Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

According to https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey, just over 1% of Steam users have VR headsets, and that is trending downward.

Anecdotally it feels like VR never really took off? From casual perusals of the steam store at https://store.steampowered.com/vr/, there are very few VR games and the ones that do exist are fairly mediocre looking - things you've never heard of from indie developers self-publishing to steam.

Seems like an odd move from Valve - I don't suspect that this on its own will be enough of a draw to lure people to purchase a VR headset for. Especially since this started out as an "exploration of VR" ... I am left wondering if this is basically going to end up being some glorified DLC or mod that adds a couple of levels with a few neat little VR-specific touches/gimmicks rather than a full-blown installment in the HL franchise?

They may well prove me wrong and trigger a renaissance in the VR gaming industry and wow us with a huge and well-executed sequel to HL2 that will lure people in, but I remain skeptical for now.

"Seems like an odd move from Valve"

This is exactly the move many of us in the VR community have been expecting. It may seem like a tiny percentage (because it is) but the VR numbers themselves have been growing massively since launch of Vive/Rift.

The community is alive and vibrant, not what you'd expect of dead technology.

You don't provide any data for your claims. He's saying less than 1% of Steam users have a headset and declining, and you're claiming that it's growing and vibrant.

There may be some awesome VR experiences out there and a handful of people that enjoy them, but sales numbers don't lie - VR is not currently succeeding. If you compare VR sales to Kinect sales, it makes the Kinect look like a roaring success - and Microsoft abandoned it due to lack of consumer interest.

I can find dedicated communities to restoring antiquated decades old computers - a niche does not make a growing vibrant market. Anecdotally (and I welcome people to provide real data instead) everybody I know that used to work on VR for a living has moved on with their careers, including several engineers who got acquired by Facebook.

Don't trust the hardware survey. If the headset isn't plugged in it doesn't exist. Not many people leave the headset plugged in 24/7, so I don't think the HW survey is a reliable source.

1% of Steam users is still a lot of users. Considering that Steam itself is still seeing massive growth, VR hovering at 1% is evidence of said growth.

There's many sites which report the proper number of headsets and their absolute growth. Headsets are still doubling every year, even if it's a small number.

People also tended to hate the Kinect, which only made sales due to marketing bundles. I've never met a single person who's tried VR that doesn't like the tech bar it's rough edges (display quality, PC requirements and long term comfort) but these problems can be solved.

> I've never met a single person who's tried VR that doesn't like the tech bar it's rough edges

The fact that you've never met someone that tried VR that didn't like the tech shows your overwhelming bias. Most people I've met didn't enjoy it - many were literally too nauseous to use it. It's extremely well studied that a lot of people get sick from VR and yet you are claiming everyone that tried it loves it. One of my friends at Facebook left because he didn't think they'd ever get it so VR wasn't nauseous for too many people. Even Palmer Luckey, the poster boy for VR, moved on years ago (not to mention Iribe and Mitchell).

Was this mobile VR? Because that is horrible and nauseating and likely won't ever be a thing in the next decade.

As long as you're using solid VR game design principles, the biggest being: don't move the player using artificial locomotion, people do not feel sick. The hardware is ready in that regard - motion sickness is a solved problem.

Many games ignore that and have you moving with a joystick - you can get used to it, but it should always be optional imo.

My bias is simply from people I've showed my own hardware to, family and friends, not tech people who have a vested interest. The excitement is there, just not as a mass-market consumer product yet.

I admit the hardware is immature in every other respect: comfort, weight, audio, cables and display quality.

> Was this mobile VR? Because that is horrible and nauseating and likely won't ever be a thing in the next decade.

It wasn't mobile VR - it was a dedicated space with external sensors and (usually) a complete Oculus headset.

Your experience differs from mine. As someone who used to love VR and considered moving across the country at one point to work on it, I've since fallen out of love. Ultimately I look at sales as my grounding data, and I don't think VR is going to take off for years.

Of course as I type this, Valve is announcing Half Life for VR - which is huge news. So maybe I'm wrong?

I don't think it's actually trending downward, the hardware survey only shows devices connected at the time. I have two vr headsets and I only plug them in when I'm actually using them, so according to the survey I don't have one. I'm sure a lot of people do the same. Also, totally ancedotal evidence, but four of my friends bought into VR in the last few months since the price finally came down low enough for them to do it and they wanted to play Beat Saber. If that can sell headsets Half Life certainly can.

Beat Saber really seems to be the closest thing to a Killer App for VR right now. I'm introducing it to people who have never really been interested in video games and they fall in love immediately. It's also the only VR game I've played that has felt like a complete, novel, and interesting experience that I keep coming back to.

Can confirm. I'm currently pretty addicted to Beat Saber. Let my (non-gamer) mom try it some time ago and now everytime they visit she asks if she can play a bit.

Steam does not reflect the VR ecosystem at all.

Oculus store has the quality games, for the most part. Many Rift owners do not have their headset connected when not using VR. Like for example when playing a flat game on Steam.

Largest installed base is PSVR with more than 4 million devices sold.

Miners have taken a hit and now GPUs are plentiful. That wasn't the case when VR tried for a big push in 2016-2017

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