VR will never be mainstream, will it?

[KriessG]

3 minutes ago, mwaawm said:

VR....🤢....more VR 🤮

 

So i think OP is correct will never be more than a niche segment of the market. 

‘Never’ is such a strong word. I’m sure many people thought computer games consoles would ‘never’ be mainstream. Or the internet. Or even computers.

[Qazimod]

About the "excluding others", "anti-social" aspect - there are already a few things that are specifically designed to be played together. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes comes to mind as well as a bunch of the experimental games on The Playroom VR. Every time my nephew came over he'd want to play two-player PSVR games with me where one of us did things on the TV whilst the other wore a headset.

 

I'm not saying it's bursting with social experiences right now, but there are already proven examples of multi-display games that are as inclusive as any classic couch multiplayer thing.

 

9 minutes ago, MarkN said:

VR doesn't have to be about waving your arms around. It's an extreme example, to be honest. I've played hundreds of hours of No Man's Sky, and you probably wouldn't notice me if I was sat next to you on the sofa doing it.

 

I think I went for about a year of PSVR before I even bothered getting Moves because I enjoyed the seated controller games - although to be fair I wasn't a heavy user and was spending a lot of time with regular non-VR games too.

[thesnwmn]

4 minutes ago, MarkN said:

Everything you've said can be done in VR whilst doing anything else you want to be doing in VR. All of that can sit above or below whatever you want to do in VR. You could sit on a beach in the Bahamas dealing with that as a priority, or play a video game whilst just being vaguely aware of it.

 

VR doesn't have to be about waving your arms around. It's an extreme example, to be honest. I've played hundreds of hours of No Man's Sky, and you probably wouldn't notice me if I was sat next to you on the sofa doing it.

 

 

God I hope this never comes to pass.

 

As much as I love technology the idea of people immersing themselves, losing themselves, in a VR world like this is depressing as fuck. It's already terrible how absorbed people have become in phones and screens.

 

Maybe a bit old man yelling at clouds but whilst I see VR as a good tech when done well, industry's predilection, for eating all our time means the use of gatcha and endorphins from scrolling means people will lose themselves entirely to VR spaces.

[Exit Chamber]

5 minutes ago, KriessG said:

It’s not nonsense, it’s a pretty widely accepted fact that Apple have entered a market later than others but with better designed, easier to use tech and made the space attractive for the general public, where as before it was for more early adopters and techies. 

 

You're genuinely trying to argue that walkmans et all were mostly used by "early adopters and techies"?

[KriessG]

On the topic of social gaming, what do the younger games do today in droves, probably far more so than the 40+ gamers here? Online gaming. To them, online VR gaming and console gaming is hardly a big leap, especially as the tech becomes more affordable.

 

Walkabout Mini Golf was an incredible social experience that helped me though lockdowns. 

[KriessG]

1 minute ago, Exit Chamber said:

 

You're genuinely trying to argue that walkmans et all were mostly used by "early adopters and techies"?

Come on, you’re missing the point I was making and somehow trying to tie in the early days of MP3 players to tape players. Different era’s.

[spanky debrest]

Apple 'legitimised' digital music by way of DRM'd 99p tracks on iTunes, which gave some semblance of power back to major record companies. 

[MarkN]

1 minute ago, thesnwmn said:

 

God I hope this never comes to pass.

 

As much as I love technology the idea of people immersing themselves, losing themselves, in a VR world like this is depressing as fuck. It's already terrible how absorbed people have become in phones and screens.

 

Maybe a bit old man yelling at clouds but whilst I see VR as a good tech when done well, industry's predilection, for eating all our time means the use of gatcha and endorphins from scrolling means people will lose themselves entirely to VR spaces.

I haven't been able to afford to go on holiday for over a decade. I've not been outside a 30 mile radius of where I currently live in all that time. (I'm fine with that, I really am - I'm a simple man, and easily amused. But if I could virtually go back to places I love that were suitably convincing it would be nice to go there for a while, rather than be here for a change. As I've said I don't use a phone, but I see people who are far more in thrall to theirs than I would be to taking an hour off in the French Alps occasionally.

[Exit Chamber]

6 hours ago, KriessG said:

like when Apple legitimised portable music players

 

9 minutes ago, KriessG said:

Come on, you’re missing the point I was making and somehow trying to tie in the early days of MP3 players to tape players. Different era’s.

 

Your initial statement made me do a double take. Fair enough, can't argue that iPods brought digital music to a lot more people.

[footle]

14 minutes ago, Exit Chamber said:

 

You're genuinely trying to argue that walkmans et all were mostly used by "early adopters and techies"?

MP3 players certainly were.

 

I’m pretty sure I’ve an old mini-cd (remember them?) mp3 player somewhere in a box; and I certainly bought an iriver (ditto) mp3 player. 
I knew no one else with one until the ipod became popular and then everyone regardless of age, techie status had one.

 

It’s weird revisionism to pretend otherwise. There’s no other reason anyone would ever have installed the jank that was iTunes.

[Exit Chamber]

Just now, footle said:

It’s weird revisionism to pretend otherwise.

 

I'm not doing that though.

[KriessG]

4 minutes ago, Exit Chamber said:

 

 

Your initial statement made me do a double take. Fair enough, can't argue that iPods brought digital music to a lot more people.

I could’ve worded it clearer. Let’s move on  I am certainly old enough to remember and have owned Walkmans and Discmans. I wanted a portable mini disc player too!

Apologies to all for sidetracking the thread.

[Stanley]

It’s interesting that anyone should make this thread at this time when 2023 is basically the year that if anything we will see a lot more VR. PSVR2, Meta Quest 3, Apple VR, to name the biggest, but they are not the only players in the market. All of these will see significant advances over what we’ve seen before - be that improved graphics, field of view, screen technology, lenses, controllers etc. So I wouldn’t write it off, that’s like playing Quake on dial up and claiming online gaming will never be mainstream. VR is still very much in its infancy but already offers experiences it’s impossible to get any other way. 

[tobert]

What is going on in a vr headset can often be amazing, something which feels truly like the next evolution in gaming but, currently there is no getting around the fact you look, and feel, like a bit of a cock in the real world.

[thesnwmn]

19 minutes ago, MarkN said:

I haven't been able to afford to go on holiday for over a decade. I've not been outside a 30 mile radius of where I currently live in all that time. (I'm fine with that, I really am - I'm a simple man, and easily amused. But if I could virtually go back to places I love that were suitably convincing it would be nice to go there for a while, rather than be here for a change. As I've said I don't use a phone, but I see people who are far more in thrall to theirs than I would be to taking an hour off in the French Alps occasionally.

 

You're right of course. These sorts of experiences are exactly what I think VR can excel at. Be somewhere. Feel it.

 

But it's when we talk about that layering of our outside worlds into it. Of choosing it as our primary social space. Consuming other media within it. Then I worry about the continued control businesses and advertisers have over the world we see around us. Its a curated world in there.

 

When people say kids are already spending their time in online games and the next step is VR I worry about that. Yes. Of course I'm detached. But I've been in that online gaming world. I played WoW for a year to the complete neglect of myself and my life outside of it. I think a technology that can suck us in even more. That can cut off our world around us can be a really scary prospect for some people.

 

Having played as stuff like Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes there are really exciting experiences for gaming. But these don't counter that when you're playing VR you cannot co-exist with others who are not choosing to be in my world. Its not the same as me playing on my Switch whilst my girlfriend watches the TV or reads.

[Stanley]

Just now, tobert said:

What is going on in a vr headset can often be amazing, something which feels truly like the next evolution in gaming but, currently there is no getting around the fact you look, and feel, like a bit of a cock in the feel world.

To be fair most gaming set ups don’t exactly make you look like John Travolta in Staying Alive. 

[tobert]

Thinking about it a little more, I wonder if there is something untrust worthy about VR/VR which will always put people off.

 

I mean, even with the utopian vision of the tech shrinking down to a simple pair of glasses doesn't sit easily as no one will know what the user is looking at.  With phones, computers, TV's you can a) often see what they are looking at or b) at the very least know they are looking at their phone.  With VR the user is often isolated from the world but with both VR and AR the world can excluded from what the user is doing so you might be having a chat with someone with their AR glasses,  whilse they are watching something else entirely

[Darwock]

1 hour ago, Qazimod said:

About the "excluding others", "anti-social" aspect - there are already a few things that are specifically designed to be played together. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes comes to mind as well as a bunch of the experimental games on The Playroom VR. Every time my nephew came over he'd want to play two-player PSVR games with me where one of us did things on the TV whilst the other wore a headset.

 

 

 

 

My 11yo daughter recently asked me what my favourite game is (it’s her favourite type of question). She has a Switch and spends all her time playing Pokémon, Minecraft and Animal Crossing. I thought I’d better not actually answer her question as she’s not quite ready for a rllmuk thread, but it turns out she really just wanted to tell me hers.

 

She described the game (as she didn’t know the title) from Playroom VR where the headset player is the Godzilla type monster terrorizing the other players. We played it once, the three of us, when she was 5. It must have made a huge impression on her.

[jonamok]

Lots of opinions, all equally valid. But my subjective tuppence…

Is VR any more fun than pancake gaming?

 

No. If I’m honest, none of my top games and gaming moments are in VR. I’ve had fun, Beat Sabre is great, Batman VR had an amazing moment when someone looks you in the eye that first time, but both headsets are long gathering dust.

 

Is VR more immersive than other gaming?

Not really? I’m more immersed in BOTW or Elden Ring, totally losing myself and all awareness of the world outside the screen. While the on-paper extra sense of immersion in VR was very fleeting, and I was always aware I was in a headset, and not in another place. This might have been due to the relatively poor visual quality of my PSVR and Quest. But I believe it’s more fundamental than that. Many genres just don’t feel good in VR. The disconnect between stationary human and moving viewpoint always jars. The need for dev mitigation strategies re. nausea is telling. I also think advances in the tech will only create an uncanny valley effect. Even photorealistic visuals with full body haptic suits would still have that disconnect - the closer you get to reality, the harder our brains spot the gaps and pull us out of it. Such that even as the tech gets ever better, the immersion doesn’t deepen. Speculation of course.

Will VR get cheaper and less of a faff?

 

Possibly, and it needs to if it’s going to truly breakthrough. But…

 

Is it going to hang around long enough anyway?

 

Presumably development of the VR tech of tomorrow likely needs the VR tech of today to be successful enough to imply a viable market to recoup the investment. Not sure we’ll ever see the required investment/computing breakthroughs to have this tech in a pair of Ray-Bans.

 

As an enthusiastic follower and earlyish adopter of the tech, I hope it lives long enough to find out what the VR future might hold, but I have serious doubts.

[Darwock]

18 minutes ago, jonamok said:

 

As an enthusiastic follower and earlyish adopter of the tech, I hope it lives long enough to find out what the VR future might hold, but I have serious doubts.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

[CrichStand]

VR is great but, I find a lot of the time the games are tailored too much towards full on VR itself just for the sake of it........if that makes sense? Like “let’s make the player do stuff, in the way they’d actually do it in real life.........WOW!!!!” which is cool for about 5mins but, gets old pretty fast. Standing up, spinning around, using your arms and hands and shit to pick stuff up, put stuff down......it’s all a bit of a chore and not really much fun in the long term. Like the fishing game where you row the boat, pick up the bait, bait the rod, cast off and then sit about waiting for fish to bite. At first it’s really impressive until you realise........”hold on, what the fuck am I doing? I may as well just go fishing in real life, which would be far more interactive and rewarding”. 😂

 

The best VR games are the ones that stay away from all that crap, like Astrobot. The ones which actually use the VR to innovate and create fun gameplay and do it in a more traditional video game kind of way. Problem is, I think VR is actually limited compared to standard gaming. There’s just far more you can do with standard games.

 

A lot of the time with VR, it would actually be better if you were just playing a standard game in 3D. For example, I remember hooking up the Switch to PSVR and playing BOTW in 3D.........and instantly couldn’t understand why there weren’t loads of games you can play like that on PSVR, as it shits all over most VR stuff. You get the depth and scale of the world, you feel like you’re there in Hyrule and there’s no pick stuff up, put stuff down, annoying spinning waggle bollocks. I think if there were more standard games in 3D using the headset, VR would be far more popular.

 

Edit - Put another way, one of the main draws for people is VR being like "real life". However, i play games to escape real life and have fun. If i want real life, and to wander around picking shit up and putting it back down, i can just go outside and don't need to spend £550 to do it! The more realistic games become, the less fun they tend to be. The best VR games are the ones that stick to a traditional format - Astrobot, Tetris Effect, Moss, Rez Infinite or offer a completely different non-game experience, for example being able to explore a location, such as the Museum/Art Gallery in Dreams.  

[MattyP]

VR is at this stage more of an experimental toy especially at the consumer level. It has lots of potential to provide an amazing experience but at the moment it's just not there yet as a tech for the masses.

 

Think Sony are on the right track to make it more accessible - I was really impressed with the PSVR. But with my Oculus Rift S it's been not as smooth. 

 

Also bulky headsets etc but let's face it were are on the early stages of the tech and discovering things that work and things that don't. The tech will get better, less intrusive and feel more natural.

 

Personally think a blend of AR and VR is where things will go and phones will be built into glasses type formats that provide overlays etc I'm guessing. 

 

Games won't be it's main application I don't think and it will be a breakthrough communication device first and foremost. The games will be a side use case.

 

For example I have been now requested to be in office twice a week because of reasons however I'd love to just slide on a pair of specs and be in a full virtual room full of people and have those ad-hoc convos etc. Almost at life like quality. And not have to drive 65 miles, waste a couple of hours driving and burn some hydrocarbons to do it. Similarly chatting and interacting with family or friends who live on the other side of the planet. I see it as an enabling device. I can absolutely see why Zuckerberg is ploughing money into this. Unfortunately I don't think I'll get the level of detail I hope for in my lifetime and certainly not before I retire however maybe perhaps I might end up in a home* somewhere traveling around a virtual world living another life. 

 

For me VR has been an amazing journey so far and come a long way since I was trying to create a virtual representation of my faculty block at uni for my final year project in 1997! (In VRML if anyone remembers that?!). Sony were into VR even back then and had a fairly advanced VRML plug-in back then! Loving seeing everything moving forward and well being able to buy kit at affordable prices. 

 

*Home could be my brain kept alive in a jar 🌥️ Although I have wondered if we will be ever able to download our consciousness into a digital form and we could effectively live forever somewhere. Anyhow going very sci-fi here. Always been something I pondered over since I was a kid and then read things like Neuromancer.

[Escape]

Now that VR lens tech is quite good, I actually think pricing's one of the less frequent complaints.

 

I see VR going mainstream following two things: much smaller and lighter wireless units, achieved at the same time á la Wii U; and a software focus on seated 180° games.

 

I think as well as their heft and wires getting in the way of higher sales, a lot of VR devs are mistaking our tolerance for that level of investment as a desire for stand-and-wave gameplay. But just because people are putting up with trailing wires and toilet lids on their bonce, it doesn't mean they all want the full monty experience to justify it.

[CrichStand]

Yeah, that’s partly what I was trying to say - sit on the sofa, stick the headset on and play God of War, Zelda, Forza etc in 3D. They’re the same games you can play on the big screen but you can also play them in 3D/VR on the headset. Seems like a no brainer and would drive sales way more than “mini game wagglers” imo, which is pretty much what a lot of VR stuff is currently on a par with. Suppose that’s pretty much what GT will be like on PSVR2, so will be interesting to see how that pans out. Noticed that those games I’ve mentioned, which are my favs in VR, all use the game pad too (think Rez does, not 100% sure though). Statik is another good one.
 

Would also like to see stuff like the AC Origins tours in VR. That would be great! Locations/places you may never get to visit in life but, you can wander around and explore them in VR. I think it can be a great learning tool. Just off the top of my head - something like looking at pictures of Dinosaurs and reading about them in a book vs interactive learning and having one tower over you and really appreciating the sense of scale and presence. 
 

Mire of the above and less of the waggle and I’d be tempted to pick a PSVR2 up. Not at £500 though, can buy a 2nd hand Fender Strat/Tele for that price that will last a lifetime!
 

 

[Escape]

28 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

Suppose that’s pretty much what GT will be like on PSVR2

 

I think it'll carry PSVR2 until another Astro turns up. Big devs will get the message, but differentiating with novelty's still tempting for smaller indies if they can't compete elsewhere. We might've seen Kinect 3 if that market were bigger.

 

9 hours ago, Stanley said:

To be fair most gaming set ups don’t exactly make you look like John Travolta in Staying Alive. 

 

[MattyP]

41 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

Yeah, that’s partly what I was trying to say - sit on the sofa, stick the headset on and play God of War, Zelda, Forza etc in 3D. They’re the same games you can play on the big screen but you can also play them in 3D/VR on the headset. Seems like a no brainer and would drive sales way more than “mini game wagglers” imo, which is pretty much what a lot of VR stuff is currently on a par with. Suppose that’s pretty much what GT will be like on PSVR2, so will be interesting to see how that pans out. Noticed that those games I’ve mentioned, which are my favs in VR, all use the game pad too (think Rez does, not 100% sure though). Statik is another good one.
 

Would also like to see stuff like the AC Origins tours in VR. That would be great! Locations/places you may never get to visit in life but, you can wander around and explore them in VR. I think it can be a great learning tool. Just off the top of my head - something like looking at pictures of Dinosaurs and reading about them in a book vs interactive learning and having one tower over you and really appreciating the sense of scale and presence. 
 

Mire of the above and less of the waggle and I’d be tempted to pick a PSVR2 up. Not at £500 though, can buy a 2nd hand Fender Strat/Tele for that price that will last a lifetime!
 

 

Love Google maps for exploring - great for planning holidays etc!

 

Think VR is a great way of learning things. Like I mentioned earlier think gaming will not be the thing that pushes VR mainstream it will be a "iPhone" type moment when the tech is right and the use case shown and people just get it.

[ScouserInExile]

I've never tried VR, so it must be shit and will never go anywhere.

 

This isn't strictly true. Well not true at all, really. I last tried VR in 93 or 94 when Psygnosis were looking at publishing some VR games. It gave me awful motion sickness and I've not had the desire to give it a go since. And I actually don't feel like I'm missing out. I look at the must play type games like Astrobot and Beat Sabre and AlanPartridgeSgrug.gif. Oh and Resu 4? A game I've already played with two different control methods and didn't like either time? AlanPartridge etc.

 

To me, it strikes me as being kinda like racing wheels - it's still somewhat the niche / hardcore end of gaming and I can't see it moving away from that anytime soon.

 

The two biggest barriers to entry, IMO, are cost and convenience. Until you have something that costs about the same as a first party controller and as easy to pick up and use, it's not going to become a must have for gamers. That and a lot of exclusive games or exclusive modes in big games. Something like a good, exclusive mode in FIFA EA Football / PUBG / Minecraft.

 

I'm aware this is more than a touch luddite-y, but reading through some of the non-gaming uses for VR, they all seem to be solutions for problems that don't exist, or there is already a good, workable solution for. Might just be me, though.

 

What I'd be interested to see is how many VR headsets have been sold Vs number of consoles / gaming PCs there are out there and how much they actually get used. 

[Danster]

There have been some improvements over the last 30 years... 🤣

[Stanley]

Back in 93 or 94 what headsets were even available? 
 

@ScouserInExilehave you seen GT7 VR footage? It’s basically the whole game in VR and it looks incredible. 

[Plissken]

VR has been the next big thing for 30 years.  In the same way that 3D movies come and go every thirty years - three iterations have now come and gone (late 50's, early 80's, early 2010s).  And basketball and American Football have been the next big UK sport since the mid-eighties.

 

It's nice tech and I can see lots of useful possibilities - mainly in the AR space - but it's a solution looking for a problem.