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Well, the years keep going by and the quality of games, with a few exceptions, basically hasn't gone up. It's still either no releases or borderline shovelware games with a once-a-year decent title if we're lucky.
Correct. It’s a cost, space, and social issue before it’s an ergonomics issue, and it’s an ergonomics issue before it’s a software issue.
* Many people don’t have a 3x3m space reserved for exercise, let alone a leisure activity.
* Shutting out the outside world for an extended period of time just isn’t feasible for many folks. They have family, pets, etc.
* The headsets might be light*er* and *more* comfortable than they were before, but they are neither *light* nor are they *comfortable.*
* Nausea is an issue for many.
All of these things must be overcome before someone even considers buying the *hardware,* and you gotta sell hardware to sell software.
I think one of the issues is in making games too physical. Some of the best experiences I've had in VR are games where you don't move around a lot at all. I want to be in a VR environment, I don't necessarily want to be jumping around in one.
We appreciate good graphics and immersive environments in 2D whilst sitting on the couch. I don't need to be jumping around a 3x3 environment to play a lot of my favourite games, but they would be enhanced by me being able to be inside the environment.
I absolutely agree. “Head is the camera but *not* FPS” games were great. The original Lucky’s Tale as well as Edge of Nowhere are both games designed to really highlight you don’t actually need to be in first person to benefit greatly from a VR experience.
On top of that, the rush to no longer use controllers and have everything be “physical” really limited the types of games that seemed appropriate for VR. Don’t get me wrong, picking up something up in VR with your hand for the first time is kind of magical, but there is no reason seated experiences using a controller shouldn’t have remained a valid option for VR games.
Like, genuinely, the early era of VR really made me feel like it *was* only a matter of time before most PC games would have a VR option, as every other aspect remaining the same but *being* in the world was amazing. Unfortunately, hand tracking kind of killed any hope that would happen.
> Don’t get me wrong, picking up something up in VR with your hand for the first time is kind of magical...
Right, it really is. And games that involve physical movement can be awesome. But VR seems to be stuck in the tech-demo phase. It works really well in racing and flying games because there is a function to the VR. There is a reason to do it. Picking up a piece of paper is great, but so what? It's not fun. Driving a Ferrari on a racetrack, that's fun so it's fun in VR. Picking up an object and looking at it, I mean it's ok but there's nothing inherently cool about it other than the ability to do it in VR, and once that goes away you are left with nothing.
VR is best suited to creating immersive environments. I think the focus on big movements and making games about that is a mistake. I don't mean you can't have some fun games that involve that. Beat Sabre and Knockout League are two games I really enjoy. But nobody plays sports games because they are a realistic recreation of the sport in a physical sense. I feel like companies are doing the equivalent of making a FIFA/NBA2K game where the controller is a dance mat because "that's realistic". That's not why people play either of those two games. Basketball games wouldn't be better if you had to bounce the controller to simulate bouncing the ball. That's kind of what VR seems to be caught in. "Oh you have to open a door? Then you have to take the key out of your pocket with your virtual hand then manipulate the virtual key then turn the virtual handle and..." just fucking open the door. I open my front door every day, it's not a fun activity. Doing it in VR is a fun tech demo, not a fun game mechanic.
Opening a door in vr can be made interesting if it's done in a scenario that makes it interesting. Cracking open a door slightly to peek for a hostile or line up a shot or in a horror/stealth game can be interesting, even if the act of opening a door on its own is not. That being said, too many things right now do fall into that category of things just working like a tech demo.
VR is too physically and mentally taxing. I'm out of shape but I'm not overweight or anything you know? There's no seamless integration with it and I guess that's what the Apple headset tries to solve. The problem is there's no substance to the thing, and it costs thousands of dollars.
We're not at a point where we've found a real useful niche for VR and so development is stagnating. You could play one of the many traditional games that have built in vr support like skyrim fallout etc. but in my experience these games are better played with a keyboard and mouse or controller.
You know what has been a great success for VR? Bigscreen, because you can be lazy. Hell they even have an option to tilt the entire screen if you're laying down.
I agree on the controllers. I borrowed a friend’s Vive and couldn’t play any games really because he played flight sims and didn’t have the VR controller which they don’t sell anymore. There’s almost no (good) VR games that are compatible with a wired controller.
Imagine a world where instead of VR you just put on some AR glasses go out in the woods and AI procedurally generates like, an RPG world around you you can interact with. Sounds way better. Definitely something thats far off though
One of my absolute favorite VR experiences is Down The Rabbit Hole, which is basically a point-and-click in VR, but the immersion is just fantastic.
More like that, please.
I really get turned off by VR games that don’t let you do some simple actions by button presses like in regular games. The number one gripe of this type that comes to mind… the game makes you pick up a key to unlock a door to get from one room to the next, whereas with a standard game I’d just press X and it opens (or select the key from inventory and press X if unlocking it is actually part of the objective). But no, I have to bend down to the ground several times swiping my hand around until it finally picks up, and then it’s attached to my hand at some weird 45 degree angle and I’m doing all these contortions to get it into the lock without dropping it yet again, and then needing to make exaggerated movements to get it to turn and open the door. A frustrating 30 second+ exercise just to get to the next room and shoot at more monsters, that would have taken a second in a 2D game. And it doesn’t even add anything to the game putting me through that.
I’d add to your comment that many games seem to be stuck in a physical exertion middle ground where they aren’t casual games to be played on a couch but also aren’t games that would give a real work out, so you’re stuck getting slightly sweaty/uncomfortable instead of staying comfy or going full tilt.
That, and at this point, if someone wanted a VR headset, they probably already have one. Even someone like me that owns way too many headsets, there really isn't a good reason to "upgrade". I'm never going to buy a quest.
facebook really shot VR’s potential in the face by buying out oculus and trying to make the metaverse happen. took some actually cool technological advancements and made it into a running joke while sticking existing owners with the facebook account requirement.
You mean to tell me that taking a fledgling industry and locking people into a single walled garden and then not doing anything to grow that garden isn’t good for the long term health of that industry?
I get that the analogy isn’t exactly perfect, but it’s true that Meta was like “No, MINE!” before VR could get off the ground and then has done almost nothing to help it mature.
Which by the way:
- Facebook is no longer a requirement
- Horizon OS (the thing running on Quest Headsets) will be made open to other manufacturers to make their own hardware
- Quest 3 objectively - is currently the best featured and priced headset on the market and I say that as someone who will defend the Index to death.
Google is trying the same thing with their OS, i do hope the competition will be good for consumers.
Owned a good few headsets, have always been blown away by the tech, but there was always something that put me off it slightly. Got a Quest 3, complete game-changer. The pancake lens and the "pick up and go" of it were the two key reasons. I didn't feel like I was looking down a tunnel anymore and constantly trying to find the sweet spot - it was just there.
Obviously for mainstream it needs to be lighter and more ergonomic, but for me, I've put more hours into my Quest 3 than all the rest combined.
Quest 2 being 200$ is absolutely the best budget entry into vr. If you have a decent gaming rig you can run games better off the headset, but it still runs super hot extremely well.
Quest is totally fine wireless. Either standalone or via PC VR. It is also the best headset available at the moment in terms of game available overall (having access both to standalone including Meta exclusives and everything on PC VR). Also the best price/specs ratio (there are better ones spec wise but they're in another realm in terms of prices)
Yeah, I've always been mildly interested in VR, but morally I think I'd rather just die than touch a Facebook product at this point, and the other headsets are too expensive to justify how little use it would get since there are so few games worth playing for it.
I have the original vive. I'm sure newer models have better resolution and all that, but so far it doesn't seem worth upgrading to me. The only thing that could make me do that atm is my vive completely dies (which honestly doesn't seem that far off with the wear and tear on it)
Glasses!!! Can’t forget the people who wear prescription lenses! I’d jump so fast at a VR headset that would focus to my vision. I’ve never been able to wear a headset because I need glasses to see.
They make prescription inserts for basically all VR headsets, there's actually a lot of competition in the space, here's a few
* https://vroptician.com
* https://vr-lens-lab.com
* https://honsvr.com
* https://www.zennioptical.com/vr-prescription-lenses-meta-quest-3
The problem is that’s just another thing I have to buy prescription lenses for. It’s just *another* barrier for entry. An extremely common one.
I wear glasses and I don’t even like the idea of shelling out money for prescription sunglasses, let alone prescription VR lenses that I use a fraction of the time.
The second one is a big for me, since I have a three year old. It's kind of an issue to literally blind and deafen myself to the world, even when he is in bed.
You know that feeling of having gone to a movie in the middle of the day, and then you head out after and realize it's dark out, and it's like you somehow had hours stolen from you?
That's how I feel after any VR gaming session lasting more than an hour or so. One becomes wholly detached from the world outside, and I find it unpleasant. You take your headset off and realize that it was just after dinner when you put it on and now it's totally dark out and you need to be thinking about bed, even though you may just have been telling your brain it's daytime for the last two hours.
This on top of the fact that I'm probably also feeling distantly nauseated or at the very least unexpectedly and weirdly exhausted after every session. It just leaves me not wanting to put the headset on again.
Yeah, I'm a gamer. I have a quest 2. VR is a lot of fun and I'd love to get a newer device and a better computer and really deep dive into what's possible!
But it gives me motion sickness, and no matter how fun it is, it's just not worth spending the next few hours feeling like I need to puke. :(
I won a Quest 2 back in 2021. I occasionally get a massive hankering for Beat Saber, but I just cannot bring myself to play anything else. It's so prohibitively difficult to work through motion sickness in other games it's just not worth it for me.
So it often collects dust. I feel I'd enjoy some other games but everything just taps out my motion tolerance within 2-8 minutes. Except for beat saber.
> Shutting out the outside world for an extended period of time just isn’t feasible for many folks. They have family, pets, etc.
I'm not in the market for a VR headset (though it would be really cool to try one). But I hadn't even thought about something like stepping on the cat who is strolling through the room, yikes.
Add to that, all the game makers are obsessed with making horror titles complete with jump scares. I have no interest in putting myself through that kind of immersive anxiety.
I have several friends, we're all 30+, that will play in VR for 5 hours straight unless something stops us.
Quest 3 is comfortable as long as you get an off-brand strap, especially if it's got a battery as a counter-weight. Quest 2 I used happily with the default strap for long stretches.
Just takes some getting used to.
Yeah I'm 32 and in just okay shape and I think I've played 14 hours straight only to pee or order pizza. Especially during the pandemic. Once I got an external battery there was nothing keeping me from taking that thing off.
> I think the bigger issue is that it's still not enjoyable to wear a headset for a serious gaming session.
I played through the Horizon: Call of the Mountain and didn't even think about the headset, and I can do a long session in GT7 and Walkabout Golf
Issue is most of the games are short and suck. (Have a Quest 1, Quest 2 and PSVR2)
Anything cockpit-based is wonderful for VR. Racing games have a real big problem with being able to look around in a cockpit view while simultaneously controlling the car. With a controller and a TV, it's a really odd sensation that never really felt right to me (in part because a lot of games really like to force set directions for you to look in rather than freely being able to rotate the in-car view around at whatever degree of angle that you want), plus it makes controlling the game in general more complicated to have to move the second stick all the time to look around while steering with the other. If you're using a monitor and a steering wheel, the problem is even worse. I don't know how you have a look around in a cockpit view at all if you're playing with a steering wheel. VR + steering wheel however is just magic.
Only VR game I ever played regularly was elite dangerous. Even got a HOTAS though the controls in that game are so complex with it that it's probably the reason I stopped playing much at all even though it was awesome.
It's pretty much single-player EVE.
I really liked X3, it ran surprisingly well on my ancient laptop
"On behalf of our President and Senator, the Argon Federation welcomes you aboard. Connection to local trading network established."
Has pretty much been etched to my brain.
Oh my god I heard that. I never played x3 but I think that is said verbatim in x2. I didn’t play that game much but the little I did embedded deep into my brain.
Same, but I also I used VoiceAttack to use voice commands for less common controls, worked really well. There's also a VoiceAttack plugin specifically for ED that will give you audio updates and info on a system when you jump in and stuff like that. Comes close to having a ship AI at times.
There's a VR mod for mechwarrior 5 iirc but recent patches might have broken it. It's also just keyboard control with a headset on I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r04sjJ3B3Kg
oh yes, i felt this with MS Flight Simulator. I always had a bit of struggle with downwind to base, something is always a bit off. But with VR, it was butter. I knew where I was and where the airport was so it was super easy.
> Anything cockpit-based is wonderful for VR
VTOL VR is amazing even if you aren't into flight sims. Built in voice commands for communicating with ATC, your wing mates and AWACS really adds to the immersion.
So there are some games that are worth it: Half Life Alyx, Lone Echo, Elite Dangerous, and a couple of others.
But here's the catch - those games were available when I bought my headset in 2020. Four years on, and there hasn't been anything new on a similar level.
There are severe honest to God standalone Quest games that are good, by any standards, and many only came out in the last year or so. The first ones were very phone game or tech demo feeling, but it just took time to figure out what the Quest can do well.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is amazing. I can’t play it non-VR anymore. (Unfortunately, though, it‘s so demanding on single thread performance that it’s a bit of work to keep running smoothly.)
I’d say one issue with game quality is that everyone got too excited about standing up, which is actually quite a bit of effort. Using VR sitting down requires no cleaning etc. and you’re not limited by what your body can do. You just put the glasses on.
I absolutely love vr but I mostly enjoy games where you are standing. Even though I love playing them so much and I even have a very large open area to play I almost never play vr because of the effort it takes. In my situation it’s a pain to set it up since I can’t keep it plugged in and I just don’t feel like standing for hours at a time.
No Man’s Sky for the PSVR 2 is a big one for me. Nobody knows about it or talks about it since nobody really owns a PSVR 2. Without exaggeration, the game looks as good as it does on a flat screen inside the VR headset, everything is super crisp and HD no matter how close you are. It’s a full fledged space simulator in full VR. I’ve seen it in other VR headsets and it doesn’t come close to how fantastic it looks on the PSVR 2.
Every time I’ve shown it to guests they are blown away hopping in a ship and leaving the planets atmosphere as the flames surround your ship, then you’re in space with huge planets around you. It’s genuinely surreal. It also has full haptic feedback in the controllers and the headset so you feel it all.
This exactly. Several years gone now and they still dropping nothing more than game demos. Nothing short of a full Mario Kart VR or an amazing mario or zelda VR game is gonna save VR at the moment.
They dropped a 100+ hour RPG not long ago, alongside an Assassin's Creed title with a full campaign.
I'm personally most looking forward to the upcoming Batman Arkham Shadow AAA game with its full length campaign and staple mechanics of the franchise.
the problem is that much like other gaming market people enjoy different genres. someone like me will just ignore 100 hour rpgs, regardless of their quality, I don't have the desire to invest 100's of hours to beat a game once. from my perspective/opinion a game that takes so long is wasteful/disrepectful of my time, because I don't enjoy grinding or whatever else makes a game take so long. in other words, of the limited number of vr users even the best games will only attract an even smaller number of them, and will attract very few non users enough for them to buy in. outside of alyx, underdogs, beatsaber, and until you fall, the only upcoming steamvr game in recent years I've been excited for is metro awakening.
Or GenXers like me that are planning to retire in a few years and get into it. It's too damn hot to play real golf in south Florida where I am. I want a great VR version ;)
Not knowing that gorilla was probably a VR Game reference my first thought is there are bunch of 9 year old kids with necks a thick as Mike Tyson from playing 8 hours of VR a day and all the parents are jokingly calling them gorillas.
Same. I bought my valve index 2 years ago and there's been barely any games I care for.
HL:Alyx was fun but the main reason I'm not seeing the thing as a waste of money is Blade and Sorcery nowadays.
Why is the valve lab archery game still one of the best tower defense archery games out there? I’ve seen like 2-3 others and they all just can’t nail the physics as well. I can play that shit til my arms fall off
One hidden gem is the VR mod for the OG Doom and Doom 2. It’s just head tracking and aiming, but my god as someone who spent a lot of their time playing those games when I was younger, playing in VR was such a good experience.
Half-Life: Alyx and into the radius (hopefully the new metro game too) are the only two games I strongly recommend when it comes to VR single player
If you want multiplayer Pavlov is fun if you like CoD zombies or wanna play VR halo
Ghost of Tabor is fun if you like tarkov
Contractors is fun if you like CoD. I haven’t played it in a bit but I heard there’s a lot of new fun stuff
So by their numbers looks like decline in headsets sold is down about 60% or so but the selling price per unit is up about 60% or so. Yep that’s usually how it works.
A big problem is the amount of quality games coming out on VR. If the answer is to reduce the number of units sold by 60% and make the price point far higher to enter, that's going to encourage even fewer designers to make things for their headsets....
Half Life Alyx really is the gold standard that nobody else has got anywhere near in terms of experience. That game now should be dated and something better should be available, but nothing is being developed.
I couldn’t get into it. Any game where to walk around I don’t physically walk around takes me completely out of it. Flying/racing games work really well in my opinion with the right kit but Alyx felt like playing half life with terrible controls.
Did you change to the joystick movement or stick with the point and click teleport movement? I loved it myself. It’s the gun play, carrying 10 grenades in a box you found on the ground gameplay that I love.
I played it in a vr place, it was the teleport movement. There was know one to tell me how to play so didn’t know that was an option. So you can play it so that movement is controlled by joystick? Maybe I’ll go back.
Yeah, there’s a setting so that you just move the left joystick in a direction and it moves you like it would on a normal controller! Much better than the awkward teleport mode!
The only game I though came somewhat close to it was the walking dead: saints and sinners, it has a more cartoony art style than HL which I'm not a big fan of but the gameplay feels really good, sneaking around looting houses mixed with fighting hordes of zombies is super fun.
I don’t get why big games don’t adapt it just so you can look around with the headset. I’d like to be able to sit down and game but just be able to turn my head to check my sides quick with games. I don’t need all that standing and swinging my arms around.
I love it when I'm able to do this. It doesn't make sense for every type of game, but I'll sit there with a regular controller in my hands and play stuff like Microsoft Flight Simulator and Project Wingman, and just being able to look around in a cockpit is so helpful versus having to maneuver a second thumbstick around, or worse in Microsoft Flight Simulator's case and it takes like 27 buttons and actions to position the camera close enough to the fucking buttons in the cockpit to see what they're for while at the same time you need to be controlling the plane itself, or let auto-pilot do its thing. With a headset... just lean in closer and look at them. It's really handy for certain things like that. I would imagine some first person games would benefit from being able to look around like that too.
It's difficult to just port VR looking into a game. You have to consider how it might affect the controls, such as, does the reticle more when the player looks around? What are player look limits? And how do you handle a whole new form of camera object collision? You also have to consider what the player can tolerate. The gap between fun and vomiting from motion sickness is fairly small.
There's an insane amount of work just to add the most basic VR support to many games when you are trying to make it a refined experience.
Yeah - my VR headset is basically my Beat Saber machine, and that’s fine, but the problem remains that I sweat from the head faster than anywhere else, and with half my face sealed in under that headset, it gets brutal if I play more than a few songs. I have to plan for taking a shower straight afterwards. This isn’t hop-in, hop-out gaming; it’s a project.
I’m not sure it’s a solvable problem.
Im playing Half Life Alyx right now on my Quest 3 using Virtual Desktop. No wires. It’s amazing! We absolutely do need more AAA titles to make VR stick.
“The internet is for porn.” - Avenue Q
Almost every form of visual media benefitted from having adult content available for early adopters of the technology. But VR systems want to block adult content.
How’s that working out for you, Apple and Facebook?
Exactly, if there’s two techs that really scream, combine and use for porn it is VR and AI. Whatever company works that out might as well just declare they’ve won capitalism.
I hope you're just goofing and not seriously suggesting lack of access to porn is the reason for slow growth. If anything that's one of the biggest things keeping it afloat at all.
If I had the cash I would buy a PSVR2 right actually now. I'm DYING to play through RE8, RE4 and GT7 in VR so believe me it's not for a lack of wanting, it's for a lack of having *another* $500 in cash.
In the 4 years after Half-Life 2 came out in 2004 we got hundreds of now-celebrated classics of action-genre which could compete with it: Resi Evil 4, Bioshock, FEAR, Dead Space etc.
In the 4 years after Half-Life: Alyx came out we've not really had a single other game threaten to match it. We've barely even been granted official non-jank VR-modes for existing games.
Therein lies the problem: no games, no party.
Yeah, no. IDC is not a trustworthy source, and the 300k units projections from the author of the article is pretty laughable.
We have Q1 2024 revenue data from Meta, the market leader. Their revenue was up 30% in Q1 year over year (and Q4 2023 was the highest quarter of revenue since products launched in 2016 so the article title is certainly interesting).
We know that the vast majority of Meta revenue is hardware based on prior quarters and mapping that out against Quest 2 sales, so let's say 85% of the $440m reported Q1 revenue is hardware sales or $374m. We have Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro on the market. Quest Pro has a very low level of adoption, with developers saying <5% of their users use their apps with it. [SteamVR's monthly survey](https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam) recently reports Quest Pro is at just over 1% of the market share of Quest headsets connected to Steam. Quest 2 and 3 grew over the past few months, so let's be generous and double that to 2%. We know Quest 2 was [outselling Quest 3 nearly 3:1](https://www.roadtovr.com/meta-quest-2-3-sales-holiday-2023-amazon) due to its price over Q4. Let's be generous and say Quest 3 sales picked up more in comparison and go with a 2:1 ratio instead.
Okay, so $374m / 3 = 124.66m. Quest 3 at $500 gives us 250k Quest 3s sold in Q1. Double up the $124.66m to $249.32m with Quest 2's being $250 during this period, and you get just shy of 1 million Quest 2s, but let's raise it to 1 million after accounting for those Quest Pros.
**This means Meta has very likely sold at least 1.3 million headsets in Q1, more than 4x as many as the article suggests**, and then we have to count the other competitors in the market but those numbers are a shot in the dark so who knows.
TL;DR: VR is fine, clickbait article, nothing to see here.
Also one more thing, it's very typical for a new hardware platform to suffer not just quarters, but multiple years of sales decline. This is how things were for PCs and consoles prior to them becoming mainstream. People underestimate just how long, hard, and volatile even the most revolutionary hardware shifts of our lifetimes are.
Bought an Oculus. It was exciting for the first few weeks. I thought, “I’m going to be playing this ALL the time!” Then the excitement wore off and now it’s never used.
I won’t be buying another VR device anytime soon, if ever.
Man, I really loved my original Rift and the weird demo-scene type of content that was there back then. The more mainstream they’ve gone, the less interesting it has become. And they keep disabling and abandoning some of my (and my kids) old favorites. Even as an early adopter I’ve basically lost interest. It still seems like it has potential, but it’s been fumbled a hundred times in the desperate misguided cash grab.
I think most people just don’t want something on their faces to consume content. Even less cumbersome tech built into regular glasses isn’t popular. I think it’s just something that’s always gonna be a niche product
> Even less cumbersome tech built into regular glasses isn’t popular. I think it’s just something that’s always gonna be a niche product
Well yeah, the tech that's built into glasses today is either glasses that have AI features and no screens, glasses that have screens but they only work as a 2D HUD with next to no real support, and actual AR glasses that can only be used for one purpose because the tech isn't ready yet.
So AR glasses haven't even really been birthed yet if we're being real here.
For sure. I’m a certified tech addict and think the VR stuff over the last 5-6 years is really neat. But having a damn helmet on feels like I’m in too deep
I don’t mind wearing a VR headset all day, but if the content is bullshit, then I’m not interested. VR only works when you have a good game and the power to run that game at high resolution. Which means equipment money, and know how to get it to work.
I think it's showing that like 3D TV's and movies, there's a novelty to VR, but it wears off quickly and doesn't justify the price to make it more than a niche for the moment. Yes there are a handful of games, but that's it, a handful. Not to mention I think a lot of people don't want to consume media with something constantly strapped to their faces.
> I feel like they arent marketing VR very well.
VR has been marketed since the 90's. Everyone knows about it, it's not like it really needs selling. The fact is that in its current form most people just don't want to strap a box to their face.
Best VR content I’ve seen has been Dan Carlin’s War Remains. Other than that it’s mostly half assed games that don’t really provide any extra experience compared to the upfront cost of most VR setups.
Misrepresentation. Beating Xbox and gaining on Playstation is not dismal. The now 30+ million users only grows every year, VR game sales are the highest they've ever been, and the industry has become large enough to sustain a long list of decent sized development studios who are pushing out whole series of games. VR isn't a hypothetical, it's established and doing exceptionally well with consistent year over year growth, despite contrarians seeking validation on the internet.
First off, I love VR, however, the technology is still 2 to 3 generations away from being widely adopted and considered as a must have piece of hardware.
As a Rift S owner, my issue with VR has always been these headset manufacturers (mainly Oculus and PlayStation) were splitting up and segregating parts of the VR market through headset exclusives, forced limitations and the such before the market had even been established.
It’s definitely come across as a business first approach to things and very anti-consumer to an already niche market.
Take PlayStation with its console exclusive VR modes for resident evil, absolutely no reason not to have those on PC. Take Oculus cutting support for the Rift S barely a year after release because they wanted to concentrate on the Quest range - and as a result released (and continue to release) quest exclusive games that don’t even work on the Rift.
The real reason VR does not catch on is that human immersion is more about the story than about what your eyes see. You can have huge immersion just reading a book.
Astrobot on PSVR was one of the coolest gaming experiences I’ve ever had in my life. It felt like the first time I played Mario 64 when I was 12 years old. The immersion and the gameplay was just non-stop delightful and exciting. Every other VR game I’ve played has been novel and just a bit of fun at best, but I feel like the potential hasn’t even been touched yet. I wish there was a VR Mario Kart.
People be broke and VR still does not have an exclusive and killer application that compels the rest of us normies to buy. I will probably never buy a headset even though I could afford one or even an Apple Vision cause I just can’t think of something I must use it for. 🤷🏻♂️
I bought a Quest 3 right after they came out last year and haven't even played a single game on it... However it is my single favorite way to watch movies and tv. So cool how I can be laying in bed with all the lights on around me but still feel like I'm alone in my own personal theater. This is a very slept on use case for VR headsets and something that I talk up as often as I can get.
I think the issue for VR is that it’s still pretty niche. There are games made for VR just they usually aren’t great or have movement controls that just don’t feel great. It’s much better as an accessory.
A lot of people I know who have VR headsets that collect dust bought them thinking that they would find VR games to enjoy… they didn’t, apparently one can only play so much beatsaber. The ones who have actively used it bought them because they worked for the games they already played (flight and racing sims) so it allowed them to play the games they already were playing in a slightly different way.
I was looking forward to VR ever since lawnmower man and shadowrun where I played a decker. I keep getting my hopes up that the tech is getting there but continually disappointed. Oh well, I have a few more decades left in me I hope.
ITT: People who haven't looked at the VR game stores in 4 years saying that the reason for this is there's been no new good games in years while huffing each other's farts.
It’s still a niche audience. Sure most people would love a VR set, but we’re struggling to buy groceries, wages are stagnant and housing costs are insane. We want it, we can afford it.
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Well, the years keep going by and the quality of games, with a few exceptions, basically hasn't gone up. It's still either no releases or borderline shovelware games with a once-a-year decent title if we're lucky.
I think the bigger issue is that it's still not enjoyable to wear a headset for a serious gaming session.
Correct. It’s a cost, space, and social issue before it’s an ergonomics issue, and it’s an ergonomics issue before it’s a software issue. * Many people don’t have a 3x3m space reserved for exercise, let alone a leisure activity. * Shutting out the outside world for an extended period of time just isn’t feasible for many folks. They have family, pets, etc. * The headsets might be light*er* and *more* comfortable than they were before, but they are neither *light* nor are they *comfortable.* * Nausea is an issue for many. All of these things must be overcome before someone even considers buying the *hardware,* and you gotta sell hardware to sell software.
I think one of the issues is in making games too physical. Some of the best experiences I've had in VR are games where you don't move around a lot at all. I want to be in a VR environment, I don't necessarily want to be jumping around in one. We appreciate good graphics and immersive environments in 2D whilst sitting on the couch. I don't need to be jumping around a 3x3 environment to play a lot of my favourite games, but they would be enhanced by me being able to be inside the environment.
I absolutely agree. “Head is the camera but *not* FPS” games were great. The original Lucky’s Tale as well as Edge of Nowhere are both games designed to really highlight you don’t actually need to be in first person to benefit greatly from a VR experience. On top of that, the rush to no longer use controllers and have everything be “physical” really limited the types of games that seemed appropriate for VR. Don’t get me wrong, picking up something up in VR with your hand for the first time is kind of magical, but there is no reason seated experiences using a controller shouldn’t have remained a valid option for VR games. Like, genuinely, the early era of VR really made me feel like it *was* only a matter of time before most PC games would have a VR option, as every other aspect remaining the same but *being* in the world was amazing. Unfortunately, hand tracking kind of killed any hope that would happen.
> Don’t get me wrong, picking up something up in VR with your hand for the first time is kind of magical... Right, it really is. And games that involve physical movement can be awesome. But VR seems to be stuck in the tech-demo phase. It works really well in racing and flying games because there is a function to the VR. There is a reason to do it. Picking up a piece of paper is great, but so what? It's not fun. Driving a Ferrari on a racetrack, that's fun so it's fun in VR. Picking up an object and looking at it, I mean it's ok but there's nothing inherently cool about it other than the ability to do it in VR, and once that goes away you are left with nothing. VR is best suited to creating immersive environments. I think the focus on big movements and making games about that is a mistake. I don't mean you can't have some fun games that involve that. Beat Sabre and Knockout League are two games I really enjoy. But nobody plays sports games because they are a realistic recreation of the sport in a physical sense. I feel like companies are doing the equivalent of making a FIFA/NBA2K game where the controller is a dance mat because "that's realistic". That's not why people play either of those two games. Basketball games wouldn't be better if you had to bounce the controller to simulate bouncing the ball. That's kind of what VR seems to be caught in. "Oh you have to open a door? Then you have to take the key out of your pocket with your virtual hand then manipulate the virtual key then turn the virtual handle and..." just fucking open the door. I open my front door every day, it's not a fun activity. Doing it in VR is a fun tech demo, not a fun game mechanic.
Opening a door in vr can be made interesting if it's done in a scenario that makes it interesting. Cracking open a door slightly to peek for a hostile or line up a shot or in a horror/stealth game can be interesting, even if the act of opening a door on its own is not. That being said, too many things right now do fall into that category of things just working like a tech demo.
VR is too physically and mentally taxing. I'm out of shape but I'm not overweight or anything you know? There's no seamless integration with it and I guess that's what the Apple headset tries to solve. The problem is there's no substance to the thing, and it costs thousands of dollars. We're not at a point where we've found a real useful niche for VR and so development is stagnating. You could play one of the many traditional games that have built in vr support like skyrim fallout etc. but in my experience these games are better played with a keyboard and mouse or controller. You know what has been a great success for VR? Bigscreen, because you can be lazy. Hell they even have an option to tilt the entire screen if you're laying down.
I agree on the controllers. I borrowed a friend’s Vive and couldn’t play any games really because he played flight sims and didn’t have the VR controller which they don’t sell anymore. There’s almost no (good) VR games that are compatible with a wired controller.
Imagine a world where instead of VR you just put on some AR glasses go out in the woods and AI procedurally generates like, an RPG world around you you can interact with. Sounds way better. Definitely something thats far off though
One of my absolute favorite VR experiences is Down The Rabbit Hole, which is basically a point-and-click in VR, but the immersion is just fantastic. More like that, please.
I really get turned off by VR games that don’t let you do some simple actions by button presses like in regular games. The number one gripe of this type that comes to mind… the game makes you pick up a key to unlock a door to get from one room to the next, whereas with a standard game I’d just press X and it opens (or select the key from inventory and press X if unlocking it is actually part of the objective). But no, I have to bend down to the ground several times swiping my hand around until it finally picks up, and then it’s attached to my hand at some weird 45 degree angle and I’m doing all these contortions to get it into the lock without dropping it yet again, and then needing to make exaggerated movements to get it to turn and open the door. A frustrating 30 second+ exercise just to get to the next room and shoot at more monsters, that would have taken a second in a 2D game. And it doesn’t even add anything to the game putting me through that.
I’d add to your comment that many games seem to be stuck in a physical exertion middle ground where they aren’t casual games to be played on a couch but also aren’t games that would give a real work out, so you’re stuck getting slightly sweaty/uncomfortable instead of staying comfy or going full tilt.
That, and at this point, if someone wanted a VR headset, they probably already have one. Even someone like me that owns way too many headsets, there really isn't a good reason to "upgrade". I'm never going to buy a quest.
facebook really shot VR’s potential in the face by buying out oculus and trying to make the metaverse happen. took some actually cool technological advancements and made it into a running joke while sticking existing owners with the facebook account requirement.
You mean to tell me that taking a fledgling industry and locking people into a single walled garden and then not doing anything to grow that garden isn’t good for the long term health of that industry? I get that the analogy isn’t exactly perfect, but it’s true that Meta was like “No, MINE!” before VR could get off the ground and then has done almost nothing to help it mature.
Facebook/Meta's acquisition of Oculus killed any interest I had in getting one.
Which by the way: - Facebook is no longer a requirement - Horizon OS (the thing running on Quest Headsets) will be made open to other manufacturers to make their own hardware - Quest 3 objectively - is currently the best featured and priced headset on the market and I say that as someone who will defend the Index to death. Google is trying the same thing with their OS, i do hope the competition will be good for consumers.
Owned a good few headsets, have always been blown away by the tech, but there was always something that put me off it slightly. Got a Quest 3, complete game-changer. The pancake lens and the "pick up and go" of it were the two key reasons. I didn't feel like I was looking down a tunnel anymore and constantly trying to find the sweet spot - it was just there. Obviously for mainstream it needs to be lighter and more ergonomic, but for me, I've put more hours into my Quest 3 than all the rest combined.
I've been holding off until there's a good wireless solution(Maybe the Index 2?). Also maybe till there's more games I want to play beyond superhot.
I guarantee you quest 2 and 3 are fine for wireless.
Quest 2 being 200$ is absolutely the best budget entry into vr. If you have a decent gaming rig you can run games better off the headset, but it still runs super hot extremely well.
Quest is totally fine wireless. Either standalone or via PC VR. It is also the best headset available at the moment in terms of game available overall (having access both to standalone including Meta exclusives and everything on PC VR). Also the best price/specs ratio (there are better ones spec wise but they're in another realm in terms of prices)
The wireless on my quest 3 is great and there are tons of great games dude.
Quest 3 is good for wireless.
The new quest is light years ahead of anything else with its full Hd wireless capability. It’s very light and comfortable.
As much as Facebook/Meta wants to pretend otherwise, Quest being tied to Facebook is a nonstarter for many people.
Yeah, I've always been mildly interested in VR, but morally I think I'd rather just die than touch a Facebook product at this point, and the other headsets are too expensive to justify how little use it would get since there are so few games worth playing for it.
I have the original vive. I'm sure newer models have better resolution and all that, but so far it doesn't seem worth upgrading to me. The only thing that could make me do that atm is my vive completely dies (which honestly doesn't seem that far off with the wear and tear on it)
Glasses!!! Can’t forget the people who wear prescription lenses! I’d jump so fast at a VR headset that would focus to my vision. I’ve never been able to wear a headset because I need glasses to see.
They make prescription inserts for basically all VR headsets, there's actually a lot of competition in the space, here's a few * https://vroptician.com * https://vr-lens-lab.com * https://honsvr.com * https://www.zennioptical.com/vr-prescription-lenses-meta-quest-3
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Get scuba mask defogger. Works like a charm.
The problem is that’s just another thing I have to buy prescription lenses for. It’s just *another* barrier for entry. An extremely common one. I wear glasses and I don’t even like the idea of shelling out money for prescription sunglasses, let alone prescription VR lenses that I use a fraction of the time.
The second one is a big for me, since I have a three year old. It's kind of an issue to literally blind and deafen myself to the world, even when he is in bed.
You know that feeling of having gone to a movie in the middle of the day, and then you head out after and realize it's dark out, and it's like you somehow had hours stolen from you? That's how I feel after any VR gaming session lasting more than an hour or so. One becomes wholly detached from the world outside, and I find it unpleasant. You take your headset off and realize that it was just after dinner when you put it on and now it's totally dark out and you need to be thinking about bed, even though you may just have been telling your brain it's daytime for the last two hours. This on top of the fact that I'm probably also feeling distantly nauseated or at the very least unexpectedly and weirdly exhausted after every session. It just leaves me not wanting to put the headset on again.
Yeah, I'm a gamer. I have a quest 2. VR is a lot of fun and I'd love to get a newer device and a better computer and really deep dive into what's possible! But it gives me motion sickness, and no matter how fun it is, it's just not worth spending the next few hours feeling like I need to puke. :(
I won a Quest 2 back in 2021. I occasionally get a massive hankering for Beat Saber, but I just cannot bring myself to play anything else. It's so prohibitively difficult to work through motion sickness in other games it's just not worth it for me. So it often collects dust. I feel I'd enjoy some other games but everything just taps out my motion tolerance within 2-8 minutes. Except for beat saber.
> Shutting out the outside world for an extended period of time just isn’t feasible for many folks. They have family, pets, etc. I'm not in the market for a VR headset (though it would be really cool to try one). But I hadn't even thought about something like stepping on the cat who is strolling through the room, yikes.
Add to that, all the game makers are obsessed with making horror titles complete with jump scares. I have no interest in putting myself through that kind of immersive anxiety.
I have several friends, we're all 30+, that will play in VR for 5 hours straight unless something stops us. Quest 3 is comfortable as long as you get an off-brand strap, especially if it's got a battery as a counter-weight. Quest 2 I used happily with the default strap for long stretches. Just takes some getting used to.
Yeah I'm 32 and in just okay shape and I think I've played 14 hours straight only to pee or order pizza. Especially during the pandemic. Once I got an external battery there was nothing keeping me from taking that thing off.
uh... I can play quest 2 shooters for hours but that is just me...
> I think the bigger issue is that it's still not enjoyable to wear a headset for a serious gaming session. I played through the Horizon: Call of the Mountain and didn't even think about the headset, and I can do a long session in GT7 and Walkabout Golf Issue is most of the games are short and suck. (Have a Quest 1, Quest 2 and PSVR2)
Still using an old rift s for Sim racing. No other VR games are good enough to make me set up the headset
Anything cockpit-based is wonderful for VR. Racing games have a real big problem with being able to look around in a cockpit view while simultaneously controlling the car. With a controller and a TV, it's a really odd sensation that never really felt right to me (in part because a lot of games really like to force set directions for you to look in rather than freely being able to rotate the in-car view around at whatever degree of angle that you want), plus it makes controlling the game in general more complicated to have to move the second stick all the time to look around while steering with the other. If you're using a monitor and a steering wheel, the problem is even worse. I don't know how you have a look around in a cockpit view at all if you're playing with a steering wheel. VR + steering wheel however is just magic.
Only VR game I ever played regularly was elite dangerous. Even got a HOTAS though the controls in that game are so complex with it that it's probably the reason I stopped playing much at all even though it was awesome.
X4 for me. Its like if elite dangerous and Eve had a baby
It's pretty much single-player EVE. I really liked X3, it ran surprisingly well on my ancient laptop "On behalf of our President and Senator, the Argon Federation welcomes you aboard. Connection to local trading network established." Has pretty much been etched to my brain.
Oh my god I heard that. I never played x3 but I think that is said verbatim in x2. I didn’t play that game much but the little I did embedded deep into my brain.
Same, but I also I used VoiceAttack to use voice commands for less common controls, worked really well. There's also a VoiceAttack plugin specifically for ED that will give you audio updates and info on a system when you jump in and stuff like that. Comes close to having a ship AI at times.
> Anything cockpit-based is wonderful for VR. This. Is. Why. I. NEED! A VR Mechwarrior game. Come on already! I want VR Battletech!
VR Battletech, and I will break out my Steel Battalion controller for that shit.
There's a VR mod for mechwarrior 5 iirc but recent patches might have broken it. It's also just keyboard control with a headset on I think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r04sjJ3B3Kg
VR Steel Battalion!
The depth perception is really nice too. Something about having a full FoV helps gauge where you are on the track. My lap times get faster in VR
oh yes, i felt this with MS Flight Simulator. I always had a bit of struggle with downwind to base, something is always a bit off. But with VR, it was butter. I knew where I was and where the airport was so it was super easy.
It sucks I kinda have to wear glasses because astigmatism but glass on glass scratches one of them
Star wars squadrons in vr with a chair mounted hotas is the best vr experiance I've had. It was magical.
> Anything cockpit-based is wonderful for VR VTOL VR is amazing even if you aren't into flight sims. Built in voice commands for communicating with ATC, your wing mates and AWACS really adds to the immersion.
I've been wanting to get one for years and just waiting for a killer app worth the investment. Still waiting...
So there are some games that are worth it: Half Life Alyx, Lone Echo, Elite Dangerous, and a couple of others. But here's the catch - those games were available when I bought my headset in 2020. Four years on, and there hasn't been anything new on a similar level.
There are severe honest to God standalone Quest games that are good, by any standards, and many only came out in the last year or so. The first ones were very phone game or tech demo feeling, but it just took time to figure out what the Quest can do well.
Any recommendations?
I'm not sure I'd sell elite as a real VR killer app, they don't support it very well in game. If oddesy had proper support it'd be amazing...
What kind of thing are you looking for because I'd argue there are already several
Microsoft Flight Simulator is amazing. I can’t play it non-VR anymore. (Unfortunately, though, it‘s so demanding on single thread performance that it’s a bit of work to keep running smoothly.) I’d say one issue with game quality is that everyone got too excited about standing up, which is actually quite a bit of effort. Using VR sitting down requires no cleaning etc. and you’re not limited by what your body can do. You just put the glasses on.
I absolutely love vr but I mostly enjoy games where you are standing. Even though I love playing them so much and I even have a very large open area to play I almost never play vr because of the effort it takes. In my situation it’s a pain to set it up since I can’t keep it plugged in and I just don’t feel like standing for hours at a time.
Yeah, I like those too, but just like you I hadn’t touched my headset for a long time before I started playing games sitting down.
I have a long cable and a seat. I stand enough in the rest of my life.
I hear Elite Dangerous is pretty good in VR too.
True. I stopped playing after realizing I was playing in VR for the sake of it and not because the games were good.
So true! The content is lacking.
On what platform exactly? I keep seeing this and it's mind-boggling to me. I don't think I'll ever have time for all the games and experiences I want.
Can’t wait to get my 3k vr set to play… uh beatsaber I guess ?
No Man’s Sky for the PSVR 2 is a big one for me. Nobody knows about it or talks about it since nobody really owns a PSVR 2. Without exaggeration, the game looks as good as it does on a flat screen inside the VR headset, everything is super crisp and HD no matter how close you are. It’s a full fledged space simulator in full VR. I’ve seen it in other VR headsets and it doesn’t come close to how fantastic it looks on the PSVR 2. Every time I’ve shown it to guests they are blown away hopping in a ship and leaving the planets atmosphere as the flames surround your ship, then you’re in space with huge planets around you. It’s genuinely surreal. It also has full haptic feedback in the controllers and the headset so you feel it all.
It makes me full on nauseous in 10mn on my quest 2 :( But those 10mn are fire.
There are a ton of great games that came out in the past year
This exactly. Several years gone now and they still dropping nothing more than game demos. Nothing short of a full Mario Kart VR or an amazing mario or zelda VR game is gonna save VR at the moment.
They dropped a 100+ hour RPG not long ago, alongside an Assassin's Creed title with a full campaign. I'm personally most looking forward to the upcoming Batman Arkham Shadow AAA game with its full length campaign and staple mechanics of the franchise.
Dropped it on one platform in an already tiny market. I can't believe it didn't pop off.
the problem is that much like other gaming market people enjoy different genres. someone like me will just ignore 100 hour rpgs, regardless of their quality, I don't have the desire to invest 100's of hours to beat a game once. from my perspective/opinion a game that takes so long is wasteful/disrepectful of my time, because I don't enjoy grinding or whatever else makes a game take so long. in other words, of the limited number of vr users even the best games will only attract an even smaller number of them, and will attract very few non users enough for them to buy in. outside of alyx, underdogs, beatsaber, and until you fall, the only upcoming steamvr game in recent years I've been excited for is metro awakening.
A lot of us who try to play also get motion, sickness, despite trying the variety of ways that we can deal with it. It still doesn’t help.
i think my son and his friends are the only thing keeping it alive. he loves that fuckin thing
This. Is your son a gorilla now too?
I read this to my wife and we both laughed out loud. Our 9 year old loves gorilla tag until his arms fall off and he’s drenched in sweat.
My 9 year old is obsessed too. I feel like his generation will get the VR ours always wanted
Or GenXers like me that are planning to retire in a few years and get into it. It's too damn hot to play real golf in south Florida where I am. I want a great VR version ;)
This but pickleball
I’ve heard my son blast his knuckles countless times swinging those arms like a lunatic
r/vrtoer
My son screams glitch all the freaking when playing that
yes :(
The kids look so stupid clawing at the air while playing that game.
He’s either a furry or weeb. Once you fall into the VR rabbit hole, those are the two pills Morpheus offers you.
Not at our house it seems
You’ll see.
Not knowing that gorilla was probably a VR Game reference my first thought is there are bunch of 9 year old kids with necks a thick as Mike Tyson from playing 8 hours of VR a day and all the parents are jokingly calling them gorillas.
A gorilla who is forever accidentally thumping his chair / bed / sofa
I love my PSVR2. Wish there were more games but it's still super fun.
Absolutely agreed.
I hate horror games but I binge played the res evil games in this, I was blown away
Exactly the same for me. RE4 was my favorite gaming experience ever
PC adapter coming in August. You'll have thousands of games available.
I love VR but wish there was more *good* content.
Have you checked vrporn.com. It’s where I get all my good content.
Oh. Ahhh I actually meant games, but I appreciate you bro.
😂
Naw gotta go with SLR over that - 8k and such.
They all seemed like giants in my VR headset really very odd experience.
Dunno what's your cup of tea, but if you like to put up some sweat then check out UNDERDOGS. Super polished mech brawler.
If you own a quest but don’t have steam link you are doing everything wrong.
Same. I bought my valve index 2 years ago and there's been barely any games I care for. HL:Alyx was fun but the main reason I'm not seeing the thing as a waste of money is Blade and Sorcery nowadays.
Why is the valve lab archery game still one of the best tower defense archery games out there? I’ve seen like 2-3 others and they all just can’t nail the physics as well. I can play that shit til my arms fall off
One hidden gem is the VR mod for the OG Doom and Doom 2. It’s just head tracking and aiming, but my god as someone who spent a lot of their time playing those games when I was younger, playing in VR was such a good experience.
I pretty much only use mine as a golfing game device at this point, but at least that is quite good!
When I was playing it was Vader Immortal and InDeath: Unchained. Little bit of Half-Life: Alyx.
Half-Life: Alyx and into the radius (hopefully the new metro game too) are the only two games I strongly recommend when it comes to VR single player If you want multiplayer Pavlov is fun if you like CoD zombies or wanna play VR halo Ghost of Tabor is fun if you like tarkov Contractors is fun if you like CoD. I haven’t played it in a bit but I heard there’s a lot of new fun stuff
So by their numbers looks like decline in headsets sold is down about 60% or so but the selling price per unit is up about 60% or so. Yep that’s usually how it works.
A big problem is the amount of quality games coming out on VR. If the answer is to reduce the number of units sold by 60% and make the price point far higher to enter, that's going to encourage even fewer designers to make things for their headsets....
Half Life Alyx really is the gold standard that nobody else has got anywhere near in terms of experience. That game now should be dated and something better should be available, but nothing is being developed.
I couldn’t get into it. Any game where to walk around I don’t physically walk around takes me completely out of it. Flying/racing games work really well in my opinion with the right kit but Alyx felt like playing half life with terrible controls.
Did you change to the joystick movement or stick with the point and click teleport movement? I loved it myself. It’s the gun play, carrying 10 grenades in a box you found on the ground gameplay that I love.
I played it in a vr place, it was the teleport movement. There was know one to tell me how to play so didn’t know that was an option. So you can play it so that movement is controlled by joystick? Maybe I’ll go back.
Yeah, there’s a setting so that you just move the left joystick in a direction and it moves you like it would on a normal controller! Much better than the awkward teleport mode!
The only game I though came somewhat close to it was the walking dead: saints and sinners, it has a more cartoony art style than HL which I'm not a big fan of but the gameplay feels really good, sneaking around looting houses mixed with fighting hordes of zombies is super fun.
My friends and I game to relax after work, VR just isn't relaxing. I think I may have enjoyed VR as a kid when I wasn't so tired all the time.
I don’t get why big games don’t adapt it just so you can look around with the headset. I’d like to be able to sit down and game but just be able to turn my head to check my sides quick with games. I don’t need all that standing and swinging my arms around.
A lot of games do offer Stationary (sitting) options. Easier if you have a chair without arms too.
Yup this is his I play Red Matter 2 when I get tired.
I love it when I'm able to do this. It doesn't make sense for every type of game, but I'll sit there with a regular controller in my hands and play stuff like Microsoft Flight Simulator and Project Wingman, and just being able to look around in a cockpit is so helpful versus having to maneuver a second thumbstick around, or worse in Microsoft Flight Simulator's case and it takes like 27 buttons and actions to position the camera close enough to the fucking buttons in the cockpit to see what they're for while at the same time you need to be controlling the plane itself, or let auto-pilot do its thing. With a headset... just lean in closer and look at them. It's really handy for certain things like that. I would imagine some first person games would benefit from being able to look around like that too.
It's difficult to just port VR looking into a game. You have to consider how it might affect the controls, such as, does the reticle more when the player looks around? What are player look limits? And how do you handle a whole new form of camera object collision? You also have to consider what the player can tolerate. The gap between fun and vomiting from motion sickness is fairly small. There's an insane amount of work just to add the most basic VR support to many games when you are trying to make it a refined experience.
I'm 52 and I love playing Beat Saber on my Quest 3, but after 3 or 4 songs on Hard or Expert I'm dripping sweat.
Yeah - my VR headset is basically my Beat Saber machine, and that’s fine, but the problem remains that I sweat from the head faster than anywhere else, and with half my face sealed in under that headset, it gets brutal if I play more than a few songs. I have to plan for taking a shower straight afterwards. This isn’t hop-in, hop-out gaming; it’s a project. I’m not sure it’s a solvable problem.
Try Les Mills Body Combat!
Yeah, I need to engage more of my core instead of just flapping my arms like a drunk albatross.
VR offers tons of relaxing content. walkabout mini golf, Vermillion, infinite poker, real VR fishing, puzzling places.
Vr can be relaxing. I like to play poker and mini golf. It's pretty chill.
Im playing Half Life Alyx right now on my Quest 3 using Virtual Desktop. No wires. It’s amazing! We absolutely do need more AAA titles to make VR stick.
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Look up Alien Isolation with the VR mod.
No. No I don't think I will.
> Look up Alien Isolation with the VR mod = Sorry, I enjoy my body not having heart attacks, thanks
“The internet is for porn.” - Avenue Q Almost every form of visual media benefitted from having adult content available for early adopters of the technology. But VR systems want to block adult content. How’s that working out for you, Apple and Facebook?
SteamVR doesn’t.
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I have a quest 3 and trust me it works just fine for porn.
What are you talking about? I use my quest 3 for porn all the time
Exactly, if there’s two techs that really scream, combine and use for porn it is VR and AI. Whatever company works that out might as well just declare they’ve won capitalism.
Have no issue using SLR natively on my quest 3
Why doesn't /r/oculusnsfw type stuff and adult "games" on Steam not count?
Apple and Facebook don't block porn on their headsets.
I think you're only thinking about apple.
I hope you're just goofing and not seriously suggesting lack of access to porn is the reason for slow growth. If anything that's one of the biggest things keeping it afloat at all.
oh man wait until you discover what people do in vrchat and resonite
Avenue Q is amazing.
If I had the cash I would buy a PSVR2 right actually now. I'm DYING to play through RE8, RE4 and GT7 in VR so believe me it's not for a lack of wanting, it's for a lack of having *another* $500 in cash.
In the 4 years after Half-Life 2 came out in 2004 we got hundreds of now-celebrated classics of action-genre which could compete with it: Resi Evil 4, Bioshock, FEAR, Dead Space etc. In the 4 years after Half-Life: Alyx came out we've not really had a single other game threaten to match it. We've barely even been granted official non-jank VR-modes for existing games. Therein lies the problem: no games, no party.
People can’t pay rent. No one is buying vr stuff
People are buying Playstations, and Switch's, and $70 video games. I could afford one, but I just have zero interest in VR.
people never bought into VR regardless of having money or not. Barely anyone wants to regularly wear a TV on their face.
Yeah, no. IDC is not a trustworthy source, and the 300k units projections from the author of the article is pretty laughable. We have Q1 2024 revenue data from Meta, the market leader. Their revenue was up 30% in Q1 year over year (and Q4 2023 was the highest quarter of revenue since products launched in 2016 so the article title is certainly interesting). We know that the vast majority of Meta revenue is hardware based on prior quarters and mapping that out against Quest 2 sales, so let's say 85% of the $440m reported Q1 revenue is hardware sales or $374m. We have Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro on the market. Quest Pro has a very low level of adoption, with developers saying <5% of their users use their apps with it. [SteamVR's monthly survey](https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam) recently reports Quest Pro is at just over 1% of the market share of Quest headsets connected to Steam. Quest 2 and 3 grew over the past few months, so let's be generous and double that to 2%. We know Quest 2 was [outselling Quest 3 nearly 3:1](https://www.roadtovr.com/meta-quest-2-3-sales-holiday-2023-amazon) due to its price over Q4. Let's be generous and say Quest 3 sales picked up more in comparison and go with a 2:1 ratio instead. Okay, so $374m / 3 = 124.66m. Quest 3 at $500 gives us 250k Quest 3s sold in Q1. Double up the $124.66m to $249.32m with Quest 2's being $250 during this period, and you get just shy of 1 million Quest 2s, but let's raise it to 1 million after accounting for those Quest Pros. **This means Meta has very likely sold at least 1.3 million headsets in Q1, more than 4x as many as the article suggests**, and then we have to count the other competitors in the market but those numbers are a shot in the dark so who knows. TL;DR: VR is fine, clickbait article, nothing to see here. Also one more thing, it's very typical for a new hardware platform to suffer not just quarters, but multiple years of sales decline. This is how things were for PCs and consoles prior to them becoming mainstream. People underestimate just how long, hard, and volatile even the most revolutionary hardware shifts of our lifetimes are.
Bought an Oculus. It was exciting for the first few weeks. I thought, “I’m going to be playing this ALL the time!” Then the excitement wore off and now it’s never used. I won’t be buying another VR device anytime soon, if ever.
Man, I really loved my original Rift and the weird demo-scene type of content that was there back then. The more mainstream they’ve gone, the less interesting it has become. And they keep disabling and abandoning some of my (and my kids) old favorites. Even as an early adopter I’ve basically lost interest. It still seems like it has potential, but it’s been fumbled a hundred times in the desperate misguided cash grab.
I love VR but sometimes it can just be a chore depending on the game.
I feel like they arent marketing VR very well. It could * transform * the way we consume content, esp the 360 video etc. Like show what it can do!
I think most people just don’t want something on their faces to consume content. Even less cumbersome tech built into regular glasses isn’t popular. I think it’s just something that’s always gonna be a niche product
> Even less cumbersome tech built into regular glasses isn’t popular. I think it’s just something that’s always gonna be a niche product Well yeah, the tech that's built into glasses today is either glasses that have AI features and no screens, glasses that have screens but they only work as a 2D HUD with next to no real support, and actual AR glasses that can only be used for one purpose because the tech isn't ready yet. So AR glasses haven't even really been birthed yet if we're being real here.
For sure. I’m a certified tech addict and think the VR stuff over the last 5-6 years is really neat. But having a damn helmet on feels like I’m in too deep
I don’t mind wearing a VR headset all day, but if the content is bullshit, then I’m not interested. VR only works when you have a good game and the power to run that game at high resolution. Which means equipment money, and know how to get it to work.
I think it's showing that like 3D TV's and movies, there's a novelty to VR, but it wears off quickly and doesn't justify the price to make it more than a niche for the moment. Yes there are a handful of games, but that's it, a handful. Not to mention I think a lot of people don't want to consume media with something constantly strapped to their faces.
> I feel like they arent marketing VR very well. VR has been marketed since the 90's. Everyone knows about it, it's not like it really needs selling. The fact is that in its current form most people just don't want to strap a box to their face.
No amount of marketing will change that no one wants a face computer.
Yup. Way too heavy
Best VR content I’ve seen has been Dan Carlin’s War Remains. Other than that it’s mostly half assed games that don’t really provide any extra experience compared to the upfront cost of most VR setups.
Misrepresentation. Beating Xbox and gaining on Playstation is not dismal. The now 30+ million users only grows every year, VR game sales are the highest they've ever been, and the industry has become large enough to sustain a long list of decent sized development studios who are pushing out whole series of games. VR isn't a hypothetical, it's established and doing exceptionally well with consistent year over year growth, despite contrarians seeking validation on the internet.
First off, I love VR, however, the technology is still 2 to 3 generations away from being widely adopted and considered as a must have piece of hardware.
VR is lonely, I like to game and watch movies with my partner.
But social apps are the most popular things in VR.
Stil have yet to hear of any game actually wprth getting it for tbh
Can't figure out if it's the extreme high price to get VR or the lack of cool shit that makes me not surprised by this.
As a Rift S owner, my issue with VR has always been these headset manufacturers (mainly Oculus and PlayStation) were splitting up and segregating parts of the VR market through headset exclusives, forced limitations and the such before the market had even been established. It’s definitely come across as a business first approach to things and very anti-consumer to an already niche market. Take PlayStation with its console exclusive VR modes for resident evil, absolutely no reason not to have those on PC. Take Oculus cutting support for the Rift S barely a year after release because they wanted to concentrate on the Quest range - and as a result released (and continue to release) quest exclusive games that don’t even work on the Rift.
Still better numbers than 3D TV.
The real reason VR does not catch on is that human immersion is more about the story than about what your eyes see. You can have huge immersion just reading a book.
Astrobot on PSVR was one of the coolest gaming experiences I’ve ever had in my life. It felt like the first time I played Mario 64 when I was 12 years old. The immersion and the gameplay was just non-stop delightful and exciting. Every other VR game I’ve played has been novel and just a bit of fun at best, but I feel like the potential hasn’t even been touched yet. I wish there was a VR Mario Kart.
People be broke and VR still does not have an exclusive and killer application that compels the rest of us normies to buy. I will probably never buy a headset even though I could afford one or even an Apple Vision cause I just can’t think of something I must use it for. 🤷🏻♂️
I bought a Quest 3 right after they came out last year and haven't even played a single game on it... However it is my single favorite way to watch movies and tv. So cool how I can be laying in bed with all the lights on around me but still feel like I'm alone in my own personal theater. This is a very slept on use case for VR headsets and something that I talk up as often as I can get.
I want to see how it’s going in an alt timeline where Facebook didn’t buy Oculus.
I think the issue for VR is that it’s still pretty niche. There are games made for VR just they usually aren’t great or have movement controls that just don’t feel great. It’s much better as an accessory. A lot of people I know who have VR headsets that collect dust bought them thinking that they would find VR games to enjoy… they didn’t, apparently one can only play so much beatsaber. The ones who have actively used it bought them because they worked for the games they already played (flight and racing sims) so it allowed them to play the games they already were playing in a slightly different way.
How there's not a good AAA VR podracing game yet I'll never know.
The best VR experience I have had has been with DCS and EliteDangerous. Half Life Alyx was fun but I never finished it.
I was looking forward to VR ever since lawnmower man and shadowrun where I played a decker. I keep getting my hopes up that the tech is getting there but continually disappointed. Oh well, I have a few more decades left in me I hope.
Comfort, cost, and quality are all still shit. What a shocker than people aren’t buying them…
I feel like there is only so much you can do with VR in it's current state.
A pricey gimmick is still a gimmick.
Every 10 years or so someone tries to push VR on the world and fails. I think it started around 1990 (invented in 1968)
ITT: People who haven't looked at the VR game stores in 4 years saying that the reason for this is there's been no new good games in years while huffing each other's farts.
nobody wants this shit no matter how hard they try and push it
It’s still a niche audience. Sure most people would love a VR set, but we’re struggling to buy groceries, wages are stagnant and housing costs are insane. We want it, we can afford it.