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Comment by greenthrow | Hacker News Reader

You are absolutely dead wrong about VR gaming and sales show this.

In my experience "dead wrong" is also wrong. I don't believe VR will ever obsolete some swaths of gaming, but there are certain VR experiences that leave the conventional-gaming alternative feeling utterly worthless by comparison. The feeling of "actually" jumping into the cockpit of my spaceship in Elite Dangerous during the COVID lockdowns was intense, joyful, and freeing in a way no picture on a monitor could ever replicate.

However VR is still an emerging and expensive medium; I'm very lucky to be able to afford the gaming rig, headset, controllers etc required to have that experience. As those barriers to entry lessen, VR will absolutely obsolete certain traditional gaming experiences as much as television murdered the ubiquitous living room radio.

That statement is way too definitive. VR gaming and sales are low because content is low. It's plagued with the cold start problem of all new platforms where publishers won't target VR because it's a small market, and VR won't grow because the game selection is very limited. When a major publisher pushes something to VR, it's usually an half-assed port that fail to leverage the completely different user interface.

If we had 5 games with the polish of Half-life Alyx in VR the sales would probably be higher, but as it is we don't so everyone I know with a headset enjoyed that one game then promptly put their headset back in storage and only take it out for the occasional beat saber game.

VR gaming also suffers from having a stationary gamer. Sitting still and looking around only really works for certain game types. If I’m always looking forward, how is VR adding to the experience?

Beatsaber and other rhythm games are very dynamic. I think the problem is more that the things I would want to work well in VR don't always work well. (But there are probably lots of amazing dynamic things like Beatsaber I never would have thought of.)

In beat saber you don’t need to walk around the, the targets come to you. It’s very static in that sense.

Immersion. I know it doesn't sound like much, but the hindbrain doesn't care.

There's an unofficial third-party mod for GTA 5 that adapts it into a VR game. Even though you still use keyboard and mouse to actually move around, and so gameplay-wise it's the same game, it feels much more intense. Oh, and the ability to actually aim down sights in a way that no screen can simulate is awesome (and I'm looking forward to games like Arma pushing this even further by accounting for focus distance etc).

90% of my VR gaming is standing up. Resist, Beat Saber, Pistol Whip, Walking Dead, Zombieland, Shadow point, Until You Fall, Racket NX, and Kingspray are all 'stand and move around' games for me.

I feel like your statement is reversed: flat-screen gaming suffers from having a stationary gamer. VR is freeing, assuming you have an area to move around in. Until You Fall is pretty wild when you have a 15x15 space to play in.

Sales don't say everything. I'd buy a steam headset if I could afford it at the moment. The main blocker is my lack of space and lack of GPU power. I would buy the quest, but doing any kind of business with Facebook feels dirty to me, I'd rather wait and get something from a company I respect.

How many VR games are as good as Half-life Alyx? Adoption needs to reach a certain threshold before publishers sink money into AAA content

VR gaming is so bad. My bet is it instead takes off in business, social media/doomscrolling, and AR assisted technologies and productivity.

Some VR gaming experiences are very compelling like Saints and Sinners or Cosmodread.

i tried cosmodread on a friends quest 2 and it made me shit my pants oh my gosh

I dont think VR ever takes off. AR will once you can wear a headset that looks like sunglasses.

What position did you infer about gaming from the post? That the poster says VR games are successful or unsuccessful?

> What position did you infer about gaming from the post?

> I think VR gaming makes regular gaming obsolete in many ways.

Ah, thank you!

If I had a grand to blow I would absolutely get an Index.

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