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I own a Vive and I demo it to people constantly. I've never seen a tech that makes ordinary people (as in "non-tech/non-gamers) gasp with delight with such regularity.

It's wrong to consider VR as a gaming peripheral - the appeal is much wider.

Music visualization applications are astonishing and photogrammatry is compelling. I've often just sat in a virtual location enjoying the ambience. Music making and 3D modelling (both for leisure and for professional use), social VR, fitness, narrative/story-based, virtual tourism and educational applications - these are all genres that work much, much better in VR than on a flat monitor.

> given the limited games and limited quality of them

This is quite simply not true unless you have very specific tastes or unlimited free time. There is more good content available now than I would ever have time to play.

There is a lack of big-budget, AAA, 60+ hour gameplay titles mainly due to the economics of game production (creating a typical AAA title solely for VR would require it to sell for something like $1000 a unit to coup costs given the current user base) but there are several VR ports in the works including Doom, Skyrim and Fallout 4 from Bethesda by the end of the year.

But I can list a dozen incredibly good gaming experiences in VR off the top of my head. I rarely touch non-VR games now.

Yes - VR has room for improvement (FOV, lens quality and weight would be top of my list - the resolution is far from being a major problem and most others agree) and the cost needs to drop further for it to be mainstream.

But the tech is already compelling in a way that no other technology in my lifetime has shown itself to be. Count me as a true believer. I'd buy another rig immediately if I had to choose again.

Thus far I've always felt its been a wonderful demo. I feel like the killer app should be here by now, what with so much huge names and money behind it.

What is the application that goes mainstream? Maybe 360 video? Google Maps?

> 360 video

360 video can be great but it's not really "VR". You don't need a Vive/Rift and positional tracking to watch 360 video. Anyone with $5 Cardboard goggles can experience it.

VR is the killer app. Or rather it doesn't need a single killer app - it just needs to gradually accumulate interesting content in the way the web did. What was the "killer app" that made the web go mainstream? From my recollection is was the breadth of content rather than having a single specific trigger.

Cost is probably the biggest factor holding back adoption with maybe ease of use coming second. The following needs to happen:

1. We'll need good inside-out tracking in a consumer device so that room setup is painless and quick (should be here by the end of the year either from the Microsoft partners or the Daydream standalone)

2. There has to be either a good standalone headset at a reasonable price - or the PC upgrade cycle needs to do it's magic so that most people don't need to buy a new PC specifically for VR. (I suspect the Daydream standalone will be underpowered - we might need another year for this to resolve itself)

3. The headset itself needs to be less bulky and more comfortable. Casually dipping in and out of VR and passing the headset around while in company needs to be much less effort.

For me the killer app for half a year has been Climbey. I have done exercise frequently by playing that game several times a week with a friend, and has hundreds of user created levels, some are much better than the few built in levels. Some are very long and difficult but the challenge is frequently fun (not always, some are just bad).

I think it shows the future of VR controls. In every other VR game I play I miss Climbey controls. Except Echo Arena, which also it's the best VR single player campaign to date.

I watched a gameplay video and I didn't get what's special about the controls in Climbey. Care to explain?

Videos rarely do VR justice.

Climbey has arm-swinging for walking and jumping and a climbing mechanic central to the gameplay. It's just wonderfully immersive (as long as you've got a head for heights).

Climbing is a satisfactory 1:1 movement because you "move the world" exactly the distance you move the hands, so it feels very natural, unlike any other artificial movement system in VR games. Lone Echo does this but even better (I said Echo Arena before by mistake, it's the multiplayer version of Lone Echo)

Jumping can be hard to get used to for some, it's like throwing yourself, and requires the same skill as throwing a ball to a target. But once you get the hang of it, it feels VERY good, it's an incredible sense of freedom, esp after playing other VR games with teleport or other systems of artificial locomotion. I'd like just to jump everywhere like that. The jumps are superhuman but your brain accepts it as perfectly possible (which is important for immersion).

Walking is done through arm swinging. I think it's kind of weak but I still prefer that form of locomotion over any other if there's no jumping.

> But I can list a dozen incredibly good gaming experiences in VR off the top of my head. I rarely touch non-VR games now.

Could you actually do it please?

OK. I'll focus on games with reasonable length or replayability - there's some amazing short games and experiences that are still good value for money but I'll leave them to one side. I'll also avoid non-games - even ones that are primarily for entertainment.

1. Rec Room

2. Sairento

3. Arizona Sunshine

4. Doom BFG (with the VR mod)

5. SuperHot

6. Elite Dangerous

7. Climbey

8. Pavlov (some prefer Onward but I haven't tried it)

9. Vivecraft

10. Subnautica

11. Vanishing Realms

12. Robo Recall

I can keep going if you like. The bottom of the barrel is a fair way off.

Space pirate trainer ... I love it!! It is so simple but so perfect with touch controllers. I used to be a gamer back in my youth but little time these days. This game is instant action as soon as you start.

Darknet on gear vr. Same deal ... loved it and a very quick fix.

Landfall. I played like a demon the entire open beta. My wife was very annoyed at me :-p But I think I unlocked all the mechs. This is a controller game though.

Thanks! some of these do look quite good. I wish I had the opportunity to try them out, so far I've just been able to try experiments on the Vive, not finished games.

I like VR too but a product that makes people gasp with delight is not the same as a product that people want to use regularly. The problem with VR as a standalone product (and not just as peripheral) is that when using VR you have to give it your full attention. It's a separate activity. As such it must be weighted against one's other competing interests. Is VR really compelling enough for most people as a standalone activity? Are they really that interested in carving out hours of their time to (verb) VR?

I think the big breakthrough in VR will be social, and it will be more "active-social" than "passive-social". (Examples would be VR parties and MMOs.) Only then will VR as an activity have mass appeal.

Same. Here in Shenzhen there are VR gaming houses where you can try the tech from various companies in a pay-to-play environment. Nothing I played really convinced me to buy... a lot of the issues are with FPS movement in a walking scenario. (Car steering wheel systems and joystick based spaceships are less destructive to the illusion.)

The most fun I had was on a moving horse saddle thing, where you basically hold a gun and play cowboy with your feet in the stirrups against zombies in a virtual desert! Awesome experience :)

I really think that gear VR is the best and most cost effective experience right now. The app store is great, there are a lot of options. An important thing is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's meant to be enjoyed 30 minutes at a time and that's the perfect duration for enjoying VR right now. You don't feel dizzy and you don't feel disoriented. The cost is also minimal. The headset is literally $100 or free with your phone. Apps are a bit expensive, but nowhere close to the PC based systems.

Daydream is a low effort also ran. It lacks good hardware, the quality is noticably worse than gear VR and supported phones are rare to find. Now that the galaxy S8 and note 8 are slated to support daydream, it will finally have decent hardware support. Let's see if Google does something interesting, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've tried the Vive in different settings and with different demos.

First: it's always impressive. You just get teleported to a different world in which you can move around and look around. You can notice the screen at first but you just quickly forget about it as you immerse yourself in this new dimension. It's just incredible.

Second: a lot of demos you can try are kind of shitty. For example here in London you can play Serious Sam for 10 minutes for 6 quids and I wouldn't recommend that as a first experience as it's too simple and too limited.

To understand VR you need to try tilt brush, job simulator, the lab, the portal demo, ... These experiences are incredible and I haven't seen someone not impressed by them.

Having said that, I myself haven't bought an HTC Vive although I've been wanting for a very long time... just because I do not have a PC and this would increase the cost ten folds.

The most fun I've had with my Vive, personally, is playing two player Rawdata. But when I show someone the Vive I always start with Job Simulator. It's such a great start and when you experience the "presence" people talk about, it really is staggering.

Totally agree. For someone who is pretty busy and doesn't have much time for gaming, the current VR experience is simply too cumbersome, especially if you don't have a dedicated space for it.

I own both a Vive and Rift, and apart from freelance work where I use those devices, I never take them out. Untangling all the cables, setting up the lighthouses, recalibrating the software, making sure the lighthouses are positioned well so there's no interference, asking my wife to stay out of the play area... It's a lot of work for an experience which ultimately leaves you with a headache after one hour of play (either from motion sickness, which I don't suffer from, or from the tightness of walking around with a heavy helmet on your head).

Fumbling with the headset to have a quick peek around the room to see where you're standing is also annoying, especially for people (like me, and many gamers, I presume) wearing glasses. It's so uncomfortable I risk damaging my expensive glasses and fall back to wearing an older pair. A screen works much better, especially if you can afford a nice 4K setup (which until recently boils down to the same price as a full-fledged VR setup).

I do have some hope for Microsoft's Hololens, though. I believe that augmented (or mixed) reality has a much better chance to lead to much richer experiences, in games but also video and creative work. Being able to play Minecraft on your living room's floor seems much cooler to me than in VR. You still have spatial awareness of what's around you, and there's hope that solutions for nearsighted people will be more elegant.

Agree about the dedicated space. Or rather - a space where you can leave it permanently set up. I'm lucky enough to have an office with 2m square of clear space - so all I have to do is roll my office chair out of the way if I want the whole room.

Inside-out tracking will help enormously with this.

> Fumbling with the headset to have a quick peek around the room to see where you're standing is also annoying

The Vive has a front-facing camera especially for this purpose. I wish the "welding mask" hinge seen on the new Lenovo was more widespread.

> A screen works much better

For what? You lost me here.

> I believe that augmented (or mixed) reality has a much better chance to lead to much richer experiences

AR and VR are just different ends of the same spectrum. Ideally you want both as they lend themselves to different types of experience.

By the way - I have fairly large spectacles and I don't find wearing them in VR problematic at all. There's easily 5mm of clearance even when the Vive is set to it's closest setting.

> The Vive has a front-facing camera especially for this purpose. I wish the "welding mask" hinge seen on the new Lenovo was more widespread.

Does it? I must never have noticed it. How do you enable it in-game?

>> A screen works much better

For general, short-session gaming. At least for me.

> I have fairly large spectacles and I don't find wearing them in VR problematic at all. There's easily 5mm of clearance even when the Vive is set to it's closest setting.

The main issue for me is putting on the headset and taking it off without the helmet grabbing and smudging them.

> How do you enable it in-game?

Double press the system button of any controller or the left of the HMD. There's also a button in the Steam overlay. Make sure the camera is enabled in the settings, and you may lower the refresh rate if there are USB issues. It's a very shitty camera but it's good enough for finding the controllers, obstacles, etc.

> without the helmet grabbing and smudging them

It must be put on front first, and it must be removed back first. That way you never move the glasses from your face. Worst case they get stuck to the HMD, but doing it correctly they don't smudge anything.

> Double press the system button of any controller or the left of the HMD. There's also a button in the Steam overlay. Make sure the camera is enabled in the settings, and you may lower the refresh rate if there are USB issues. It's a very shitty camera but it's good enough for finding the controllers, obstacles, etc.

Okay, you have just blown my mind. This increases usability a lot! Months of owning this and I had no idea... Thanks!

They should definitely increase discoverability of such features. Also don't miss my other answer in this thread.

> Untangling all the cables, setting up the lighthouses, recalibrating the software, making sure the lighthouses are positioned well so there's no interference, asking my wife to stay out of the play area...

There's your problem. I just roll the cable at the end of the play session so it's not tangled with other things, and put it safely oriented in a particular spot, without disconnecting anything. I only have to calibrate the lighthouses when I move them accidentally or when I move the whole setup to demo it elsewhere, either of which happen every several months.

Also add a "playing VR" sign on the door and close it. Problem solved.

> or from the tightness of walking around with a heavy helmet on your head

You have the straps incorrectly adjusted, probably. Also there are solutions that don't rely on pressure, PSVR style.

> There's your problem. I just roll the cable at the end of the play session so it's not tangled with other things, and put it safely oriented in a particular spot, without disconnecting anything. I only have to calibrate the lighthouses when I move them accidentally or when I move the whole setup to demo it elsewhere, either of which happen every several months. Also add a "playing VR" sign on the door and close it. Problem solved.

Sadly, my little office space is shared with others in the house, which is not large. Leaving the cables next to me is not really an option, and I have enough of them already coming from my PC.

> You have the straps incorrectly adjusted, probably. Also there are solutions that don't rely on pressure, PSVR style.

No matter how I adjust, it always starts feeling heavy after a while. PSVR is indeed much better in terms of comfort, agreed.

I hang it under my table http://i.imgur.com/hNSuSyG.jpg and I could put it behind the leg and deeper under so it could be barely noticed; and the controllers are usually charging in another room (but in this photo they're hanging just behind).

HTC sells a "deluxe audio strap" for the Vive that is PSVR style, and I've made a mod very similar to this one: http://i.imgur.com/OkF6WSV.jpg (for a friend, I still use the stock straps but will probably make the mod for me too). I've followed these instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uDf6ayUQtk

I was a casual gamer and I agree with whats written here. I did actually try the Vive for a week but passed on buying. I am actually pretty excited about AR these days though. Apart from games, productivity apps will be big on AR

As someone who owns a Vive, what I hear is: "it's still too expensive" which is really encouraging to me because I think as the technology continues to progress it will become more and more appealing to a wider audience.