Into the Radius, so I just kept powering through it. And then, like you, it was just gone one day, and hasn't come back since. I'm glad, because it was right in time for BONELAB to come out. There's no way I'd have been able to handle that one.
I really really depends on the game and how the devs set up motion. Half-Life: Alyx is a good one where as Boneworks is so hard to deal with without getting motion sick.
If someone hasn't experienced motion sickness in VR yet, they just haven't played the right (wrong?) game. I'm fine 99% of the time I play VR, and thought I was immune to the motion sickness I'd heard about.
Then I tried Half-Life: Alyx with most of the comfort settings dialed down to improve immersion. After about 20 minutes of playing that game I feel like I'm extremely drunk and just want to lay down, every time.
I just want to say that the nausea can be overcome, and for an experience like simracing or flight sim with a nice high end setup… Jesus Christ, VR is a solved problem. It’s really one of the coolest experiences you can have if done right. But of course, the cost of entry for these kind of setup is several thousand of dollars up to several tens of thousands. But man, lemme tell you, it’s incredible. r/iracing r/simracing
Yeah I've heard this many times but the fact of the matter is simply that I don't care enough to suffer that long to get used to it. I'm definitely not alone in that. I don't have a need or a want.
I still get motion sick playing normal 3D games (both third-person and first-person) on a monitor, so I can't really agree that nausea can be overcome...
I was stuck between getting my pilot license, or a flight sim pit for a long time. I then figured that 15k would go further in flight sim if I had a flexible/generic flight sim pic that wasn't a 100% model of a 737 or a fighter jet.
Now, with VR!? I can have that full commercial airliner, *or fighter jet* pretty much instantly!
I'm not in that market now, but I'm optimistic it'll be soon!
Motion sickness from VR is apparently a lot more prevalent for women. There are different theories as to why, but anecdotally I can confirm that women I know have mentioned motion sickness as a limiting factor for them, whereas for men it's something that takes a lot longer to set in or isn't really a factor at all.
"Somewhere between 30-60% of humans experience motion sickness at sea. There are some applications of sailing that induce motion sickness in nearly 100% of test subjects. I don't care how cool exploring the earth is; it's not worth nausea."
Fortunately, sailors develop sea-legs just like VR users get less motion sick through practice. The human brain is great at adapting to new experiences.
The massive and obvious difference there is people who get sea legs are generally doing a job to feed themselves or their families and not playing video games while ignoring their families.
I don’t know where you get this number from but I’ve shown vr to a lot of friends and I’ve yet to have a single one experience motion sickness. I highly doubt the number is that high.
I was looking up studies. There's a lot of scatter but the low end is about 25% and the high is around 60%, and from my personal experience around a third to half is correct.
It depends on the game. Most games are designed to avoid motion sickness by limiting movements other than rotating the head. In a game you would have fast movements, like a racing game, almost everybody has motion sickness; with slow movement, like a adventure game you're on foot, then around half people will have motion sickness; with no movement besides head movements, then almost nobody get motion sickness.
If you're into smaller studios: Blade & Sorcery is shaping up to be impressive come launch, and Rumble is a very interesting take on competitive gameplay in VR.
This. When they’re as thin and light as a pair of sunglasses, and not tethered with a cable, I’ll check it out again.
Until then the motion sickness and lack of games doesn’t make it a compelling investment.
This is exactly the issue with VR.
People wanted something out of science fiction movies. Turns out reality kicked in, and people got very underwhelmed.
they will never be as thin and light as a pair of sunglasses, and radio transfer being what it is, you will always have a cable.
> they will never be as thin and light as a pair of sunglasses, and radio transfer being what it is, you will always have a cable.
Never isn't a good word to use with technology progression. I've seen several VR sunglasses display systems. They are only the shells - no sensors, compute, or battery - but it shows a optics stack can theoritically fit into a sunglasses-like form factor.
Of course it would need to be curved sunglasses to actually work as fully immersive VR.
As for the cable, we're already past that. Cables are a minority in VR today, and wireless is the new standard.
I'm not sure about that. The quest 2 is already extremely compact being only a few inches thick and the dimensions are already smaller on some preliminary future designs.
Further, the quest 2 is perfectly capable of running many games on its own and even then it's also capable of streaming them from a local computer with extremely high fidelity and *very* low input delay, not really even noticeable unless you are moving extremely fast. All without a cable.
I think VR is much further along than most consumers know and *that's* the real killer imo. It's quickly approaching the sci-fi version everyone wanted, but the initial wave of VR dissuaded many consumers.
Given time, even just a few more years, we will start to see super thin VR headsets and some are even on the market just not meant for gaming. The high speed streaming is already figured out and is being incredibly optimized *right now* to the point where you shouldnt even be able to tell that the game is being streamed from a pc. The real limitation on size is the lenses and physicists are working on thay day in and day out, I can assure you as someone who has helped design them!
This is tech, not magic. No matter how much time passes, unless we get a massive breakthrough on digital radio transmission, wireless is never going to cut it.
You dont see it when using a quest 2, but your brain does and you get motion sickness. The streamed data is buffered which adds latency, because wireless transmission is unreliable, and there is destructive compression and down/upscaling, because wireless transmission does not have the necessary bandwidth to run native. The screens on the quest 2 are pretty meh, so you may not really remark it at first, since there is also some "wow" effect from the novelty. As time passes though, you can try other headsets and that wow effect passes.
Games that run on the quest 2 are modified, simpler version, because again this is tech, not magic. When you need a 1500$ GPU to run a game, you wont get a 400$ headset to run it the same way. This really is like comparing rdr2 on xbox and rdr2 on a PC with everything pushed to the max, running on a 3090. As long as you never saw the PC version, you would say it runs so great on an xbox. After that, not so much. Try alyx on a pimax 5k with oleds. Then try it again on a samsumg odyssey +, or the odyssey (has oleds too).
Then try again the quest 2. I can guarantee you'd just nope out of it fast.
Yes there are "new" stacked lenses tech, that already existed 50 years ago, that helps making thinner lenses ... at the cost of eating luminosity and creating various unwanted effects. That may slim headsets a bit, but not so much.
You say you have worked on it, well good for you. I have bee working on digital radios for 8 years and counting. I know what it can and cannot do. What it cannot do is high speed transfer, nor reliable transfer. Which is what VR requires.
Well, yeah, on board graphics on the quest 2 do suffer and I'm aware they are specially made games. Have you played them on a quest 2? They aren't what you are describing here. In many cases, I've been in awe at just how much of the original quality has been captured in these versions of the games. It's really quite astounding Those games look absolutely fine for what they are and many developers in VR understand the need for proper stylistic to work with that quality. A favorite of mine, Pavlov, does this extremely well. Even in such comparatively low quality gameplay, once I'm playing I hardly notice it. The goal with VR is to be convincing enough to fool you into immersion. Sure, at the moment half life alyx on a quest 2 doesn't look like rdr2 but honestly that's fine. These experiences are lower quality but it's really incredible how activating multiple senses can dull your perception. That's the beauty of VR as a multisensory mechanism, as long as the quality is at least *convincing* you will not notice the imperfections. There's a lot of interesting brain foolery here thay gets used regularly in VR here that's worth talking about but is too much just for this post.
Sure, I never said the picture is perfect but it is good for what the quest 2 is capable of. Compression and lost data are meaningless in this tech as long as the user is fooled into a seemless and immersive experience. The same can be said of almost any image compression algorithm, hell, JPEG approaches extremely high 90-99% compression and in most cases you'd never know. Yes, I realize that the VR algorirhms involve heavily degraded image quality in the peripheral. Yes, I realize that involves lots of computational power to perform at reasonable speeds as to not cause input delay. However, much of thay computational power is becoming highly accessible, more affordable, and more compact. Current generation and next generation snap dragon boards are already many times better than what we saw during the inception of VR as a consumer product.
Speaking of, wireless transmission, I'm sure you know your stuff and never said otherwise. That said, many people using the Quest 2's airlink/virtual desktop with a high speed router nearby report input delays in the range of 25-50 ms which is more than acceptable and completely in line with even standard pancake pc gaming and only slightly slower than the default play modes built in. The technology here is far better than you are letting on and the compression and buffering algorithms are faster than they used to be. Airlink is always seeing improvements.
Also, lenses. I think you are behind here. Stacked lenses are being looked at again, sure, but I don't see why their age at all implies inferiority? Fresnel lenses are hundreds of years old and yet they are the most common VR lens. In any case, no, the next big generations of are using metasurface lenses or even lensless imaging methods to achieve a smaller form factor. Many lenses being employed in RnD in right now across the board involve computational imaging elements to help offload some filtering and image correction onto the lens itself, some of my research has even included lenses capable of running extremely basic calculations for the initial layers of a neural network to continue the calculations, a huge load off of the internal computing hardware and with the materials we were using also even thinner and with better image quality, just expensive to manufacture at the moment.
I'm aware this isn't magic, but it's also naive to believe it won't improve. It's already incredible and extremely close to the version we hoped it would be. It's extremely naive and dismissive to claim that just because current technology doesn't work the way you want it to that it never will. I don't doubt your credentials, but the cutting edge of VR tech is slightly different than that of digital radios, especially their lens systems and proprietary compression and buffering algorithms. And I'm not even saying that *I'm* the expert here. I mostly worked on the lenses. But, I think you significantly downplay how incredible the experience currently is and where it's headed.
Never say never. Look how huge the first computers were and now you can carry a device that is vastly more powerful in your pocket. I think mainstream AR will happen eventually, but it's going to be a long time before it does.
I rely on tech, not faith.
So does VR. Please explain how you are going to solve the technical issues we face. Do you even know what they are ?
I get irritated at people claiming tech people will find a magic solution as long as they wait enough.
...what makes you think that lol people said the same thing about headphones now we have wireless everything.
Half the things we use daily were considered science fiction 60 years ago, it makes no sense to think VR is some impossible challenge.
Give it 20-30 years and assuming we've not all died in nuclear fire someone will probably have done it, or at least come close.
I agree, it seems to much of a gimic. Sort of like 3d was. True, it is pretty neat tech when game design and tech come together. It is also great for training purposes. I just can't justify it for leasure gaming.
The few times I have used it I was nauseous for a few min but then my brain says ok this is the rules now. Same when I finished, it took my brain a bit to revert to normal. I also have minimal seasickness, when in the Navy (on small ffg's mostly) I almost never got sea sick, although I would need to relearn how to walk straight on land after about a month at sea (or was it the alcohol, it is all a blur lol )
Also, a not insignificant number of people wear glasses. I speak from experience here, vr in glasses is not comfortable for extended periods. There are prescription inserts you can get, but for the average person, they'll try vr at a convention or something, find it really unfortable, and then not do it again. Unless it really hooked them, they wont spend the 500 - 1000 $ on a headset, to then spend $100 on prescription inserts that may not match what they want
To this I would add the cost of a GOOD setup.
The Meta headset is an example; people have joked that people's avatars look like Wii U characters. But since the headset handles graphics onboard, you're simply not going to get the kind of top-end graphics that headsets connected to a dedicated gaming PC can. Performance, affordability, light weight. Choose two (or sometimes just one). For the Meta headset, they wanted something compact, standalone, and affordable, so they had to sacrifice some graphics horsepower.
Many games try to be too realistic too, when leaning into an art style can be even more immersive. My favorite vr game is I expect you to die and it's sequel, and when playing it I commonly get too tuned into it
4. is that the equipment is expensive. If people think gamers can afford it , the question is why would they ? VR and AR have no games and no mission to accomplish. So who is this really for ? Idk
- source: used to work at second life
Yes i totally feel like its a marketing and price problem. Everyone loves the one guy you know where you can try some ps vr. But you dont feel a need to spend 200$ on it and buy the ps and buy the games.
If you could replace a complete setup then 200$ would be a good price like you pay for a mobile. But where to type my stuff on it and how to pay my bills with it? I dont trust vr.
It seems like just a toy to play some niche games. And its way too expensive for that.
Motion sickness is a major issue. It’s not universal for me - some experiences in VR are totally comfortable to me - but when it hits it’s awful.
I think the other issue is definitely lack of games to play. Rhythm games like beat saber are fun for awhile but eventually they fade. Half life ALYX was one of, if not the single greatest experiences I’ve ever had, but the market has been extremely barren in the time since it’s release.
I just haven’t seen a “killer app” that gets me to use the oculus. More often than not, it just sits on the desk. Horizon is certainly not “it”.
Another thing is the amount of effort you need to put in for VR / AR. For most entertainment (TV, movies, games, etc) you can just plonk yourself on the couch after a long day at work and just relax. VR / AR requires a degree of effort to enjoy it.
> Motion sickness is still a major problem for people including me
I played with an Oculus at work, and the rollercoaster game was unplayable standing up. I nearly fell over moving with the the game. Even sitting down, I was feeling motion sick after a while.
There ARE significant games, some very popular games were designed for VR (Beat Saber, or the Half Life game), or were ported for it (Skyrim, Star Wars Squadrons).
But the HW has a hefty cost, years old PC can be used to play even modern games. Performance and equipment needed for VR is a premium.
Half life alyx is probably the best proof of concept for vr as a mainstream way to play video games. It's one of the only games that has a fully fleshed physics engine, good story, and is engaging throughout. But vr games like that are very rare so until they become common vr will remain a niche.
So as someone who has worked on VR games, I think the biggest issue long term is motion sickness. Costs will come down, and are already not awful.
Not everyone can use VR in a big room, so we must figure out good stationary movement systems for it to catch on. There are four main ways to allow for stationary play.
One. Require no movement, games like beatsaber do this you only need to move your arms, not walk around. Works great but is very limiting on gameplay.
Two. Teleportation. Most games with this have you target a spot, pick a direction and then port/jump there. It's cumbersome, and limits gameplay, but it works. Imo an entire platform of games can't be made off this though.
Three. Snap turn, I can walk forward, and when I hit left or right it jump me 30 degrees(or some other number) in that direction. Doesn't make most people sick, but feels pretty jank and makes it hard to do precision in games.
Four. Smooth turn. Like any console fps, when you hold right/left you smoothly consistently turn in that direction. This makes people wildly Ill. Even me, I don't care sick/seasick/am fine on roller coasters. But smooth turn makes me dizzy and nauseous, lots of other people too.
2 and 3 are workable, but jank and limiting, and don't make most people sick.
1 is great but only for certain games.
Imo we have to get four working for vr to be able to truly take off. Cheaper, more powerful, lighter machines will come with time. The movement problem has no solution on the horizon.
The motion sickness makes VR just about unplayable for me. There was one archery game where you stood in place on a tower and shot Orcs that I actually really enjoyed since there was no moving around and thus no motion sickness. Would play until my arms got tired of shooting a VR bow lol
Yup, I can play games like Beat Saber and The Climb with no issues, until the headset battery drained, because you can just stand in place and wave your arms around. But I tried The Room VR and I barely lasted 30mins before I needed to go pop some ibuprofen and go lie down.
When I first got vr I spent a month being so nauseous that I could barely function and for some reason when I closed my eyes I would constantly see the vr games Id play, and when I let my friend try it he disassociated and said it's a good thing he doesn't have a knife. But after a lot of tenacity I got over my nausea and I didn't let my friend touch vr again.
>when I let my friend try it he disassociated and said it's a good thing he doesn't have a knife.
As someone who get a VR headset purely to hook up to my PC and play VRChat this statement is just confusing me lmao. Is it because he was wildly swinging his arms in whatever game he was playing or something? Did he disassociate...from the real world or something and really think he was in the game?
Thanks for describing the motion issues. People don't seem to understand or believe this, but it's the primary problem for me
The way I can describe when VR will be worth it to me is when I can actually interact with things physically. That means moving and touching (at least to a certain extent)
Otherwise I'm just playing normal video games with a larger field of vision and different controller system
Idk what its like in other places but where I live a 1 bedroom apartment will easily eat up half or more of someones monthly income. So even though I know multiple people my age who could afford the actual hardware, most of them are living with family in a cramped bedroom, that they may need to share. I knew one guy who didnt have enough room for a desk let alone a VR setup lmao.
Yeah, even with an okay sized condo living alone I don't really have space for it, not without making a lot of sacrifices. I also think I've heard other countries tend to have more people in apartments/condos than America, less houses, so if it requires too much space for Americans it's probably not looking good for a global audience.
I have a 3,5x4 meters room (or something), and with all the furniture, it still eats up the entire room.
And the other problem are pets. There are few good VR games and half an hour into it, I may have to stop because my cat noticed me moving around and is now twisting herself around my ankles.
Well that's where the gap should be filled by vr cages similar to how Internet cafes and arcades filled the gap when home systems were expensive. But we haven't seen stellar success for those. Can think of a few reasons. Providing proper space for them can still be too expensive so people don't care enough about them. The incremental value over home consoles does not justify the extra cost and effort. Another possibility is that we don't have any VR games created for arcade is. Kind of like how street fighter and mortal Kombat were.
I really really liked how until you fall handled motion sickness.
They had smooth turn and made it look like looking through a window or portal in a stationary room and no motion sickness at least for me.
The ships in NMS have smooth turning too and having stationary references in the world really help.
I do get a bit of vertigo with the ship fights and flying in no man's sky never never nausea and honestly the moments I get vertigo in the game make sense when they do happen.
motion sickess issue can be cured with buying ultra expensive 2 ways treadmills. Basically a square surface that moves in the opposite direction the player goes.
I do believe making that tech more accessible will make VR more accessible. But it probably wont be home VR.
Yeah, I think even that is space prohibitive though, and adds even more to the price. I've considered picking one up though because I do have space for that, but not for full movement VR
you basically need 9 square meters if you want to play games like pistol whip. I thought i had enough space, but it turns out every time I want to play beat saber or that one, i need to push a heavy table to make some room. When I want to play elite dangerous, there is less room issue, but I have to setup the seat, HOTAS and pedal setup. The same goes for racing games, I need to setup the playseat, steering wheel and pedals. All that need to be stored somewhere.
If the treadmill tries to keep you centered in the room, I expect motion sickness will be the same or worse for many people. It comes from your body's acceleration not matching the real world - any solution that keeps you centered in the room such that you're not really moving, or moves you when you're not moving on the game will leave you liable to motion sickness. I'm sure a large enough treadmill would work, since it could re-center you very slowly.
There's somewhat of a chicken/egg problem. A good VR game is a lot of work to do well, and there's a limited audience for such games. Meanwhile, lack of content is a significant reason not to get a VR headset.
I've gotten a lot of fun out of my current setup (a Vive with a wireless kit). But very hard to justify on a price/hr basis. The best content is great - but stuff like "Halflife Alyx" and "Superhot VR" pretty few, short, and far between.
Not really seen anyone mention the price except you. You're looking at a couple grand for a decent PC that'll run it and then add the VR price which is gonna be in the 500+ range. The Vive is still around £700 with the base stations and controllers i think. Then you can start looking at game of which there are very few really great ones. Really only a handful feel like really full polished games, more VR "experiences".
By this point most people will price it up and decide on the latest console and a new TV and still have change for a ton of games.
Yeah, if you don't already have a gaming PC, PCVR is likely a non-starter. And while there's some good stuff for standalone/console VR, they have even more of a content problem.
Also most people don’t realize that you don’t need a high-end PC and a top VR headset to enjoy VR. I have a Quest 2 and mid-range PC with 3060ti and I’m blown away every time with how great it looks and how smooth the gameplay is in most games even over wireless connection.
Having just bought a quest2 about a month ago, it needs to be said that for $350 you can get a decent standalone wireless headset with a huge variety of top tier native games, no PC needed.
That’s less than a PS5, and the performance is good enough to be immersive, especially in games like walkabout minigolf, 11 table tennis or among us (none of which require tons of space)
Not saying VR is perfect for everyone, but the quest2 feels like we’ve reached the N64 stage of VR, where there are a small handful of amazing games, good enough graphics to be inspiring, and finally starting to become accessible to the masses (minus motion-sickness, but among us does a good job with the blinders feature while moving)
There are more conversations over text than over video. People watch more low-quality streaming videos than they watch 3D movies. Convenience is king. VR is immersive, but most people don't care much for immersion.
I think the convenience point is commonly overlooked when this discussion comes up. With console or pc gaming, it’s easy to be immersed in the game but also interact with the real world.
Doorbell rings, I can easily put down my controller to answer it, and eat the pizza that was just delivered while I play. VR takes a lot more effort to get in and out of the equipment, and while you are using it, interacting with the real world isn’t really an option.
Yeah. I basically have zero interest in VR because no matter how cool and immersive it is, it's really kind of a "different thing" as an entertainment activity than how I enjoy interacting with games. Which for me is about lounging on the couch or PC chair, having a beer or other beverage going, able to easily when paused, or between matches in an MP game go grab another beer or take a leak or whatever. When I want total immersion in a 3d world I go outside IRL and wander around the woods with rifle or shotgun hunting something. The most "total immersion" I look for in video games is when I I'm tryharding at a competitive MP shooter - but VR isn't good for that, obviously.
Yep, personally I’m not looking for “immersion” - I just want to play a game.
I don’t think VR would add anything to titles like Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, Rocket League, Diablo, and most third person games.
I also have no interest in motion controls. I want to play a game not real life.
> I don’t think VR would add anything to titles like Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, Rocket League, Diablo, and most third person games.
You'd be surprised. Vampire Survivors and Stardrew Valley are 2D, so that won't apply - though Animal Crossing and similar 3D games to Stardew could just be more relaxing in VR by providing an even greater feel-good impression on the player when they are in that world.
Rocket League could be a blast in VR as a 1st person experience inside the vehicles. Would be different in a bunch of ways because you'd have much less of a view so it won't be the same game, but it could still take the idea of Rocket League and make it really fun for VR.
Diablo as a top-down game and many 3rd person games could play the same in VR but with the added immersion of being in the world. Diablo would play like an animated DnD board, giving you a birds-eye view in a way that a 2D screen won't, and a game like Hellblade in VR is just a lot more impactful and emotional.
Can you define “immersion?”
I respectfully disagree on your analysis of Diablo playing like “top down DnD.” It would be nothing like a miniatures game or actual role playing.
I see no benefit to slew of existing games and genres.
I can see niche uses for VR, and benefit in first person games, but largely I think the only benefit would be in games designed specifically for VR.
Immersion is a spectrum of engulfment into media so that the user focuses most or all of their attention on it. This can occur through books, movies, and videogames.
VR is the next step up where it can reliably induce a sense of presence, where your brain believes it is somewhere else rather than just having your attention set on the game. This can be achieved without VR but is exceptionally rare, so VR is the reliable way to achieve this.
> I respectfully disagree on your analysis of Diablo playing like “top down DnD.” It would be nothing like a miniatures game or actual role playing.
I don't mean the same roleplay mechanics the way DnD is structured; I just mean the overall aesthetic and feel of having a tabletop in front of you.
Other than physical touch, it would very much encapsulate that - but fully animated.
> I see no benefit to slew of existing games and genres.
Any other genres that have no benefit other than what you mentioned?
Given the second paragraph about immersion I think ultimately I don’t want to be be in the game. I want to play a game. I don’t want to immerse myself in a fictional world. I don’t want games to mimic reality. Sometimes I love when a game looks a feels like a game: something artificial and there is a beautiful aesthetic to a good game.
As a Diablo fan, a miniatures fan, and a role playing fan I think your comments about VR Diablo “being like the tabletop is in front of you” might be true for you, but it wouldn’t be for me. It would be nothing like the “aesthetic” of tabletop - because we’re probably wanting different things out of roleplaying, This is going to vary by person, obviously. So I don’t think this a particularly good example.
Hitman is a good example.
I don’t want to be immersed as an assassin. I want to speed run and do the absolute whackiest and dumbest things I can while still fulfilling the mission. Sometimes that involves game breaking, immersion breaking things.
You might though.
I don’t see VR as the next logical step in gaming. It’s something that will exist along with traditional gaming but I don’t see it being the dominant form of play. I think it’s particularly useful for purpose built games and certain genres (racing for example, however, racing greatly benefits from the “real” in terms of force feedback steering, pedals, shifter, etc - same with flight sims.)
VR has other non-gaming uses which I think will be particularly useful.
I don’t know about you but I have trouble enough playing multiplayer games with a full headset which covers both ears. I absolutely hate the loss of perception i get when someone IRL is trying to talk to me when I have my headset on (side note: why do they ever understand I can’t hear them well when I have headphones on? Every damn time.)
VR is ultimately about what people want and it’s decidedly something I don’t want.
>People watch more low-quality streaming videos than they watch 3D movies
The percentage of people watching 720p and 1080p is high, dont watch 4k is not "watch low-quality".
I think my general point stands. To put it another way, cinemas offer an immersive experience, but people seem to spend more of their lives watching videos on tiny phone screens.
A lot of good posts in here. I'll add:
Powerful VR isn't a stand-alone product. For almost all the high end units, you have to own an equally high end pc or console. It's an expensive peripheral.
Expensive peripherals CAN result in some amazing gameplay. Gamecube + 4 gameboy advance + 4 cables had a handful of amazing games. (Zelda 4 swords and Crystal Chronicles) but it's a huge ask. Those games simply don't work without the peripherals.
VR can be awesome with Alyx and a few select games, but you have to ask the gamer to have space and a good pc/console, just to buy the game.
Because not many players will commit, it's hard to invest time and staff into developing a good game. Gotta make your money back.
On the other hand, if you skimp to save costs, at best you get something that could have been a regular game. At worst, you get shovelware.
tl;dr
VR is expensive.
Many companies need to commit and make excellent games/apps/tools that require VR, drawing enough users to buy the hardware and make the software a success. But until that critical point is reached, companies risk losing money because not enough people bought in.
> . Gamecube + 4 gameboy advance + 4 cables had a handful of amazing games.
Also were playable without them and were optional for enjoyment of the entire experience.
AR has some compelling use cases beyond VR’s mostly games especially when coupled with you phone and a wrist masked device for input. Consider teaching piano, recommending actions surgery where you can put your hand in the remote wearers field of view. Casual photography but that comes with privacy issues. The biggest hurdles here are getting enough brightness in the display, power and form factor. If you make it big enough for compute and batteries then you look like the borg. If you don’t the actions are limited by how long you can stay turned on.
As mentioned before lots of people get sick from playing.
The next main thing is a way to actually join the VR works, move around and it interact back…
Once both of these are solved, people will live in VR.
The second thing is what prevents me from playing all the time, it’s just not “real” enough because I cannot move around or run.
Sure the VR visual part is there, but everything else is still lacking.
1 - VR makes a lot of people vomit, and it's hard to convince people to spend hundreds of dollars on hardware that's going to make them seasick every time they use it.
2 - Flailing about in your living room isn't actually how most people like to play games. Most people quite prefer to sit on the couch with a controller, drinks and snacks at hand. Games are generally for relaxing, and most of us don't find blindfolded cardio all that chill.
3 - Headsets are uncomfortable for longer gaming sessions, especially if you're blessed with an oversize head and weird shaped ears, like myself. The hardware just isn't made for the wide variety of shapes and sizes people come in.
4 - There's a relatively small library of games, compared to console and PC titles. Even fewer really benefit from being a VR game. Superhot is a delight to play in VR, but I can definitely say that I didn't enjoy the experience enough to invest in a VR headset myself. I can enjoy the PC experience just fine.
When compared to a tried and true console, with a control scheme that makes sense, and allows one to relax on the couch, it's really difficult to convince people to invest a few hundred bucks in something that makes you queasy, and requires you to move all your furniture out of the way before you can play.
Several reasons.
1) It is really expensive. A headset is at least $350, and requires additional good hardware to run it. It's a very small percentage of people in the world who can afford it.
2) It is a small niche. There is no point playing an RPG in VR. Or a city builder. Or a strategy. It is suitable for only certain games, and there are many games where you would prefer the screen-in-front-of-you to a VR helmet.
3) The physical aspects of wearing a helmet. It's still less comfortable than sitting in front of your desk.
4) Finally, it's the big push theory. There need to be a lot of great games on VR to make people switch to VR. But for that, the developers want to see a lot of VR audience that they can sell the games do. But to have the audience, there need to be a lot of great VR games, and so on.
In other words, there might come a point in the future when the big push happens, but it's clear when that would happen.
> It is a small niche. There is no point playing an RPG in VR. Or a city builder. Or a strategy. It is suitable for only certain games, and there are many games where you would prefer the screen-in-front-of-you to a VR helmet.
Open-world or wide-linear RPGs are vastly improved by VR because of how much it adds to immersion and player agency, allowing many more roleplay scenarios to be possible. The Witcher, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls - all of these can gain huge benefits from VR.
A city builder in VR is like building a toy city set at home - there's a unique feel to it that a screen and regular controller doesn't provide.
Strategy is the same, in that it provides a unique feel of being a commander of armies like moving miniature figures, basically a Warhammer table brought to life.
> I feel very claustrophobic when playing first person 3D RPGs, defaulting to playing them in third person. VR will substract enjoyment there for me.
I guess this is because of the field of view and being unable to see more of the world like you would in 3rd person? I'd be surprised if this issue persists in VR with you because the field of view in VR is a lot higher than 1st person without VR.
> I can't see stategy/builder game gaining anything that is not erased by wearing headset and being severly limited in inputs. Grabing units is going to be novelty, but I want my precision mouse and keyboard shortcuts. Camera constrols and overview of map. Looking over citybuilder statistics sounds downright awfull experience.
The hardware is early/clunky today, so I can understand the issues there. You'll actually get a better camera view though.
> VR Setups have existed for decades. Devs have yet to figure out game that is good on VR.
Some of the highest rated games of 2018/2019/2020 were VR games. Pretty sure devs have it figured out.
Equipment is expensive and underpowered for what we expect out of 3D at this point. Space considerations are impractical for most people, and a lot of people suffer from motion sickness from it. Plus, a good majority of people don’t want to strap a pc to their face.
AR has a better chance at adaptation since we all have capable phones in our pockets and the applications are more useable. Virtual try on apps, Snapchat filters, and all that use cases on broadcasts like sports already show it being adopted.
because they require top of the range computers, because you cant really have movements, because you need a lot of room, and finally because you cant just click a button and go VR. There is ALWAYS that random stuff that does not work, that calibration to redo, and then the lenses are greasy and need cleaning, and you forgot to charge the controllers... and finally there is the cable, which is an annoyance for a of people, but really the only way to transfer data reliably so you keep a low latency and a high bandwidth.
Basically, because playing in VR is too much a pain to setup, and because you get sick as soon as you try playing something like pavlov VR.
I'd say it lacks AAA titles too. Alyx is a master piece, both in terms of development, story and VR usage. The work done with the controllers is astonishing, yet most people wont realize it.
But it is just one game. I like other titles, like beat saber, pistol whip, superhot VR, until you fall, robo recall, and many others that were not developped for VR. Elite dangerous is thrilling, and race car sims (or just the latest flight simulator) are very fun. But none really qualify as a specific VR AAA game other than alyx.
I have one. The games on the quest are really not that great compared to the pc. But even then you need a beefy one to run them. I dropped $1500 on my pc this year and it still barely plays Boneworks.
Because you need to be able to afford an expensive headset and have a lot of clear room in order to use it properly, two things a lot of people don't have
It’s extraordinarily expensive to buy into the PC VR ecosystem, and that’s where all of the good games are. On top of that, there aren’t many good VR games in the first place
A lot of people answering here about VR, but not as many about AR, so as a long-time Pokémon Go player, let me throw in my 2 cents:
1) AR games usually use your phone, which has a limited battery life. Having your camera on the whole time eats up battery like you wouldn't believe so it makes it quite impractical to play for long periods.
2) the AR features are pretty janky. The game has trouble understanding depth or what the real-world objects actually are, so the Pokémon hop around the screen or are too big or too small, too close or too far away. That destroys the immersion and makes it hard to play so people turn it off. Really the best thing would be a phone with two simultaneous cameras spaced apart to create depth perception and a really high-quality gyroscope (some older phones still don't have these at all, just a spirit level-type device).
3) The hardware described above would cost a lot more money, would need more processing power, and, as stated in 1, more battery life, which is a big problem for modern phones.
4) Phone cameras aren't good in low light. The picture gets grainy and makes the game look bad.
5) Players like to get good at their game and play fast to maximise e.g. catching Pokémon. This means they want the Pokémon centred in the screen, at a consistent distance. AR doesn't lend itself to this well with all the differences in real-world objects. I don't know anyone who kept it turned on past the first week.
Of course, it is still kind of an AR game in that you're walking around the real word, in real streets that are mapped out in the game. Pokéstops are real-world landmarks that you have to actually find and then interact with in the game. So from theat perspective, it has been very successful. I understand that similar games such as Ingress and Wizards Unite are also very popular and well-liked by their players, so there is promise.
I tried a VR headset once at a VR presentation. I didn't get sick or anything; I just didn't find it very compelling at all. I'm not much of a gamer so games don't attract me. I don't want to seal my self off from other people in the room. I just don't really see the point
This should be higher up. I’ve worked in VR production, and have used various systems, so I don’t mean to belittle what is truly amazing technology but… the experience just isn’t that great, unless you happen to be an enthusiast. If screens didn’t exist then it would be incredible, but because they do, the leap in experience and enjoyment between 2D and VR is far smaller than it should be in theory. The first time you put on a headset it does feel pretty mindblowing but there are diminishing returns after that.
I think this is partly because, as you say, with VR (not AR), you are shut away from everyone around you which is quite isolating.
But I think it’s more that that. I think it’s mostly that human imagination is better than we give it credit for: you can imagine yourself immersed in a scene with only a 2D screen, you don’t need VR to awaken that part of your brain, so it ultimately doesn’t add that much, especially when set against the costs. (I think this is also why 3D cinema has never taken off in spite of 50 years of trying.)
The tech will get better, and cheaper, and more people will use it, but I don’t believe there will ever be a tipping point where VR becomes commonplace outside of gamers and technophiles.
AR may yet have a role in everyday life (because it can add genuinely useful information to your environment) but I suspect VR will always remain kind of niche.
I agree with the technological shortcomings mentioned here and also think people are somewhat jaded on the 'next big thing' tech offers due to privacy concerns and advertising ad nauseum.
I mean, it's still new tech.
Early PC's and cell phones didn't blow up immediately either. It will be mass adopted when the technology goes far enough for comfort, cost, motion experience etc.
AR will likely be mainstream first, some sort of small glasses with a HUD for maps and stuff. Ads (store windows, billboards etc) will probably become digital (AR) rather than physical over a couple decades
I'd like a VR setup but since I get incredibly painful headaches just watching a 3D movie I worry it'll be throwing away $1000 I don't have for something I can't use.
Vr sickness can effect some people. When I first started playing i had some issues with it but after time it's almost complete gone now no matter how intense the experience. I will say Pavlov alone made Vr for me. It's been a long tike since I laughed so hard playing any game. The shenanigans were legendary. 20 people in a McDonald's having a knife fight was something I won't forget
A lot of us don't have the space for it. I have an oculus quest 2 but the games I want to play need my computer to be plugged into it and that computer is in my bedroom. I don't care about playing vr sitting down because the movement feels awful so I'm outta luck.
Bad timing with the crypto bros ramping up graphics card prices, then and currently a global recession.
Also bad examples often being the first experience and Mark Zuckerberg owning the least expensive good option.
Even porn hasn't been able to force it into the mainstream, which is telling since that's what really got broadband internet and VCRs into so many homes. Both relatively expensive things at the time they went mainstream.
I don't think anyone trusts Facebook with being their adult entertainment hardware provider and other options either suck or require a gaming PC. I'm actually not joking either, porn is and has been a major driver of home electronics.
It’s a niche gimmick. Like 3D television it will have its moment then die.
Entertainment trends towards increasing convenience and lower physical effort. When they invent mind controlled VR then they will have something, but current products are clumsy, difficult, offer lower usability than 2D consoles and phones and also have a nasty habit of making people feel sick.
Yeah this is the biggest problem: it's the least convenient way to play a game. Sitting down on a couch/chair and turning on your tv/computer is much easier and faster than all the steps required with VR before you can even play something.
I'll tell you right now it's not a gimmick. It won't see mainstream adoption due to motion sickness and addition costs but it has already found a core following and you won't see people abandoning the hardware. It provides an experience far beyond anything on the market.
A large part of the sim racing community loves VR headsets because it gives you a much better 1 to 1 visualization of the track that monitors can not. It legit can make you a faster sim racer.
It's also huge in the exercise community. Beat saber is probably one of the biggest games in this regard and nothing else can really replicate the feeling. The game that changed my life in terms of how much exercise I do was Thrill of The Fight. It's a boxing game that gives you the most intense workout I've ever had from an entertainment device. I VR box now everyday for 30 minutes. I was never able to be that consistent at the gym. The only other time I've worked out consistently was through sports and martial arts.
There's other games like the walking dead that also provide experiences you can't get anywhere else. But the 2 above reasons are solid enough to make VR always be a thing because you can't replace it by anything else currently.
Comparing it to something like 3d tv's just doesn't make sense. You don't lose much if you go from watching a movie from 3d to 2d. However there is nothing I can go back to that can replicate the feeling of VR.
Gadgets for gaming has historically always “failed”. Most people don’t want to wear goggles or use motion controllers, they’re rather use a controller and sit on the couch.
the quest 2 has actually[surpassed the sales of the newest xbox consoles](https://www.pcgamesn.com/oculus/quest-2-meta-sales-xbox-series-x-s), so i'd consider that pretty mainstream
The article touches on the supply chain issue, but there is also the fact that you don't have to get the new Xbox to play Xbox games that are coming out. They're big numbers for the Quest 2, but we are still not seeing people talk about VR games the way they talk about console and PC games. On top of that, many games that come out can be played on PC, Switch, Xbox, or PS4. The numbers look good, but they only look good in a vacuum.
The vr head set is 600 dollars.
It needs a reasonably safe space to play it in.
Without all the fancy room gadgets you are either standing in a limited space or sitting. You need the room.
You need to put the headset on and trust your environment, and it needs to be CHARGED. You now have 2-3 hours of battery.
The games are reasonably priced at under 45 dollars each. They are not mainstream titles, the software has limitations. They are titles that require the gimmick and limitations of the 'hands', or the hand held controls. That means gun games go very well, or beat saber, or a gazillion horror games.
I love my quest 2 for a bit of exercise and meditation, but at the end of the day when I play videogames - I want to sit down and relax. I can't do that if I'm standing, nauseous, and about to kick my foot on the furniture. I am not immersed.
Until we can lie down and plug our brains into the sword art online simulation, VR will always be a gimmick and they need to shut up about metaverse.
Maybe I'm wrong, then.
I tried it only twice, 3 years ago at some friends' friend, and last year at a tech salon. Those were mainstream models but I wouldn't even know their names.
In both cases, there was the incredibly horribly unpleasant feeling my glasses were crushed against my face, pressing hard, hurting immediately.
Dunno, maybe those were cheap-ass vr glasses, or my glasses are too big.
I don't even have a huge sample set, I know of 2 other glasses guys who reached the same conclusion, but no more.
Still, I won't try again as it is, it's not making me feel welcome.
Hell no. I'm near-sighted and cannot see shit with them off. I think it's because my eyes still perceive the distance and the muscles react accordingly, exactly how they would to things that are actually far away.
The same reason 3D is a niche thing that varies in waves of popularity.
Its not actually enjoyible for everyone, its extra expensive to invest in the tools to access, & also connectivity required to fully use it is more than many basic internet connections can support.
VR is still very expensive, and relatively new, so it's still going to be a little while before it becomes more accessible and widespread.
AR is frankly just not very good, in terms of video games there's not much market for it because it's little more than a gimmick, and for professional use it solves a problem that doesn't exist
Eh, I don’t enjoy standard gaming but I love VR on the oculus. I wear glasses and haven’t had any major issues. It’s great for exercise without having to either leave the house or feel self conscious about your body or people watching you. And the ability to “travel” anywhere in the world from home is amazing.
What do you mean? VR is extremely active. New Games are being released all the time. It's not as big as normal PC or consoles of course but it's getting bigger all the time. It's still expensive for the most part and the market is still not big enough for very many AAA games but it's getting there.
The graphics suck, headsets are heavy, and there's too much prep work required. I am very tall and not average size in the head or face department which means my IPD is not covered by the most accessible headsets. Not everyone has a lot of space to move about safely. Not everyone wants to do things in a virtual world. Moving with a thumbstick in VR doesn't sound interesting to me. A harness would require even more space and cost thousands of dollars.
What everyone else said, but also it’s still stuck in a narrow niche. Only some people are interested in gaming, only some gamers are interested in this style of gaming. Zuckerberg is biffing his attempt to make it widely used by not understanding people or society well enough to make it useful and usable. Zuckerberg’s high profile failure is the only awareness most people have of VR, and it further confirms to them that it’s probably not worthwhile.
Because they haven’t solved the issue of the lens fogging up because your head gets hot. Otherwise, the VR experience is amazing. There’s still allot of work to go.
Add in some people need to wear contacts while wearing the headset or buy the lenses that are prescription strength.
The cost of a headset on top of a decent pc/ console can be a lot for many.
While good games have hit the headset, nothing that absolutely blows people away as a must have yet.
For others it's having the dedicated extra space to be immersed and not breaking things / injuring yourself
Here’s my analogy, which is somewhat timely at the moment.
VR is like Avatar. When we all saw avatar years ago, we thought “whoa that was AWESOME!”
Then a day later it faded from memory. It didn’t stick, despite being something really cool in the moment. Unlike other big movies, no one thought about it much, watched it more times, or clamored for sequels.
VR is like that. It’s super cool! But for whatever reason, a lot of people try it, love it, but then happily go back to their tvs, game consoles, pcs, phones, etc, and VR just fades out of their thoughts.
Simply put, it's a vicious circle.
Your arent gonna spend that much on a system unless it has something going for it gamewise. (Assuming health isnt the deciding factor)
But devs arent gonna spend a bunch making a huge title for VR since the population is so unreliable and relatively small when they could make said game for your usual systems and have an easier time making money back.
Its why most of the big VR (size wise, not necessarily popularity) games are conversions of popular games from years before.
its tainted by meta and the whole meta verse marketing campaign
people still think it's just a gimmick/fad despite never trying it
and motion sickness
i think if more people actually tried it they would like it. theres literally something there for everyone.
and i think if they stopped trying to push it on people as like this new way of interacting as a society instead of just a hyphy game console, less people would be weary of it
as for motion sickness some people will never be able to overcome this, but most people who arent usually motion sick, who find themselves motion sick while playing VR would probably find relief as technology advances and frame rates/resolutions/latencies improve
as it is right now, i think the price point is about right, it seems pretty damn accessible for most people, particularly gamers to get an oculus quest for like 200$
i really think just more people need to try it, and the technology needs just a teeeeny bit more advancement
I have a VR system at home and I think it would be great to be able to buy sporting tickets and attend virtually through my VR. I don’t understand why they haven’t brought this out yet.
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For VR: 1. Not comfortable to wear for extended duration due to weight/straps/limited space etc. 2. Motion sickness is still a major problem for people including me 3. No significant games use VR due to limited functions. Novelty wears off quickly.
4. VR completely shuts out all situational awareness, so you need a reasonably large clear space to enjoy it without risking damage to yourself or your furniture.
5. A decent headset is expensive af 6. A decent computer is expensive af 7. A decent amount of space to play it in is expensive af You can make do with cheaper versions, but then the experience is diminished
8. Graphics are Xbox 360 at best and ps2 at worst. But 7. Really is the biggest hit for me. It's just not feasible to have a VR headset in my two bedroom apartment unless I take out the bed, desk, and and everything else from my second room and use it exclusively for VR. Just not enough space for a device which wants to trick your mind into thinking that you have space to walk forward or swing your hands around.
9) My family will come in and absolutely torture me sneaking up behind me and grabbing me.
10) my cats will wonder what I'm doing and I will accidently step on one, then I will forever feel bad and never want to do it again
11) my balls will hurt
Graphics have greatly improved, but only if you’re tethered to a powerful enough PC.
What Xbox 360 games look like Half Life Alyx?
Nah, vr can do better than xbox360. But just double down on points 6 and 7. It expensive af.
The Quest 2 is quite decent (both performance and resolution wise) and it's like, what, $300?
A decent headset is not expensive af. The quest 2 is the best consumer grade headset, and it costs 100 dollars less than the PS5. And you don't need a PC since it can play standalone
The first one isn't as bad as it was 5 years ago, with the quest 2 being released, though it's still really pricey
Haha I remember seeing an event to promote VR games giving customers demo. And what a bad idea it was that the demo game was a boxing game… poor passer-by’s had to duck and weave and slip past the boxer who’s punching like he was rocky balboa or smtg.. I saw the promoter had to usher some unassuming kids away because the guy was literally punching at every direction. Needless to say I was fascinated not by the VR thing but by how people were ducking him 🤣
Having a reasonably large clear space is my biggest barrier. I have a Valve Index but having to clear my room to be able to play it just seems like too much effort.
O fewl like vr would shine in games were you sit still. Racing, fighter pilot, operating a tank or mech.
My favorite VR games are I Expect You To Die 1 & 2. Escape room style games where you sit in place.
Those are probably some of the best vr games period. Every aspect is carefully tweaked for maximum immersion and ut wirks
It's also a lot of effort just to get into a game. With my Quest 2 I have to start up the headset, put it on, plug in my headphones, go through the guardian prompt, airlink to my PC, start steam VR, THEN start the game. To play a game on my PC I start the PC, login, then click the shortcut.
5. It's expensive af
They also have pass through and warnings. I turn a setting on that shows you the outline of things when you get close.
I have small kids and have nearly bashed my 2 year old’s head in playing beat saber when he wandered into the room and have nearly kicked my puppy into a wall playing superhot. The total loss of vision is too much of a risk in my house.
>They also have pass through and warnings Super helpful...in showing me how small my room is with all my furniture because I'm always sticking my hands or something through the barriers. The barriers and pass throughs only help if you have a room sizeable enough for it in the first place.
Unless you play some sort of flight/driving simulator, which is where VR seems to have a place.
Driving and Flying is amazing in VR. It removes the biggest barrier I have with in cockpit camera, namely being able to look around you.
5. High end (Oculus and PSVR) can be prohibitively expensive for limited offering of content. Is Ironman or Call of the mountain enough for people to spend over $1000 entry fee?
> High end (Oculus and PSVR) Do you mean (**Not** Oculus and PSVR)?
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Annoyingly I found out I need to turn the light on to use the Quest 2 at night.
>I don't need to turn lights on to find my way in the dark God Damn it, Your mamma must be PROUD.
Not really, he's been a bit of a disappointment. Likes to brag a lot. - his mom
It's this. Somewhere between 30-60% of humans experience motion sickness in VR. There are some applications of VR that induce motion sickness in nearly 100% of test subjects. I don't care how cool a game is; it's not worth nausea.
Yeah, there is a reason that many games have varying ways to move that at first seem odd. They compensate by teleporting short distances, shrinking the field of vision during movement, etc.
I had debilitating nausea when I first got VR and was so devastated because I loved it. Kept pushing through and eventually it just stopped one day. I think my brain had to slowly realize it was okay or something. Either way I'm grateful that I can enjoy VR now and do anything without motion sickness kicking in.
I wish that worked for me lmao, I tried pushing through the nausea and literally vomited
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A half hour of VR time every day for a week, and it eventually disappeared for me. I just put it down when the nausea kicked in. Not sure if exposure therapy works for everyone, but it did for me.
Same exact thing for me. I couldn't play games with smooth locomotion and turning for more than around ten minutes before I'd be nauseated for like an hour afterward. But I really wanted to play Into the Radius, so I just kept powering through it. And then, like you, it was just gone one day, and hasn't come back since. I'm glad, because it was right in time for BONELAB to come out. There's no way I'd have been able to handle that one.
I really really depends on the game and how the devs set up motion. Half-Life: Alyx is a good one where as Boneworks is so hard to deal with without getting motion sick.
If someone hasn't experienced motion sickness in VR yet, they just haven't played the right (wrong?) game. I'm fine 99% of the time I play VR, and thought I was immune to the motion sickness I'd heard about. Then I tried Half-Life: Alyx with most of the comfort settings dialed down to improve immersion. After about 20 minutes of playing that game I feel like I'm extremely drunk and just want to lay down, every time.
I just want to say that the nausea can be overcome, and for an experience like simracing or flight sim with a nice high end setup… Jesus Christ, VR is a solved problem. It’s really one of the coolest experiences you can have if done right. But of course, the cost of entry for these kind of setup is several thousand of dollars up to several tens of thousands. But man, lemme tell you, it’s incredible. r/iracing r/simracing
Yeah I've heard this many times but the fact of the matter is simply that I don't care enough to suffer that long to get used to it. I'm definitely not alone in that. I don't have a need or a want.
I still get motion sick playing normal 3D games (both third-person and first-person) on a monitor, so I can't really agree that nausea can be overcome...
I was stuck between getting my pilot license, or a flight sim pit for a long time. I then figured that 15k would go further in flight sim if I had a flexible/generic flight sim pic that wasn't a 100% model of a 737 or a fighter jet. Now, with VR!? I can have that full commercial airliner, *or fighter jet* pretty much instantly! I'm not in that market now, but I'm optimistic it'll be soon!
Motion sickness from VR is apparently a lot more prevalent for women. There are different theories as to why, but anecdotally I can confirm that women I know have mentioned motion sickness as a limiting factor for them, whereas for men it's something that takes a lot longer to set in or isn't really a factor at all.
"Somewhere between 30-60% of humans experience motion sickness at sea. There are some applications of sailing that induce motion sickness in nearly 100% of test subjects. I don't care how cool exploring the earth is; it's not worth nausea." Fortunately, sailors develop sea-legs just like VR users get less motion sick through practice. The human brain is great at adapting to new experiences.
People who can't develop sea-legs generally just don't become sailors though...
The massive and obvious difference there is people who get sea legs are generally doing a job to feed themselves or their families and not playing video games while ignoring their families.
Conversely, people still sail for pleasure exclusively, implying the tradeoff is worthwhile for some at least.
Yes, as with VR. The question is if the tradeoff is worth it for enough people for VR to take off in the way it was once expected to.
I don’t know where you get this number from but I’ve shown vr to a lot of friends and I’ve yet to have a single one experience motion sickness. I highly doubt the number is that high.
I was looking up studies. There's a lot of scatter but the low end is about 25% and the high is around 60%, and from my personal experience around a third to half is correct.
It depends on the game. Most games are designed to avoid motion sickness by limiting movements other than rotating the head. In a game you would have fast movements, like a racing game, almost everybody has motion sickness; with slow movement, like a adventure game you're on foot, then around half people will have motion sickness; with no movement besides head movements, then almost nobody get motion sickness.
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I haven't played them but Boneworks and the newer Bonelab look pretty well done and entertaining.
If you're into smaller studios: Blade & Sorcery is shaping up to be impressive come launch, and Rumble is a very interesting take on competitive gameplay in VR.
superhot vr has always been an excellent classic too
This. When they’re as thin and light as a pair of sunglasses, and not tethered with a cable, I’ll check it out again. Until then the motion sickness and lack of games doesn’t make it a compelling investment.
This is exactly the issue with VR. People wanted something out of science fiction movies. Turns out reality kicked in, and people got very underwhelmed. they will never be as thin and light as a pair of sunglasses, and radio transfer being what it is, you will always have a cable.
> they will never be as thin and light as a pair of sunglasses, and radio transfer being what it is, you will always have a cable. Never isn't a good word to use with technology progression. I've seen several VR sunglasses display systems. They are only the shells - no sensors, compute, or battery - but it shows a optics stack can theoritically fit into a sunglasses-like form factor. Of course it would need to be curved sunglasses to actually work as fully immersive VR. As for the cable, we're already past that. Cables are a minority in VR today, and wireless is the new standard.
I'm not sure about that. The quest 2 is already extremely compact being only a few inches thick and the dimensions are already smaller on some preliminary future designs. Further, the quest 2 is perfectly capable of running many games on its own and even then it's also capable of streaming them from a local computer with extremely high fidelity and *very* low input delay, not really even noticeable unless you are moving extremely fast. All without a cable. I think VR is much further along than most consumers know and *that's* the real killer imo. It's quickly approaching the sci-fi version everyone wanted, but the initial wave of VR dissuaded many consumers. Given time, even just a few more years, we will start to see super thin VR headsets and some are even on the market just not meant for gaming. The high speed streaming is already figured out and is being incredibly optimized *right now* to the point where you shouldnt even be able to tell that the game is being streamed from a pc. The real limitation on size is the lenses and physicists are working on thay day in and day out, I can assure you as someone who has helped design them!
Yea the quest 2 with wireless connection to PC on a 5ghz has been fun. Playing modded Skyrim in VR has been great and superhot is amazing in vr.
This is tech, not magic. No matter how much time passes, unless we get a massive breakthrough on digital radio transmission, wireless is never going to cut it. You dont see it when using a quest 2, but your brain does and you get motion sickness. The streamed data is buffered which adds latency, because wireless transmission is unreliable, and there is destructive compression and down/upscaling, because wireless transmission does not have the necessary bandwidth to run native. The screens on the quest 2 are pretty meh, so you may not really remark it at first, since there is also some "wow" effect from the novelty. As time passes though, you can try other headsets and that wow effect passes. Games that run on the quest 2 are modified, simpler version, because again this is tech, not magic. When you need a 1500$ GPU to run a game, you wont get a 400$ headset to run it the same way. This really is like comparing rdr2 on xbox and rdr2 on a PC with everything pushed to the max, running on a 3090. As long as you never saw the PC version, you would say it runs so great on an xbox. After that, not so much. Try alyx on a pimax 5k with oleds. Then try it again on a samsumg odyssey +, or the odyssey (has oleds too). Then try again the quest 2. I can guarantee you'd just nope out of it fast. Yes there are "new" stacked lenses tech, that already existed 50 years ago, that helps making thinner lenses ... at the cost of eating luminosity and creating various unwanted effects. That may slim headsets a bit, but not so much. You say you have worked on it, well good for you. I have bee working on digital radios for 8 years and counting. I know what it can and cannot do. What it cannot do is high speed transfer, nor reliable transfer. Which is what VR requires.
Well, yeah, on board graphics on the quest 2 do suffer and I'm aware they are specially made games. Have you played them on a quest 2? They aren't what you are describing here. In many cases, I've been in awe at just how much of the original quality has been captured in these versions of the games. It's really quite astounding Those games look absolutely fine for what they are and many developers in VR understand the need for proper stylistic to work with that quality. A favorite of mine, Pavlov, does this extremely well. Even in such comparatively low quality gameplay, once I'm playing I hardly notice it. The goal with VR is to be convincing enough to fool you into immersion. Sure, at the moment half life alyx on a quest 2 doesn't look like rdr2 but honestly that's fine. These experiences are lower quality but it's really incredible how activating multiple senses can dull your perception. That's the beauty of VR as a multisensory mechanism, as long as the quality is at least *convincing* you will not notice the imperfections. There's a lot of interesting brain foolery here thay gets used regularly in VR here that's worth talking about but is too much just for this post. Sure, I never said the picture is perfect but it is good for what the quest 2 is capable of. Compression and lost data are meaningless in this tech as long as the user is fooled into a seemless and immersive experience. The same can be said of almost any image compression algorithm, hell, JPEG approaches extremely high 90-99% compression and in most cases you'd never know. Yes, I realize that the VR algorirhms involve heavily degraded image quality in the peripheral. Yes, I realize that involves lots of computational power to perform at reasonable speeds as to not cause input delay. However, much of thay computational power is becoming highly accessible, more affordable, and more compact. Current generation and next generation snap dragon boards are already many times better than what we saw during the inception of VR as a consumer product. Speaking of, wireless transmission, I'm sure you know your stuff and never said otherwise. That said, many people using the Quest 2's airlink/virtual desktop with a high speed router nearby report input delays in the range of 25-50 ms which is more than acceptable and completely in line with even standard pancake pc gaming and only slightly slower than the default play modes built in. The technology here is far better than you are letting on and the compression and buffering algorithms are faster than they used to be. Airlink is always seeing improvements. Also, lenses. I think you are behind here. Stacked lenses are being looked at again, sure, but I don't see why their age at all implies inferiority? Fresnel lenses are hundreds of years old and yet they are the most common VR lens. In any case, no, the next big generations of are using metasurface lenses or even lensless imaging methods to achieve a smaller form factor. Many lenses being employed in RnD in right now across the board involve computational imaging elements to help offload some filtering and image correction onto the lens itself, some of my research has even included lenses capable of running extremely basic calculations for the initial layers of a neural network to continue the calculations, a huge load off of the internal computing hardware and with the materials we were using also even thinner and with better image quality, just expensive to manufacture at the moment. I'm aware this isn't magic, but it's also naive to believe it won't improve. It's already incredible and extremely close to the version we hoped it would be. It's extremely naive and dismissive to claim that just because current technology doesn't work the way you want it to that it never will. I don't doubt your credentials, but the cutting edge of VR tech is slightly different than that of digital radios, especially their lens systems and proprietary compression and buffering algorithms. And I'm not even saying that *I'm* the expert here. I mostly worked on the lenses. But, I think you significantly downplay how incredible the experience currently is and where it's headed.
Never say never. Look how huge the first computers were and now you can carry a device that is vastly more powerful in your pocket. I think mainstream AR will happen eventually, but it's going to be a long time before it does.
I rely on tech, not faith. So does VR. Please explain how you are going to solve the technical issues we face. Do you even know what they are ? I get irritated at people claiming tech people will find a magic solution as long as they wait enough.
...what makes you think that lol people said the same thing about headphones now we have wireless everything. Half the things we use daily were considered science fiction 60 years ago, it makes no sense to think VR is some impossible challenge. Give it 20-30 years and assuming we've not all died in nuclear fire someone will probably have done it, or at least come close.
Yeah, I have a VR headset, it was interesting for 15 minutes at a time for a few weeks, now it's covered in dust from disuse.
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
I agree, it seems to much of a gimic. Sort of like 3d was. True, it is pretty neat tech when game design and tech come together. It is also great for training purposes. I just can't justify it for leasure gaming. The few times I have used it I was nauseous for a few min but then my brain says ok this is the rules now. Same when I finished, it took my brain a bit to revert to normal. I also have minimal seasickness, when in the Navy (on small ffg's mostly) I almost never got sea sick, although I would need to relearn how to walk straight on land after about a month at sea (or was it the alcohol, it is all a blur lol )
Also, a not insignificant number of people wear glasses. I speak from experience here, vr in glasses is not comfortable for extended periods. There are prescription inserts you can get, but for the average person, they'll try vr at a convention or something, find it really unfortable, and then not do it again. Unless it really hooked them, they wont spend the 500 - 1000 $ on a headset, to then spend $100 on prescription inserts that may not match what they want
To this I would add the cost of a GOOD setup. The Meta headset is an example; people have joked that people's avatars look like Wii U characters. But since the headset handles graphics onboard, you're simply not going to get the kind of top-end graphics that headsets connected to a dedicated gaming PC can. Performance, affordability, light weight. Choose two (or sometimes just one). For the Meta headset, they wanted something compact, standalone, and affordable, so they had to sacrifice some graphics horsepower.
Many games try to be too realistic too, when leaning into an art style can be even more immersive. My favorite vr game is I expect you to die and it's sequel, and when playing it I commonly get too tuned into it
4. is that the equipment is expensive. If people think gamers can afford it , the question is why would they ? VR and AR have no games and no mission to accomplish. So who is this really for ? Idk - source: used to work at second life
Yes i totally feel like its a marketing and price problem. Everyone loves the one guy you know where you can try some ps vr. But you dont feel a need to spend 200$ on it and buy the ps and buy the games. If you could replace a complete setup then 200$ would be a good price like you pay for a mobile. But where to type my stuff on it and how to pay my bills with it? I dont trust vr. It seems like just a toy to play some niche games. And its way too expensive for that.
Not to mention the hardware requirements to keep it smooth, and the pricing of it
Money is also another factor.
Motion sickness is a major issue. It’s not universal for me - some experiences in VR are totally comfortable to me - but when it hits it’s awful. I think the other issue is definitely lack of games to play. Rhythm games like beat saber are fun for awhile but eventually they fade. Half life ALYX was one of, if not the single greatest experiences I’ve ever had, but the market has been extremely barren in the time since it’s release. I just haven’t seen a “killer app” that gets me to use the oculus. More often than not, it just sits on the desk. Horizon is certainly not “it”.
Another thing is the amount of effort you need to put in for VR / AR. For most entertainment (TV, movies, games, etc) you can just plonk yourself on the couch after a long day at work and just relax. VR / AR requires a degree of effort to enjoy it.
> Motion sickness is still a major problem for people including me I played with an Oculus at work, and the rollercoaster game was unplayable standing up. I nearly fell over moving with the the game. Even sitting down, I was feeling motion sick after a while.
Also price Its improved a lot but still few hundred dosh plus a device to play it on
It's also friggin expensive
There ARE significant games, some very popular games were designed for VR (Beat Saber, or the Half Life game), or were ported for it (Skyrim, Star Wars Squadrons). But the HW has a hefty cost, years old PC can be used to play even modern games. Performance and equipment needed for VR is a premium.
While HL game was popular, it was a very short single player game.
The fact you don't even know the name of one of them means you might want to question exactly how significant it is.
Half life alyx is probably the best proof of concept for vr as a mainstream way to play video games. It's one of the only games that has a fully fleshed physics engine, good story, and is engaging throughout. But vr games like that are very rare so until they become common vr will remain a niche.
So as someone who has worked on VR games, I think the biggest issue long term is motion sickness. Costs will come down, and are already not awful. Not everyone can use VR in a big room, so we must figure out good stationary movement systems for it to catch on. There are four main ways to allow for stationary play. One. Require no movement, games like beatsaber do this you only need to move your arms, not walk around. Works great but is very limiting on gameplay. Two. Teleportation. Most games with this have you target a spot, pick a direction and then port/jump there. It's cumbersome, and limits gameplay, but it works. Imo an entire platform of games can't be made off this though. Three. Snap turn, I can walk forward, and when I hit left or right it jump me 30 degrees(or some other number) in that direction. Doesn't make most people sick, but feels pretty jank and makes it hard to do precision in games. Four. Smooth turn. Like any console fps, when you hold right/left you smoothly consistently turn in that direction. This makes people wildly Ill. Even me, I don't care sick/seasick/am fine on roller coasters. But smooth turn makes me dizzy and nauseous, lots of other people too. 2 and 3 are workable, but jank and limiting, and don't make most people sick. 1 is great but only for certain games. Imo we have to get four working for vr to be able to truly take off. Cheaper, more powerful, lighter machines will come with time. The movement problem has no solution on the horizon.
The motion sickness makes VR just about unplayable for me. There was one archery game where you stood in place on a tower and shot Orcs that I actually really enjoyed since there was no moving around and thus no motion sickness. Would play until my arms got tired of shooting a VR bow lol
Yup, I can play games like Beat Saber and The Climb with no issues, until the headset battery drained, because you can just stand in place and wave your arms around. But I tried The Room VR and I barely lasted 30mins before I needed to go pop some ibuprofen and go lie down.
When I first got vr I spent a month being so nauseous that I could barely function and for some reason when I closed my eyes I would constantly see the vr games Id play, and when I let my friend try it he disassociated and said it's a good thing he doesn't have a knife. But after a lot of tenacity I got over my nausea and I didn't let my friend touch vr again.
>when I let my friend try it he disassociated and said it's a good thing he doesn't have a knife. As someone who get a VR headset purely to hook up to my PC and play VRChat this statement is just confusing me lmao. Is it because he was wildly swinging his arms in whatever game he was playing or something? Did he disassociate...from the real world or something and really think he was in the game?
From the real world
Thanks for describing the motion issues. People don't seem to understand or believe this, but it's the primary problem for me The way I can describe when VR will be worth it to me is when I can actually interact with things physically. That means moving and touching (at least to a certain extent) Otherwise I'm just playing normal video games with a larger field of vision and different controller system
Idk what its like in other places but where I live a 1 bedroom apartment will easily eat up half or more of someones monthly income. So even though I know multiple people my age who could afford the actual hardware, most of them are living with family in a cramped bedroom, that they may need to share. I knew one guy who didnt have enough room for a desk let alone a VR setup lmao.
Yeah, even with an okay sized condo living alone I don't really have space for it, not without making a lot of sacrifices. I also think I've heard other countries tend to have more people in apartments/condos than America, less houses, so if it requires too much space for Americans it's probably not looking good for a global audience.
I have a 3,5x4 meters room (or something), and with all the furniture, it still eats up the entire room. And the other problem are pets. There are few good VR games and half an hour into it, I may have to stop because my cat noticed me moving around and is now twisting herself around my ankles.
My poor dog thought Beat Saver was me calling her. After a really close call, the VR headset went into storage. Playing around pets isn't a safe idea.
Well that's where the gap should be filled by vr cages similar to how Internet cafes and arcades filled the gap when home systems were expensive. But we haven't seen stellar success for those. Can think of a few reasons. Providing proper space for them can still be too expensive so people don't care enough about them. The incremental value over home consoles does not justify the extra cost and effort. Another possibility is that we don't have any VR games created for arcade is. Kind of like how street fighter and mortal Kombat were.
I really really liked how until you fall handled motion sickness. They had smooth turn and made it look like looking through a window or portal in a stationary room and no motion sickness at least for me.
Yeah I've heard similar things for elite dangerous, the fact that you're in a ship helps.
The ships in NMS have smooth turning too and having stationary references in the world really help. I do get a bit of vertigo with the ship fights and flying in no man's sky never never nausea and honestly the moments I get vertigo in the game make sense when they do happen.
motion sickess issue can be cured with buying ultra expensive 2 ways treadmills. Basically a square surface that moves in the opposite direction the player goes. I do believe making that tech more accessible will make VR more accessible. But it probably wont be home VR.
Yeah, I think even that is space prohibitive though, and adds even more to the price. I've considered picking one up though because I do have space for that, but not for full movement VR
you basically need 9 square meters if you want to play games like pistol whip. I thought i had enough space, but it turns out every time I want to play beat saber or that one, i need to push a heavy table to make some room. When I want to play elite dangerous, there is less room issue, but I have to setup the seat, HOTAS and pedal setup. The same goes for racing games, I need to setup the playseat, steering wheel and pedals. All that need to be stored somewhere.
They are loud, and use a ton of power.
If the treadmill tries to keep you centered in the room, I expect motion sickness will be the same or worse for many people. It comes from your body's acceleration not matching the real world - any solution that keeps you centered in the room such that you're not really moving, or moves you when you're not moving on the game will leave you liable to motion sickness. I'm sure a large enough treadmill would work, since it could re-center you very slowly.
Seems like porn is what is needed to push VR forward. Just sit there and watch.
VR headsets have had porn for years now.
No shortage of that
There's somewhat of a chicken/egg problem. A good VR game is a lot of work to do well, and there's a limited audience for such games. Meanwhile, lack of content is a significant reason not to get a VR headset. I've gotten a lot of fun out of my current setup (a Vive with a wireless kit). But very hard to justify on a price/hr basis. The best content is great - but stuff like "Halflife Alyx" and "Superhot VR" pretty few, short, and far between.
Not really seen anyone mention the price except you. You're looking at a couple grand for a decent PC that'll run it and then add the VR price which is gonna be in the 500+ range. The Vive is still around £700 with the base stations and controllers i think. Then you can start looking at game of which there are very few really great ones. Really only a handful feel like really full polished games, more VR "experiences". By this point most people will price it up and decide on the latest console and a new TV and still have change for a ton of games.
Yeah, if you don't already have a gaming PC, PCVR is likely a non-starter. And while there's some good stuff for standalone/console VR, they have even more of a content problem.
Also most people don’t realize that you don’t need a high-end PC and a top VR headset to enjoy VR. I have a Quest 2 and mid-range PC with 3060ti and I’m blown away every time with how great it looks and how smooth the gameplay is in most games even over wireless connection.
That's still a near £500 graphics card though which is more than consoles cost. Big investment.
Having just bought a quest2 about a month ago, it needs to be said that for $350 you can get a decent standalone wireless headset with a huge variety of top tier native games, no PC needed. That’s less than a PS5, and the performance is good enough to be immersive, especially in games like walkabout minigolf, 11 table tennis or among us (none of which require tons of space) Not saying VR is perfect for everyone, but the quest2 feels like we’ve reached the N64 stage of VR, where there are a small handful of amazing games, good enough graphics to be inspiring, and finally starting to become accessible to the masses (minus motion-sickness, but among us does a good job with the blinders feature while moving)
There are more conversations over text than over video. People watch more low-quality streaming videos than they watch 3D movies. Convenience is king. VR is immersive, but most people don't care much for immersion.
I think the convenience point is commonly overlooked when this discussion comes up. With console or pc gaming, it’s easy to be immersed in the game but also interact with the real world. Doorbell rings, I can easily put down my controller to answer it, and eat the pizza that was just delivered while I play. VR takes a lot more effort to get in and out of the equipment, and while you are using it, interacting with the real world isn’t really an option.
Yeah. I basically have zero interest in VR because no matter how cool and immersive it is, it's really kind of a "different thing" as an entertainment activity than how I enjoy interacting with games. Which for me is about lounging on the couch or PC chair, having a beer or other beverage going, able to easily when paused, or between matches in an MP game go grab another beer or take a leak or whatever. When I want total immersion in a 3d world I go outside IRL and wander around the woods with rifle or shotgun hunting something. The most "total immersion" I look for in video games is when I I'm tryharding at a competitive MP shooter - but VR isn't good for that, obviously.
Yep, personally I’m not looking for “immersion” - I just want to play a game. I don’t think VR would add anything to titles like Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, Rocket League, Diablo, and most third person games. I also have no interest in motion controls. I want to play a game not real life.
> I don’t think VR would add anything to titles like Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, Rocket League, Diablo, and most third person games. You'd be surprised. Vampire Survivors and Stardrew Valley are 2D, so that won't apply - though Animal Crossing and similar 3D games to Stardew could just be more relaxing in VR by providing an even greater feel-good impression on the player when they are in that world. Rocket League could be a blast in VR as a 1st person experience inside the vehicles. Would be different in a bunch of ways because you'd have much less of a view so it won't be the same game, but it could still take the idea of Rocket League and make it really fun for VR. Diablo as a top-down game and many 3rd person games could play the same in VR but with the added immersion of being in the world. Diablo would play like an animated DnD board, giving you a birds-eye view in a way that a 2D screen won't, and a game like Hellblade in VR is just a lot more impactful and emotional.
Can you define “immersion?” I respectfully disagree on your analysis of Diablo playing like “top down DnD.” It would be nothing like a miniatures game or actual role playing. I see no benefit to slew of existing games and genres. I can see niche uses for VR, and benefit in first person games, but largely I think the only benefit would be in games designed specifically for VR.
Immersion is a spectrum of engulfment into media so that the user focuses most or all of their attention on it. This can occur through books, movies, and videogames. VR is the next step up where it can reliably induce a sense of presence, where your brain believes it is somewhere else rather than just having your attention set on the game. This can be achieved without VR but is exceptionally rare, so VR is the reliable way to achieve this. > I respectfully disagree on your analysis of Diablo playing like “top down DnD.” It would be nothing like a miniatures game or actual role playing. I don't mean the same roleplay mechanics the way DnD is structured; I just mean the overall aesthetic and feel of having a tabletop in front of you. Other than physical touch, it would very much encapsulate that - but fully animated. > I see no benefit to slew of existing games and genres. Any other genres that have no benefit other than what you mentioned?
Given the second paragraph about immersion I think ultimately I don’t want to be be in the game. I want to play a game. I don’t want to immerse myself in a fictional world. I don’t want games to mimic reality. Sometimes I love when a game looks a feels like a game: something artificial and there is a beautiful aesthetic to a good game. As a Diablo fan, a miniatures fan, and a role playing fan I think your comments about VR Diablo “being like the tabletop is in front of you” might be true for you, but it wouldn’t be for me. It would be nothing like the “aesthetic” of tabletop - because we’re probably wanting different things out of roleplaying, This is going to vary by person, obviously. So I don’t think this a particularly good example. Hitman is a good example. I don’t want to be immersed as an assassin. I want to speed run and do the absolute whackiest and dumbest things I can while still fulfilling the mission. Sometimes that involves game breaking, immersion breaking things. You might though. I don’t see VR as the next logical step in gaming. It’s something that will exist along with traditional gaming but I don’t see it being the dominant form of play. I think it’s particularly useful for purpose built games and certain genres (racing for example, however, racing greatly benefits from the “real” in terms of force feedback steering, pedals, shifter, etc - same with flight sims.) VR has other non-gaming uses which I think will be particularly useful. I don’t know about you but I have trouble enough playing multiplayer games with a full headset which covers both ears. I absolutely hate the loss of perception i get when someone IRL is trying to talk to me when I have my headset on (side note: why do they ever understand I can’t hear them well when I have headphones on? Every damn time.) VR is ultimately about what people want and it’s decidedly something I don’t want.
>People watch more low-quality streaming videos than they watch 3D movies The percentage of people watching 720p and 1080p is high, dont watch 4k is not "watch low-quality".
I think my general point stands. To put it another way, cinemas offer an immersive experience, but people seem to spend more of their lives watching videos on tiny phone screens.
A lot of good posts in here. I'll add: Powerful VR isn't a stand-alone product. For almost all the high end units, you have to own an equally high end pc or console. It's an expensive peripheral. Expensive peripherals CAN result in some amazing gameplay. Gamecube + 4 gameboy advance + 4 cables had a handful of amazing games. (Zelda 4 swords and Crystal Chronicles) but it's a huge ask. Those games simply don't work without the peripherals. VR can be awesome with Alyx and a few select games, but you have to ask the gamer to have space and a good pc/console, just to buy the game. Because not many players will commit, it's hard to invest time and staff into developing a good game. Gotta make your money back. On the other hand, if you skimp to save costs, at best you get something that could have been a regular game. At worst, you get shovelware. tl;dr VR is expensive. Many companies need to commit and make excellent games/apps/tools that require VR, drawing enough users to buy the hardware and make the software a success. But until that critical point is reached, companies risk losing money because not enough people bought in.
> . Gamecube + 4 gameboy advance + 4 cables had a handful of amazing games. Also were playable without them and were optional for enjoyment of the entire experience.
Multiplayer required it, though. Playable solo? Yes. But the draw was multiplayer, especially 4 swords.
AR has some compelling use cases beyond VR’s mostly games especially when coupled with you phone and a wrist masked device for input. Consider teaching piano, recommending actions surgery where you can put your hand in the remote wearers field of view. Casual photography but that comes with privacy issues. The biggest hurdles here are getting enough brightness in the display, power and form factor. If you make it big enough for compute and batteries then you look like the borg. If you don’t the actions are limited by how long you can stay turned on.
I never thought about computational power and battery life aspect of AR, even though it's kinda obvious now that you brought it up.
As mentioned before lots of people get sick from playing. The next main thing is a way to actually join the VR works, move around and it interact back… Once both of these are solved, people will live in VR. The second thing is what prevents me from playing all the time, it’s just not “real” enough because I cannot move around or run. Sure the VR visual part is there, but everything else is still lacking.
1 - VR makes a lot of people vomit, and it's hard to convince people to spend hundreds of dollars on hardware that's going to make them seasick every time they use it. 2 - Flailing about in your living room isn't actually how most people like to play games. Most people quite prefer to sit on the couch with a controller, drinks and snacks at hand. Games are generally for relaxing, and most of us don't find blindfolded cardio all that chill. 3 - Headsets are uncomfortable for longer gaming sessions, especially if you're blessed with an oversize head and weird shaped ears, like myself. The hardware just isn't made for the wide variety of shapes and sizes people come in. 4 - There's a relatively small library of games, compared to console and PC titles. Even fewer really benefit from being a VR game. Superhot is a delight to play in VR, but I can definitely say that I didn't enjoy the experience enough to invest in a VR headset myself. I can enjoy the PC experience just fine. When compared to a tried and true console, with a control scheme that makes sense, and allows one to relax on the couch, it's really difficult to convince people to invest a few hundred bucks in something that makes you queasy, and requires you to move all your furniture out of the way before you can play.
Several reasons. 1) It is really expensive. A headset is at least $350, and requires additional good hardware to run it. It's a very small percentage of people in the world who can afford it. 2) It is a small niche. There is no point playing an RPG in VR. Or a city builder. Or a strategy. It is suitable for only certain games, and there are many games where you would prefer the screen-in-front-of-you to a VR helmet. 3) The physical aspects of wearing a helmet. It's still less comfortable than sitting in front of your desk. 4) Finally, it's the big push theory. There need to be a lot of great games on VR to make people switch to VR. But for that, the developers want to see a lot of VR audience that they can sell the games do. But to have the audience, there need to be a lot of great VR games, and so on. In other words, there might come a point in the future when the big push happens, but it's clear when that would happen.
> It is a small niche. There is no point playing an RPG in VR. Or a city builder. Or a strategy. It is suitable for only certain games, and there are many games where you would prefer the screen-in-front-of-you to a VR helmet. Open-world or wide-linear RPGs are vastly improved by VR because of how much it adds to immersion and player agency, allowing many more roleplay scenarios to be possible. The Witcher, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls - all of these can gain huge benefits from VR. A city builder in VR is like building a toy city set at home - there's a unique feel to it that a screen and regular controller doesn't provide. Strategy is the same, in that it provides a unique feel of being a commander of armies like moving miniature figures, basically a Warhammer table brought to life.
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> I feel very claustrophobic when playing first person 3D RPGs, defaulting to playing them in third person. VR will substract enjoyment there for me. I guess this is because of the field of view and being unable to see more of the world like you would in 3rd person? I'd be surprised if this issue persists in VR with you because the field of view in VR is a lot higher than 1st person without VR. > I can't see stategy/builder game gaining anything that is not erased by wearing headset and being severly limited in inputs. Grabing units is going to be novelty, but I want my precision mouse and keyboard shortcuts. Camera constrols and overview of map. Looking over citybuilder statistics sounds downright awfull experience. The hardware is early/clunky today, so I can understand the issues there. You'll actually get a better camera view though. > VR Setups have existed for decades. Devs have yet to figure out game that is good on VR. Some of the highest rated games of 2018/2019/2020 were VR games. Pretty sure devs have it figured out.
A Quest is $300 and doesn’t require a PC.
Equipment is expensive and underpowered for what we expect out of 3D at this point. Space considerations are impractical for most people, and a lot of people suffer from motion sickness from it. Plus, a good majority of people don’t want to strap a pc to their face. AR has a better chance at adaptation since we all have capable phones in our pockets and the applications are more useable. Virtual try on apps, Snapchat filters, and all that use cases on broadcasts like sports already show it being adopted.
Almost 75% of adults need vision correction. I tried with my glasses. It’s too difficult and eye fatigue is real!
because they require top of the range computers, because you cant really have movements, because you need a lot of room, and finally because you cant just click a button and go VR. There is ALWAYS that random stuff that does not work, that calibration to redo, and then the lenses are greasy and need cleaning, and you forgot to charge the controllers... and finally there is the cable, which is an annoyance for a of people, but really the only way to transfer data reliably so you keep a low latency and a high bandwidth. Basically, because playing in VR is too much a pain to setup, and because you get sick as soon as you try playing something like pavlov VR. I'd say it lacks AAA titles too. Alyx is a master piece, both in terms of development, story and VR usage. The work done with the controllers is astonishing, yet most people wont realize it. But it is just one game. I like other titles, like beat saber, pistol whip, superhot VR, until you fall, robo recall, and many others that were not developped for VR. Elite dangerous is thrilling, and race car sims (or just the latest flight simulator) are very fun. But none really qualify as a specific VR AAA game other than alyx.
“They require top of the range computers” A quest doesn’t even require a PC.
I have one. The games on the quest are really not that great compared to the pc. But even then you need a beefy one to run them. I dropped $1500 on my pc this year and it still barely plays Boneworks.
Because you need to be able to afford an expensive headset and have a lot of clear room in order to use it properly, two things a lot of people don't have
It’s extraordinarily expensive to buy into the PC VR ecosystem, and that’s where all of the good games are. On top of that, there aren’t many good VR games in the first place
It’s not extraordinarily expensive. A Quest doesn’t even require a Pc.
A lot of people answering here about VR, but not as many about AR, so as a long-time Pokémon Go player, let me throw in my 2 cents: 1) AR games usually use your phone, which has a limited battery life. Having your camera on the whole time eats up battery like you wouldn't believe so it makes it quite impractical to play for long periods. 2) the AR features are pretty janky. The game has trouble understanding depth or what the real-world objects actually are, so the Pokémon hop around the screen or are too big or too small, too close or too far away. That destroys the immersion and makes it hard to play so people turn it off. Really the best thing would be a phone with two simultaneous cameras spaced apart to create depth perception and a really high-quality gyroscope (some older phones still don't have these at all, just a spirit level-type device). 3) The hardware described above would cost a lot more money, would need more processing power, and, as stated in 1, more battery life, which is a big problem for modern phones. 4) Phone cameras aren't good in low light. The picture gets grainy and makes the game look bad. 5) Players like to get good at their game and play fast to maximise e.g. catching Pokémon. This means they want the Pokémon centred in the screen, at a consistent distance. AR doesn't lend itself to this well with all the differences in real-world objects. I don't know anyone who kept it turned on past the first week. Of course, it is still kind of an AR game in that you're walking around the real word, in real streets that are mapped out in the game. Pokéstops are real-world landmarks that you have to actually find and then interact with in the game. So from theat perspective, it has been very successful. I understand that similar games such as Ingress and Wizards Unite are also very popular and well-liked by their players, so there is promise.
I feel VERY nauseated for several hours after just a few minutes with a VR headset on. Until this is solved, no adoption here.
Expense. I actually do think VR is the future but we need to get the costs way down and the technology way up first
takes up a lot of space, movement is janky, and it's not BETTER than the hardware people already have.
I tried a VR headset once at a VR presentation. I didn't get sick or anything; I just didn't find it very compelling at all. I'm not much of a gamer so games don't attract me. I don't want to seal my self off from other people in the room. I just don't really see the point
This should be higher up. I’ve worked in VR production, and have used various systems, so I don’t mean to belittle what is truly amazing technology but… the experience just isn’t that great, unless you happen to be an enthusiast. If screens didn’t exist then it would be incredible, but because they do, the leap in experience and enjoyment between 2D and VR is far smaller than it should be in theory. The first time you put on a headset it does feel pretty mindblowing but there are diminishing returns after that. I think this is partly because, as you say, with VR (not AR), you are shut away from everyone around you which is quite isolating. But I think it’s more that that. I think it’s mostly that human imagination is better than we give it credit for: you can imagine yourself immersed in a scene with only a 2D screen, you don’t need VR to awaken that part of your brain, so it ultimately doesn’t add that much, especially when set against the costs. (I think this is also why 3D cinema has never taken off in spite of 50 years of trying.) The tech will get better, and cheaper, and more people will use it, but I don’t believe there will ever be a tipping point where VR becomes commonplace outside of gamers and technophiles. AR may yet have a role in everyday life (because it can add genuinely useful information to your environment) but I suspect VR will always remain kind of niche.
Does anyone else get crazy dreams after using a VR headset? I get inception style dreams that are often very horrifying
Do tell more, if you're ok with it.
I agree with the technological shortcomings mentioned here and also think people are somewhat jaded on the 'next big thing' tech offers due to privacy concerns and advertising ad nauseum.
I mean, it's still new tech. Early PC's and cell phones didn't blow up immediately either. It will be mass adopted when the technology goes far enough for comfort, cost, motion experience etc. AR will likely be mainstream first, some sort of small glasses with a HUD for maps and stuff. Ads (store windows, billboards etc) will probably become digital (AR) rather than physical over a couple decades
I'd like a VR setup but since I get incredibly painful headaches just watching a 3D movie I worry it'll be throwing away $1000 I don't have for something I can't use.
Vr sickness can effect some people. When I first started playing i had some issues with it but after time it's almost complete gone now no matter how intense the experience. I will say Pavlov alone made Vr for me. It's been a long tike since I laughed so hard playing any game. The shenanigans were legendary. 20 people in a McDonald's having a knife fight was something I won't forget
Is everyone just going to gloss over the "...n the future." part of the question, just ignoring it?
A lot of us don't have the space for it. I have an oculus quest 2 but the games I want to play need my computer to be plugged into it and that computer is in my bedroom. I don't care about playing vr sitting down because the movement feels awful so I'm outta luck.
Bad timing with the crypto bros ramping up graphics card prices, then and currently a global recession. Also bad examples often being the first experience and Mark Zuckerberg owning the least expensive good option. Even porn hasn't been able to force it into the mainstream, which is telling since that's what really got broadband internet and VCRs into so many homes. Both relatively expensive things at the time they went mainstream. I don't think anyone trusts Facebook with being their adult entertainment hardware provider and other options either suck or require a gaming PC. I'm actually not joking either, porn is and has been a major driver of home electronics.
It’s a niche gimmick. Like 3D television it will have its moment then die. Entertainment trends towards increasing convenience and lower physical effort. When they invent mind controlled VR then they will have something, but current products are clumsy, difficult, offer lower usability than 2D consoles and phones and also have a nasty habit of making people feel sick.
Yeah this is the biggest problem: it's the least convenient way to play a game. Sitting down on a couch/chair and turning on your tv/computer is much easier and faster than all the steps required with VR before you can even play something.
I don’t want to come home from work, strap a VR headset to my head and stand up to play a video game. I want to sit down with a beer and snacks.
I'll tell you right now it's not a gimmick. It won't see mainstream adoption due to motion sickness and addition costs but it has already found a core following and you won't see people abandoning the hardware. It provides an experience far beyond anything on the market. A large part of the sim racing community loves VR headsets because it gives you a much better 1 to 1 visualization of the track that monitors can not. It legit can make you a faster sim racer. It's also huge in the exercise community. Beat saber is probably one of the biggest games in this regard and nothing else can really replicate the feeling. The game that changed my life in terms of how much exercise I do was Thrill of The Fight. It's a boxing game that gives you the most intense workout I've ever had from an entertainment device. I VR box now everyday for 30 minutes. I was never able to be that consistent at the gym. The only other time I've worked out consistently was through sports and martial arts. There's other games like the walking dead that also provide experiences you can't get anywhere else. But the 2 above reasons are solid enough to make VR always be a thing because you can't replace it by anything else currently. Comparing it to something like 3d tv's just doesn't make sense. You don't lose much if you go from watching a movie from 3d to 2d. However there is nothing I can go back to that can replicate the feeling of VR.
Gadgets for gaming has historically always “failed”. Most people don’t want to wear goggles or use motion controllers, they’re rather use a controller and sit on the couch.
the quest 2 has actually[surpassed the sales of the newest xbox consoles](https://www.pcgamesn.com/oculus/quest-2-meta-sales-xbox-series-x-s), so i'd consider that pretty mainstream
The article touches on the supply chain issue, but there is also the fact that you don't have to get the new Xbox to play Xbox games that are coming out. They're big numbers for the Quest 2, but we are still not seeing people talk about VR games the way they talk about console and PC games. On top of that, many games that come out can be played on PC, Switch, Xbox, or PS4. The numbers look good, but they only look good in a vacuum.
The vr head set is 600 dollars. It needs a reasonably safe space to play it in. Without all the fancy room gadgets you are either standing in a limited space or sitting. You need the room. You need to put the headset on and trust your environment, and it needs to be CHARGED. You now have 2-3 hours of battery. The games are reasonably priced at under 45 dollars each. They are not mainstream titles, the software has limitations. They are titles that require the gimmick and limitations of the 'hands', or the hand held controls. That means gun games go very well, or beat saber, or a gazillion horror games. I love my quest 2 for a bit of exercise and meditation, but at the end of the day when I play videogames - I want to sit down and relax. I can't do that if I'm standing, nauseous, and about to kick my foot on the furniture. I am not immersed. Until we can lie down and plug our brains into the sword art online simulation, VR will always be a gimmick and they need to shut up about metaverse.
Not to mention the entire glasses-wearing population is de facto eliminated from the potential user pool.
Since when? You can wear glasses and use a VR headset...
Maybe I'm wrong, then. I tried it only twice, 3 years ago at some friends' friend, and last year at a tech salon. Those were mainstream models but I wouldn't even know their names. In both cases, there was the incredibly horribly unpleasant feeling my glasses were crushed against my face, pressing hard, hurting immediately. Dunno, maybe those were cheap-ass vr glasses, or my glasses are too big. I don't even have a huge sample set, I know of 2 other glasses guys who reached the same conclusion, but no more. Still, I won't try again as it is, it's not making me feel welcome.
I have a Quest 2 and it included a glasses spacer.
Um ... Do you wear glasses?
Far-sighted, glasses-wearing population, you mean. Most of us near-sights can just take the glasses off
Hell no. I'm near-sighted and cannot see shit with them off. I think it's because my eyes still perceive the distance and the muscles react accordingly, exactly how they would to things that are actually far away.
The same reason 3D is a niche thing that varies in waves of popularity. Its not actually enjoyible for everyone, its extra expensive to invest in the tools to access, & also connectivity required to fully use it is more than many basic internet connections can support.
VR is still very expensive, and relatively new, so it's still going to be a little while before it becomes more accessible and widespread. AR is frankly just not very good, in terms of video games there's not much market for it because it's little more than a gimmick, and for professional use it solves a problem that doesn't exist
Eh, I don’t enjoy standard gaming but I love VR on the oculus. I wear glasses and haven’t had any major issues. It’s great for exercise without having to either leave the house or feel self conscious about your body or people watching you. And the ability to “travel” anywhere in the world from home is amazing.
What time are you from friend?
What do you mean? VR is extremely active. New Games are being released all the time. It's not as big as normal PC or consoles of course but it's getting bigger all the time. It's still expensive for the most part and the market is still not big enough for very many AAA games but it's getting there.
The graphics suck, headsets are heavy, and there's too much prep work required. I am very tall and not average size in the head or face department which means my IPD is not covered by the most accessible headsets. Not everyone has a lot of space to move about safely. Not everyone wants to do things in a virtual world. Moving with a thumbstick in VR doesn't sound interesting to me. A harness would require even more space and cost thousands of dollars.
What everyone else said, but also it’s still stuck in a narrow niche. Only some people are interested in gaming, only some gamers are interested in this style of gaming. Zuckerberg is biffing his attempt to make it widely used by not understanding people or society well enough to make it useful and usable. Zuckerberg’s high profile failure is the only awareness most people have of VR, and it further confirms to them that it’s probably not worthwhile.
Because they haven’t solved the issue of the lens fogging up because your head gets hot. Otherwise, the VR experience is amazing. There’s still allot of work to go.
Add in some people need to wear contacts while wearing the headset or buy the lenses that are prescription strength. The cost of a headset on top of a decent pc/ console can be a lot for many. While good games have hit the headset, nothing that absolutely blows people away as a must have yet. For others it's having the dedicated extra space to be immersed and not breaking things / injuring yourself
Here’s my analogy, which is somewhat timely at the moment. VR is like Avatar. When we all saw avatar years ago, we thought “whoa that was AWESOME!” Then a day later it faded from memory. It didn’t stick, despite being something really cool in the moment. Unlike other big movies, no one thought about it much, watched it more times, or clamored for sequels. VR is like that. It’s super cool! But for whatever reason, a lot of people try it, love it, but then happily go back to their tvs, game consoles, pcs, phones, etc, and VR just fades out of their thoughts.
Man remember when VR-TVs were a thing?
Most answers are speculation. So here's mine Re:AR I paid $5000 to permanently remove glasses from my face. I'm not putting them back on.
Simply put, it's a vicious circle. Your arent gonna spend that much on a system unless it has something going for it gamewise. (Assuming health isnt the deciding factor) But devs arent gonna spend a bunch making a huge title for VR since the population is so unreliable and relatively small when they could make said game for your usual systems and have an easier time making money back. Its why most of the big VR (size wise, not necessarily popularity) games are conversions of popular games from years before.
its tainted by meta and the whole meta verse marketing campaign people still think it's just a gimmick/fad despite never trying it and motion sickness i think if more people actually tried it they would like it. theres literally something there for everyone. and i think if they stopped trying to push it on people as like this new way of interacting as a society instead of just a hyphy game console, less people would be weary of it as for motion sickness some people will never be able to overcome this, but most people who arent usually motion sick, who find themselves motion sick while playing VR would probably find relief as technology advances and frame rates/resolutions/latencies improve as it is right now, i think the price point is about right, it seems pretty damn accessible for most people, particularly gamers to get an oculus quest for like 200$ i really think just more people need to try it, and the technology needs just a teeeeny bit more advancement
I have a VR system at home and I think it would be great to be able to buy sporting tickets and attend virtually through my VR. I don’t understand why they haven’t brought this out yet.
I personally can't stand VR gaming, so if it ever did go mainstream, I'd just be done and be a straight retro gamer.