It Might Be Time to Admit the Great VR Experiment Has Failed

[Ripskin]

I wouldn't lump VR into the 3D space. Also wouldn't call it an experiment.

I hate 3D as my brain nukes trying to split the two images which is very uncomfortable. On crappy headsets I am not a fan of the VR world. I only tried one before shopping around for the one I bought having a good enough idea of what would mess me up or work well. Other than my GPU not being able to properly enjoy it, I loved the potential of VR as it has a lot more viable options than just pho 3d effects on your 2d monitor. But I understood that developing for this type of a system would require a massive shift. Not everyone enjoys playing this way and some games wouldn't benefit unless we are full ready player 1.

When headsets are smaller and we are able to push better FOV and frames more mainstream then I could see more people buying into it and the market growing but it would be a slow expansion. I love the potential and immersive play options but there are limitations and we need some better systems that are starting to get much better to make that push. And a more reasonable cost but that wont be any time soon.

 

[polonyc2]

3D tv’s welcome VR into the vault of failed tech.

and HD-DVD

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

and HD-DVD

Can’t forget laser disc

 

[Armenius]

I wanted to like VR, but rather than the "ultra realistic" experience in games I really like I had hoped to get from it, instead it wound up being something for trivial parlor games.

I want something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 but in 3d, and more realistic and immersive. Not a Nintendo Wii I wear on my face.

That - to me - is the problem with VR as we got it. They went after the "casual parlor game" market instead of the massive open world immersive storytelling FPS market I would have liked.

I mean, there was a VR version of Fallout 4, and I might have been interested in that, but it came out more than 2 years after the original launched. I had long since finished the game at that point.

I feel like the decision was somehow made that this would be a mass market technology, rather than something that targets people who like existing video games, and I can understand that perspective, as it is a new technology, and as a business you want to go after the largest market you can get, but the result essentially was that the industry as a whole just wasn't making the type of content I was interested in.

At least not enough of it to warrant the rather sizeable investment in the likes of a HTC Vive Pro or something like that.

That, and I will never buy any hardware that is tied to an online account, so Meta and their Oculus products can screw right off.

There is a reason that the free and open internet defeated the likes of AOL and Compuserve, and it will be a cold day in hell before I ever buy into hardware tied to a proprietary VR initiative or social media platform.

I viewed VR as potentially the best monitor ever I could use to play the games I want to play.

They viewed it as a new genre all together and a way of locking users into their social media platforms, and homey don't play that.

Make me a device that is technically superior, essentially a monitor (with accelerometer controllers), not tied to any online account (and doesn't talk on the network at all) and will work with every AAA game in my inventory.

Then I'll buy it. Heck, if it is good enough, I'll even drop a few grand on it. After all, I spend that kind of money on a good screen...

Shovelware and Meta's platform lockin definitely killed it. I still recall when people were Adamant that Facebook acquiring Oculus was a good thing.

 

[ChadD]

166 million Americans wear prescription glasses.
VR as imagined currently was always doomed.
75% of Americans wear some type of corrective lens.

I know someone is going to say that is all the oldies... 25% of Americans under 17 wear glasses, 92% of 65+. The people with money to spend on VR tend to be 30+... a bunch of people just on the cusp of their 40 ish hardening of their lens and requiring reading glasses / progressive lenses.

VR has no real future as a screen projected in front of your face. See ya again in 20-30 years VR.

 

[NamelessPFG]

166 million Americans wear prescription glasses.
VR as imagined currently was always doomed.
75% of Americans wear some type of corrective lens.

I know someone is going to say that is all the oldies... 25% of Americans under 17 wear glasses, 92% of 65+. The people with money to spend on VR tend to be 30+... a bunch of people just on the cusp of their 40 ish hardening of their lens and requiring reading glasses / progressive lenses.

VR has no real future as a screen projected in front of your face. See ya again in 20-30 years VR.

You say that like contact lenses don't exist, and I need some pretty strong -4.00 ones for everything to not be a blurry mess more than a foot from my face. I haven't worn prescription eyeglasses in decades and would never go back.

Even then, most VR HMDs have corrective lens inserts if needed. It's another kludge on top of the inherent kludge of wearing something on your face, yes, but that's just what we have to deal with using current technology, unless you want all the risks involved with an invasive brain-computer interface (Ghost in the Shell cyberbrains, The Matrix, etc.) that I personally wouldn't accept.

 

[LukeTbk]

I still recall when people were Adamant that Facebook acquiring Oculus was a good thing.

Considering how aggressive of a price that made possible maybe it was (could be even less popular without that move) after all they dominate the steam survey quite a bit:
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

And are probably even bigger among non-steam users, there is a bit of a chicken and egg of needing software and needing for software to be made to have an user base, a giant able to loose a ton of money expecting to make post-hardware sales revenues (and ok to loose money overall) to create a giant userbase was maybe a good thing for its chance to succeed.

 

[Balkroth]

166 million Americans wear prescription glasses.
VR as imagined currently was always doomed.
75% of Americans wear some type of corrective lens.

I know someone is going to say that is all the oldies... 25% of Americans under 17 wear glasses, 92% of 65+. The people with money to spend on VR tend to be 30+... a bunch of people just on the cusp of their 40 ish hardening of their lens and requiring reading glasses / progressive lenses.

VR has no real future as a screen projected in front of your face. See ya again in 20-30 years VR.

I'm not sure why that's a big deal, I wear contacts with mine usually for my Vive, and when I use my quest 3 with Steam VR it fits with me wearing my glasses.

 

[sharknice]

You can't just say "the same flawed ideas about VR" because nobody knows but you what ideas you actually refer to. And after identifying them you still need to explain why do you believe them to be flawed.

There are random shitty mobile games that make many millions, that doesn't make them less shitty. Arguments to popularity won't be enough, especially popularity among kids.Since VR is a really expensive accessory it needs to win over the "boomers" who have disposable income to become a success, apart from the cheaper quest offering a mobile game experience.

And it's time to lay off boomers anyway, all of them are in their sixties by now. Half of Gen Z are also no longer kids but legal adults already!

Did you read anything I wrote or did you just boomer rage over it?

Quest has sold something like 20 million units. The games in my link are making 100s of millions of dollars. You don't need $5000 hardware for a good experience and they don't need grumpy old cooters to make money.

 

[ChadD]

You say that like contact lenses don't exist, and I need some pretty strong -4.00 ones for everything to not be a blurry mess more than a foot from my face. I haven't worn prescription eyeglasses in decades and would never go back.

Even then, most VR HMDs have corrective lens inserts if needed. It's another kludge on top of the inherent kludge of wearing something on your face, yes, but that's just what we have to deal with using current technology, unless you want all the risks involved with an invasive brain-computer interface (Ghost in the Shell cyberbrains, The Matrix, etc.) that I personally wouldn't accept.

If your willing to wear contacts for hours while gaming have at it. Few are actually willing to do that.
Also I assume you haven't hit an age, or have gotten lucky and not required reading glasses quite yet. I wore monovision contacts for awhile (reading prescription in one eye distance in the other) I know sounds crazy but it works well, a popular solution. Makes VR impossible. Newer Progressive contacts I haven't tried them perhaps that would work out with VR, not sure and I'm sure mileage would vary by person.

My point is Screens strapped to your peepers has a very limited market. All of the lens add on ideas are mostly clunky and junk. Most people don't even spend a reasonable amount on eyeglasses unless they have some form of insurance coverage. Getting inserts for your VR every prescription change seems a tall ask for mass market adoption. I mean I am buying contacts, progressive glasses every few years and a pair of mid distance screen glasses. Am I going to start buying VR inserts every 2 years? Not likely.

 

[ChadD]

I'm not sure why that's a big deal, I wear contacts with mine usually for my Vive, and when I use my quest 3 with Steam VR it fits with me wearing my glasses.

You need reading glasses yet ?

 

[Armenius]

I'm not sure why that's a big deal, I wear contacts with mine usually for my Vive, and when I use my quest 3 with Steam VR it fits with me wearing my glasses.

Not everybody can wear contact lenses and HMD corrective lenses are just another added cost on top of everything else. That also gets rid of the OOB exprtience with something like the Quest.

 

[NamelessPFG]

If your willing to wear contacts for hours while gaming have at it. Few are actually willing to do that.
Also I assume you haven't hit an age, or have gotten lucky and not required reading glasses quite yet. I wore monovision contacts for awhile (reading prescription in one eye distance in the other) I know sounds crazy but it works well, a popular solution. Makes VR impossible. Newer Progressive contacts I haven't tried them perhaps that would work out with VR, not sure and I'm sure mileage would vary by person.

My point is Screens strapped to your peepers has a very limited market. All of the lens add on ideas are mostly clunky and junk. Most people don't even spend a reasonable amount on eyeglasses unless they have some form of insurance coverage. Getting inserts for your VR every prescription change seems a tall ask for mass market adoption. I mean I am buying contacts, progressive glasses every few years and a pair of mid distance screen glasses. Am I going to start buying VR inserts every 2 years? Not likely.

34, never needed reading glasses - note that -4.00 is a horribly nearsighted diopter that could've easily been caused by reading books and screens too close to my face in childhood to begin with.

You did suggest that the real pain with vision correction starts in the 40s, though. Maybe I should hold off on LASIK or other such types of eye surgery until then, though it's really tempting to just ditch the need for contacts entirely.

And yeah, screens on your face have a limited market. So do high-end flight sim controls costing literal hundreds of dollars, or pen displays costing thousands. Doesn't mean they're useless given that I get good use out of such things, only that they have very niche appeal that isn't worth the money to a lot of people.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

The problem is you want to play tradditional flat screen games in VR which isn't much more than strapping a screen to your face. That's just one step away from the people in here that think VR is the equivalent of 3D TV.

Where VR really shines is the motion controls. The best selling games like Beat Saber and Gorilla Tag are not even playable sitting down.
They're physically active games where you stand up, move around, turn around, and move your arms IN REAL LIFE.

Of course, for VR to truly add to the impressiveness of content using accelerometers (or other sensors) to control the view is absolutely crucial.

3D vision based on per eye rendering is also a part of that, but just one without the other is not truly experiencing VR.

If you had read my comments earlier you would see that I was talking about needing API's and hooks and figuring out a control method that splits the view (controlled by head movement) from the aim point or weapon in an FPS. It shouldn't impossible. We just need game devs, VR head set makers and controller manufacturers to agree on how to best do this to make it controllable and feel realistic.

It could totally revolutionize first person titles to an extent that would be amazing.

Yet no one has done that. At least not yet. and it is a shame.

Physical activity is the mass appeal of VR. It's not for lazy bums that can't even be bothered to stand up.

I'd argue the "room scale" concept is VR's biggest problem.

It's not the physical activity that is the problem, but rather that confining yourself to a space the size of the room makes it completely impossible to develop a game that is even remotely interesting. It would bore (and has bored) me to tears in mere seconds.

I'm not a monkey with boundless energy that finds jumping up and down and swinging my arms around to be fun. I outgrew that 35+ years ago. Assuming you are about my age, you probably should have too. I need something far more intellectually stimulating than that from my games.

The only solution to this problem I have seen thus far is to have the player walk around one room scale place, and then teleport to the next, and keep doing that for an entire game, and that is quite frankly completely lame and immersion breaking. And immersion is the whole point of VR. Without it, why bother?

Until someone comes up with a good (and practical) solution to the room scale limitation (maybe some sort of fully 2d movable all direction treadmill as a controller?) room scale will be limited to uninteresting wii-style games. They might be fine for a party (but as an adult you'd probably have to be drinking to enjoy them...) I saw a link to some sort of treadmill device like this a while back (maybe in the news here?) and cool as it was, it was hardly practical for most people.

So, until we can solve the movement issue in a larger space than like a 8x8ft square the best way to enjoy VR will be a compromise of doing so seated, but allowing for head movement of the camera view, allowing for that and 3d to add immersion.

Don't get me wrong. I want the holodeck experience which is the promise of VR, But no one is offering that now. All it is right now is a face strapped Wii. And you'd have to be either a child (or developmentally disabled) to get more than 5 minutes of enjoyment out of something like that. It's one of those "try it out: wow that tech is cool, it really feels like you are there" and then put it back in the drawer and never touch it again.

I'm going to need more than that before I spend good money on a VR headset.

 

[KazeoHin]

"Look at this thing"

Sure!

"press these buttons"

Sure!

"wear this thing"

No.

I think "put this on your body" is the limit. 3D glasses, VR headsets, etc. people don't want to put something on to enjoy it.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

34, never needed reading glasses - note that -4.00 is a horribly nearsighted diopter that could've easily been caused by reading books and screens too close to my face in childhood to begin with.

Lol. It's all relative. I've been -7.50 my entire adult life.

I have a corrective lense restriction on my drivers license. They did not need to do that. There was no way in hell I was ever going to try driving without them. I can't even focus on the fucking steering wheel without them.

Up until last year (I'm 45 now) I would have been fine with wearing contacts in a VR headset. I wear my contacts every waking hour anyway. First thing I do when I get up is to put them in, last thing I do before bed is take them out. 365 days a year.

Problem is, in the last year I've started hitting the dreaded "eyes changing". I have multifocal contact lenses now, and while they do help, they are not perfect. Focusing on a screen close to my eyes might be problematic.

Though with reading glasses inserts I bet I could manage it just fine.

 

[ChadD]

And yeah, screens on your face have a limited market. So do high-end flight sim controls costing literal hundreds of dollars, or pen displays costing thousands. Doesn't mean they're useless given that I get good use out of such things, only that they have very niche appeal that isn't worth the money to a lot of people.

Fair... ya I thought about lasik in my 30s and never pulled the trigger. Worked out well for a few people I knew. I would have ended up with reading glasses but not needing em most of the time could have been nice. lol

I get what your saying... Its just that VR to be a thing really does need a mass market. The hardware is expensive, the game development unique. I mean a game can easily be modified to use a flight stick. The same can't be said for any game being converted to VR. The economics of VR game development suck. Its fine as long as your cool with getting mostly games like beat saber. For people that have been waiting for a killer AAA title, that won't ever happen.

 

[HockeyJon]

I can see VR being great for flight sims and for racing games but...not much else.

 

[sharknice]

Of course, for VR to truly add to the impressiveness of content using accelerometers (or other sensors) to control the view is absolutely crucial.

3D vision based on per eye rendering is also a part of that, but just one without the other is not truly experiencing VR.

If you had read my comments earlier you would see that I was talking about needing API's and hooks and figuring out a control method that splits the view (controlled by head movement) from the aim point or weapon in an FPS. It shouldn't impossible. We just need game devs, VR head set makers and controller manufacturers to agree on how to best do this to make it controllable and feel realistic.

It could totally revolutionize first person titles to an extent that would be amazing.

Yet no one has done that. At least not yet. and it is a shame.




I'd argue the "room scale" concept is VR's biggest problem.

It's not the physical activity that is the problem, but rather that confining yourself to a space the size of the room makes it completely impossible to develop a game that is even remotely interesting. It would bore (and has bored) me to tears in mere seconds.

I'm not a monkey with boundless energy that finds jumping up and down and swinging my arms around to be fun. I outgrew that 35+ years ago. Assuming you are about my age, you probably should have too. I need something far more intellectually stimulating than that from my games.

The only solution to this problem I have seen thus far is to have the player walk around one room scale place, and then teleport to the next, and keep doing that for an entire game, and that is quite frankly completely lame and immersion breaking. And immersion is the whole point of VR. Without it, why bother?

Until someone comes up with a good (and practical) solution to the room scale limitation (maybe some sort of fully 2d movable all direction treadmill as a controller?) room scale will be limited to uninteresting wii-style games. They might be fine for a party (but as an adult you'd probably have to be drinking to enjoy them...) I saw a link to some sort of treadmill device like this a while back (maybe in the news here?) and cool as it was, it was hardly practical for most people.

So, until we can solve the movement issue in a larger space than like a 8x8ft square the best way to enjoy VR will be a compromise of doing so seated, but allowing for head movement of the camera view, allowing for that and 3d to add immersion.

Don't get me wrong. I want the holodeck experience which is the promise of VR, But no one is offering that now. All it is right now is a face strapped Wii. And you'd have to be either a child (or developmentally disabled) to get more than 5 minutes of enjoyment out of something like that. It's one of those "try it out: wow that tech is cool, it really feels like you are there" and then put it back in the drawer and never touch it again.

I'm going to need more than that before I spend good money on a VR headset.

They sort of have something like that, it's called UEVR https://uevr.io/

You're right that movement is the biggest problem. That's why it's hard to translate flat screen games to VR, and games that are designed for VR work better like Echo VR where you're in zero gravity and push yourself around.

But if you really need to just walk around there isn't a perfect solution. None of the treadmill solutions are great.

Not many games do this, but if they require actual movement like arm swinging or head bobbing to move, motions you make when you actually walk and run IRL, it works much better than using a joystick. You don't get motion sickness and it feels natural once you're used in it.

Also, you can make any game better for yourself by never using a joystick to turn and always turning IRL, same for crouching. Actually go into the controls and disable turning, it ends up being more enjoyable.
Using the joystick for moving straight forward and backward is basically unavoidable, but you can get used to with time.

 

[SmokeRngs]

34, never needed reading glasses - note that -4.00 is a horribly nearsighted diopter that could've easily been caused by reading books and screens too close to my face in childhood to begin with.

You did suggest that the real pain with vision correction starts in the 40s, though. Maybe I should hold off on LASIK or other such types of eye surgery until then, though it's really tempting to just ditch the need for contacts entirely.

And yeah, screens on your face have a limited market. So do high-end flight sim controls costing literal hundreds of dollars, or pen displays costing thousands. Doesn't mean they're useless given that I get good use out of such things, only that they have very niche appeal that isn't worth the money to a lot of people.

-4.00 is nothing. Come back and talk to me when you hit -8.00. Without corrective lenses I can't see three inches in front of my face; I'm effectively blind. And now with the corrective lenses I can no longer see the three inches in front of my face because the correction is so strong that near vision is destroyed. Before I hit the -8.00 mark I was in need of readers but could get by without them for most things. After hitting -8.00 it was impossible to read a book without them.

I haven't bothered to try VR because it's little more than a gimmick and with my vision it would be almost impossible to use or at least extremely uncomfortable since wearing glasses is effectively prohibited with some headsets. It doesn't help that the massive headwear is a requirement and that is uncomfortable to most people even for a short time much less for long term use.

VR is far from having affordable and frankly, usable hardware. Until these major problems are fixed it can be nothing but a niche product. Until it's something more than a nice product the software for it can't follow because there isn't enough money to be made.

I agree with others that AR was and is a more realistic product with more beneficial uses. If the money and effort had gone into that rather than VR it would be in a much better spot right now. I also suspect that AR is a stepping stone to making VR a possible success down the road. Both suffer from some of the same problems but the AR issues aren't as drastic and can be solved easier. Once many of the AR issues are solved it will be a path to solving many of the VR issues as well.

 

[Red Falcon]

Can’t forget laser disc

It's an old technology but hardly a "failure".
Laser Disc tech lasted from the 1970s to the late 1990s, over 20 years.

HD-DVD's lasted for maybe a few years before going *poof".

 

[kamxam]

Give me a call when we get to this.....

Will make a lot of dating problems disappear i imagine....

 

[mullet]

If VR is like getting transported to the grid, I am all in.

 

[Darunion]

Give me a call when we get to this.....

Will make a lot of dating problems disappear i imagine....

Honestly, i feel like matrix style would be achievable. Plug in and tell the brain what it sees and feels.

 

[lopoetve]

I'm not sure it'll ever work until they can make the whole process smaller and more natural. The PSVR2 is 100x easier than the first version, but it's still something you have to full-on commit to in order to fire up a game for 10-15 minutes.

It's just like 3D TV's. Until we can get away from glasses, wires and you can jump on it and play as easily as you would any other console or PC game, VR will remain DOA.

Thirded. It's neat, it's fun - clearing the space ( if not already clear), firing it up, checking battery levels, having 30+ minutes to play uninterrupted... that's where the problem is. It's not just "oh hell, lets play a game for 20 minutes" in the middle of something else.

My Quest 2 gathers dust because HL Alyx was the only real enjoyable full game experience I had. Most of the other games felt like tech demos.

The experience also just isn't as intuitive as a standard KB+M or controller. Unless I use it regularly, I need to fumble around for hours like a drunk toddler before anything feels even remotely fluid.

Even Alyx to me was flat - the world looked rich, but you couldn't DO anything with any of the stuff in the world. It was all just detritus and minor set dressing, not anything functional.

Multiplayer coop shooters can be fun though.

Of course, for VR to truly add to the impressiveness of content using accelerometers (or other sensors) to control the view is absolutely crucial.

3D vision based on per eye rendering is also a part of that, but just one without the other is not truly experiencing VR.

If you had read my comments earlier you would see that I was talking about needing API's and hooks and figuring out a control method that splits the view (controlled by head movement) from the aim point or weapon in an FPS. It shouldn't impossible. We just need game devs, VR head set makers and controller manufacturers to agree on how to best do this to make it controllable and feel realistic.

It could totally revolutionize first person titles to an extent that would be amazing.

Yet no one has done that. At least not yet. and it is a shame.




I'd argue the "room scale" concept is VR's biggest problem.

It's not the physical activity that is the problem, but rather that confining yourself to a space the size of the room makes it completely impossible to develop a game that is even remotely interesting. It would bore (and has bored) me to tears in mere seconds.

There are a couple of non-room scale games. They take dedicated servers and a mapped room (the server for one is on steam at $10k in software) that doesn't change to work, and backpack level VR setups (with some additional bits I believe for location mapping).

I'm not a monkey with boundless energy that finds jumping up and down and swinging my arms around to be fun. I outgrew that 35+ years ago. Assuming you are about my age, you probably should have too. I need something far more intellectually stimulating than that from my games.

Beat saber as a 15 minute cardio workout is still fun, but slowly losing even its draw. Lone Echo (being in zero G) was excellent. The rest have not lasted long.

The only solution to this problem I have seen thus far is to have the player walk around one room scale place, and then teleport to the next, and keep doing that for an entire game, and that is quite frankly completely lame and immersion breaking. And immersion is the whole point of VR. Without it, why bother?

Until someone comes up with a good (and practical) solution to the room scale limitation (maybe some sort of fully 2d movable all direction treadmill as a controller?) room scale will be limited to uninteresting wii-style games. They might be fine for a party (but as an adult you'd probably have to be drinking to enjoy them...) I saw a link to some sort of treadmill device like this a while back (maybe in the news here?) and cool as it was, it was hardly practical for most people.

The treadmills exist - but are generally priced and require space that means you're a gaming center, NOT a home use.

So, until we can solve the movement issue in a larger space than like a 8x8ft square the best way to enjoy VR will be a compromise of doing so seated, but allowing for head movement of the camera view, allowing for that and 3d to add immersion.

Works great for flight/space sims, and for racing games.

Don't get me wrong. I want the holodeck experience which is the promise of VR, But no one is offering that now. All it is right now is a face strapped Wii. And you'd have to be either a child (or developmentally disabled) to get more than 5 minutes of enjoyment out of something like that. It's one of those "try it out: wow that tech is cool, it really feels like you are there" and then put it back in the drawer and never touch it again.

I'm going to need more than that before I spend good money on a VR headset.

Eh, it's not THAT bad. Oculus "First Touch" demo is a perfect example for that - you're in a small trailer and clearly can't walk too far, but can interact with everything around you - but it requires VERY different game design to not be what you're saying (the wii on a face, or clearly immersion breaking).

 

[Kongar]

I bought a PSVR2 and I want to really like it - but it's just not going to happen. 1) glasses. Progressives. It just doesn't work. And no, I'm not paying for special lenses - am I supposed to swap them out between people? 2) It's hot. Like every single person who uses it sweats in it. Part of the fun is jumping around and being active. The rest of your body is dry but your face can't evaporate anything so you swim in sweat. 3) motion sickness is a real thing in some games 4) It's too much of a commitment to get on. Put it on, adjust the straps, do the eye tracking thing, etc. It really kills the mood when other people are around and you have to go through the whole process each time a new person steps up to play beat saber. 5) Single player only.

I think glasses are the way to go. If I can put on a an oversized pair of glasses (like safety glasses that fit over my regular glasses) and they are quick to put on, then I think maaaaybe they've got something.

 

[equinox654]

Hell I just got a vr treadmill and a haptic vest. I have been killing bots on counterstrike and cod maps in contractors to burn calories.
Wish I would have known it was dead.

 

[lopoetve]

Hell I just got a vr treadmill and a haptic vest. I have been killing bots on counterstrike and cod maps in contractors to burn calories.
Wish I would have known it was dead.

which treadmill did you get?

 

[Darunion]

I also am astonished we haven't been able to make something 'more realistic or engaging' and appealing than running around shooting people using a typewriter and mouse or a joystick as the means of how you control legs and a rifle.

 

[equinox654]

which treadmill did you get?

KATWALK C2 Core

 

[Mchart]

This was obvious years ago, but people told naysayers like me “it’s different” this time around. Yeah, no.

I’ve said it before, but VR is dead end technology for the mass consumer market because it requires people to put goggles on. The only future I see VR being adopted en masse is when we get some sort of holographic projection display, but that isn’t even technically VR. Even if they get the technology to fit into a normal looking pair of glasses I still think it’s largely dead. I got LASIK so I never have to wear glasses again, and even putting in contacts is a pain in the ass.

Again, I submit that Steve Jobs never in a million years would have wasted time on a goggle product. Any device that makes the consumer have to adapt their lifestyle to use it is a dead end.

 

[LukeTbk]

Arguably it was different, 1 millions Among US vr sales, over 25 millions headset sold in 2022, some VR title generating over 100 millions in revenues...

It did reach some form of mass market because of the quest and play station price point and ease of use, was the previous attempt ever close to that ?

It is not that people did not find an appeal to it and did not try it (and were not wow by the experience the first 10 minutes) this time around

 

[sharknice]

This was obvious years ago, but people told naysayers like me “it’s different” this time around. Yeah, no.

I’ve said it before, but VR is dead end technology for the mass consumer market because it requires people to put goggles on. The only future I see VR being adopted en masse is when we get some sort of holographic projection display, but that isn’t even technically VR. Even if they get the technology to fit into a normal looking pair of glasses I still think it’s largely dead. I got LASIK so I never have to wear glasses again, and even putting in contacts is a pain in the ass.

Again, I submit that Steve Jobs never in a million years would have wasted time on a goggle product. Any device that makes the consumer have to adapt their lifestyle to use it is a dead end.

The Apple Vision Pro was never meant to be a mainstream consumer product. It's a stepping stone to AR glasses to figure out all the software and issues and get developers started. If Apple doesn't have anything when the glasses tech actually gets there they'll be too far behind. Meta already has the tech and they showed it off, but won't release it until the price comes down.

If you're not willing to even wear glasses when the tech actually gets there you're going to be missing out on a lot of cool stuff. Kind of like the people here that refused to use smart phones when they were new.

 

[Mchart]

The Apple Vision Pro was never meant to be a mainstream consumer product. It's a stepping stone to AR glasses to figure out all the software and issues and get developers started. If Apple doesn't have anything when the glasses tech actually gets there they'll be too far behind. Meta already has the tech and they showed it off, but won't release it until the price comes down.

If you're not willing to even wear glasses when the tech actually gets there you're going to be missing out on a lot of cool stuff. Kind of like the people here that refused to use smart phones when they were new.

It'll be obvious when the tech is there, just like the iPhone was. Which, BTW, I bought day one because it was obvious it was world changing.

I don't think this tech is going to be in the form of glasses, but i'd love to be proven wrong.

 

[Xr7]

I don't believe failed is the right word. Honestly was the belief that most people would get into VR? I work with 15 people and 13 of those can't figure out how to restart their phone if they have an issue. VR was always going to be a limited userbase to begin with. We are years away from the average person having the technical knowledge to use a Quest not to mention any of the PC based VR headsets. I like to consider myself tech savvy and I personally struggled with the HP Reverb G2 which I gave up on and returned. I use a quest 3 for sim racing now, although I am looking at beyond bigscreen.

 

[arthur_tuxedo]

Fair... ya I thought about lasik in my 30s and never pulled the trigger. Worked out well for a few people I knew. I would have ended up with reading glasses but not needing em most of the time could have been nice. lol

I get what your saying... Its just that VR to be a thing really does need a mass market. The hardware is expensive, the game development unique. I mean a game can easily be modified to use a flight stick. The same can't be said for any game being converted to VR. The economics of VR game development suck. Its fine as long as your cool with getting mostly games like beat saber. For people that have been waiting for a killer AAA title, that won't ever happen.

“ever” is a long time. There are already many killer apps, depending on what you’re into. For some people, it’s Half-Life: Alyx, modded Skyrim VR for others, sims like DCS or Assetto Corsa, etc. Admittedly, for most people, the killer VR app hasn’t been made yet, and for many it never will. If people define success for VR as nothing less than replacing flat gaming, that was always an impossible goal. It’s true that VR’s growth trajectory has been very flat for the past few years, but that doesn’t mean the whole concept is dead. When Virtuality ceased production and the various VRcades closed up shop in the late 90’s, that was death for VR, and it wasn’t resurrected for almost 20 years. This, IMO, is more like the video game crash of 1983, except spread over several years.

So how does VR get from this low point to a “Nintendo era”? First, Meta needs to stop writing billion dollar checks and let the market take its course. They were so intent on cornering a new market that they spent $100 billion in an industry that’s worth maybe a tenth or twientieth of that. Big checks like that take all of the oxygen out of the room, and warp and distort the market’s direction. Meta’s management has no long-term vision, and their flailing attempts to shove Horizon down everyone’s throat is proof-positive. Facebook was actually considered cool once upon a time, and then it was monetized. Cool first, then monetized. They’re trying to monetize VR before it’s even established, and it’s going over like a fart in church. Shifting away from expensive exclusives like Batman: Arkham Shadow seems to make sense when runaway hits like Gorrila Tag and Beat Saber make more money, but it’s like a TV network that cancels all their expensive Emmy-nominated dramas to make only trashy reality TV. Sure, most of the viewing time was reality trash and it’s a lot cheaper to make, but when you take away the credibility of serious shows, your platform has no staying power, and people will move on immediately.

Meta’s influence hasn’t been all bad, though. Their willingness to take big losses has put affordable, quality headsets in the hands of millions of people. I don’t agree with those who say that PCVR would be in some shining state of Alyx-quality bangers if it weren’t for Meta. Games like that are crazy-expensive to make, and the revenue just isn’t there. The Quest headsets are probably the only thing keeping PCVR on life support. At some point, Meta is going to stop writing such big checks when the investors put their foot down. Their strategy has been so unfocused and haphazard that they’ve squandered their leadership position despite spending so much money. Asgard’s Wrath 2 is impressive for a native HMD title, but it’s not nearly dazzling enough that people won’t switch to another platform as soon as something better comes along. If Valve can get Half-Life: Alyx to run natively on the Deckard, for instance, they will have leapfrogged Meta’s best efforts for a small fraction of the investment, and with a much better and more well-regarded store. In a way, Meta is damned if they do, damned if they don’t. The big, expensive exclusives won’t hold a candle to later titles as the tech matures rapidly, but focusing on social media garbage and monetization is guaranteed to drive people away from the platform. Meta’s spending spree has also not given them any particular advantage in the coming AR smartglasses wars. No one is going to care whose platform funded big VR titles when they’re shopping for an everyday device to scan food labels or give real-time driving directions. In short, Meta’s VR efforts are a case study in how to spend yourself into the poor house and achieve nothing durable, the expected outcome of leadership by a man who built his fortune on stealing someone else’s idea and then selling everyone’s personal information.

As Meta’s influence fades, the VR market will go back to an enthusiast niche like sim racing peripherals have always been (without anyone declaring they were a “failure”). When the technology is ready, it will break out into the next plateau of adoption, but it will never replace flat gaming. Most people just want to sit down and unwind with a game, they don’t want to put equipment on their face, and that’s never going to change. What will change is that upscaling, frame-generation, and latency-reduction techniques will continue to improve to the point that a headset’s SoC could conceivably deliver a similar experience to today’s fastest desktop GPU’s in 5-7 years. Clunky controller interfaces could be replaced by haptic gloves that allow you to feel the steering wheel, flight yoke, or sword pommel. Lower-end headsets will get lighter and cheaper, and higher-end ones will keep getting more powerful and immersive. Game developers will get better at making games that play to VR’s strengths and avoid its weaknesses, and it will become easier and more common to add a VR mode to flat games with a few clicks using engine tools in Unreal and other middleware. More and more people will be interested in VR, even if it never replaces a flat screen. This requires advancement in a number of related industries, and Meta’s billions don’t make it happen any faster, it just means bigger budgets than the market would support on its own.

Some people, like me, are already hooked by VR. Others will never enjoy it or invest in it. It will keep growing, slowly most of the time and with spurts when there’s some technological advancement or big release. It will probably be declared “dead” many more times, as it already has. So has PC gaming, many times, and video games in general in 1977 and 1983. As long as there are millions who enjoy it, it will survive the dips and lulls of the industry, just like early video games did. Just like video games, it will eventually become an experience so impressive that someone who played its early iteration would hardly recognize it. If that’s failure, sign me up!

 

[revenant]

It's an old technology but hardly a "failure".
Laser Disc tech lasted from the 1970s to the late 1990s, over 20 years.

HD-DVD's lasted for maybe a few years before going *poof".

yeah it was around for a bit.. I still have three HD DVD players, two of which are actively used for music and movies... and a collection of about 50 HD DVDs...

Betamax is another gem of failed tech... although superior to VHS in most ways (smaller tapes, all digital, superior image and audio quality, players had superior build quality, but pricy!) VHS won due to lower cost and longer play times per tape... Sony made damn sure they weren't gonna loose again with Blu-Ray by putting a BR player into the PS3!

 

[Ripskin]

Even Alyx to me was flat - the world looked rich, but you couldn't DO anything with any of the stuff in the world. It was all just detritus and minor set dressing, not anything functional.

Multiplayer coop shooters can be fun though.

Alyx could have added more things in the world to do, but they did a great job of implementing your hands for things to do. Early on I found a nice little box I could store spare health, grenades and ammo in to run around the world with. Stupid but I had fun filling my box with things to make life easier and then I could work to actually throw the grenades around, roll them or drop them which was more immersive. Early on and its like comparing games from 30 years ago to now. Things grow, evolve and change as dev's learn what can be done and find way's to implement and make it better. Lots of room to improve though.

 

[Ripskin]

This was obvious years ago, but people told naysayers like me “it’s different” this time around. Yeah, no.

I’ve said it before, but VR is dead end technology for the mass consumer market because it requires people to put goggles on. The only future I see VR being adopted en masse is when we get some sort of holographic projection display, but that isn’t even technically VR. Even if they get the technology to fit into a normal looking pair of glasses I still think it’s largely dead. I got LASIK so I never have to wear glasses again, and even putting in contacts is a pain in the ass.

Again, I submit that Steve Jobs never in a million years would have wasted time on a goggle product. Any device that makes the consumer have to adapt their lifestyle to use it is a dead end.

Ehhh, dunno. Steve may have enjoyed it and found a better way to implement it. Headsets are getting smaller, better and less cumbersome which is a needed change. I doubt he would write it off, but since he isn't here and the world is a very different place now we cannot know how he would have handled it.

Quite a few people thought the Wii was going to be a failure with its rudimentary motion controls and games to make people stand up and move. Yet it was a smashing success, even people in retirement homes were up and bowling, playing tennis etc. VR can repeat that, but the experience needs to be smoother and more simplistic before it can move past enthusiast. Wireless would be ideal but at the very least a plug in and go vs configurations and setup and mapping out space and so on. People adapted to smart phones, tablets, smart TV's and if the developers continue VR can have its place.

 

[Verge]

As much as I've tried to get into VR (psvr and psvr2), my brain doesn't like it.

Same, had to send my psvr2 to ebay. Made me sick. I also don't think it helps that the pack in game was total trash.