Why VR Games Still Haven't Taken Off
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
* social interaction
* games that are improved by deep immersion, like horror games.
At every stage, you'll want to spend more money on it, it feels like.
* Get the headset on? The arms work, but the legs don't.
* Buy hip and leg trackers. Now it can't show what you're looking at -
* gotta buy eye-tracking, but eye-tracking is rare and only exists on like 2 headsets and their support is spotty at best. (Honestly, I think the PSVR2 would FLY off the shelves for a bit if they unlocked its best features for PC).
* Buy face tracking, because people can't tell that you're grinning or making a face at them. - Oh, but that requires attaching something to your existing headset that might be custom or an additional fee because none of the headsets do this well by default.
* buy a better computer to support all that
There are so, so many horror games. I really just want WoW on the quest - all of the MMORPG things are so clunky atm.
>I think the PSVR2 would FLY off the shelves for a bit if they unlocked its best features for PC
You are in luck for this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/15139hs/full_psvr2_he...
Edit: That's an old post, I was certain that the iVRy devs had unlocked eye tracking using their app, but I can't seem to find that post atm.
Why would a casual-game developer waste time on a VR effort, when the only people who already have the $1000+ worth of necessary VR equipment are the hardcore gamers. The “casual” crowd (i.e., people with other hobbies) would much rather upgrade their phone, or buy a new stand mixer for their kitchen, or go on a vacation, or whatever. They are specifically not going to go out and buy a expensive piece of equipment in order to try PokemonVR (in large enough numbers to matter), and when they do, it will sit unused for months at a time. You can't monetize a casual player who doesn't have the headset on long enough to want to buy in-game improvements to the experience.
Versus with regular gaming, if my phone buzzes or the laundry goes off, pausing the game and putting down the controller takes two seconds.
That's something that should have been handled much smoother, especially given the comfort issue that might force people to not play everything in VR. But alas, VR support in regular monitor games is extremely rare to begin with and that area of VR never really got much support.
- Heavy on the head, making the neck sore after a while.
- Press into the face, which can also get sore.
- Seals around the face, which is claustrophobic.
- Insulates head/face, making hot and sweaty.
- Even high resolution headsets look pixelated, making things like reading / trying to see details irritating.
- VR motion sickness is very real, (with guides on how to develop your VR legs... which takes multiple days of careful practice).
Despite current headsets being excellent from a technical perspective, IMO they still need to get significantly ligher and more physically comfortable, significantly higher resolution, and ideally solve VR motion sickness in some way...
Another reason personally also, it is more tedious to develop games for VR wearing and taking off the HMD all the time. I can imagine this would deter other developers not wanting to make VR games, it's already a slow painstaking process to make games already.
I think also the amount of apps you have to switch on your desktop if using PC also means you keep taking the HMD on and off before you begin to play. Too many barriers to entry when it should be a convenience thing, wear and go!
Not everybody is physically fit/young/healthy or wants to just do physical gaming which i think leads to lack on incentive to use VR too. I personally play most games now via my monitor or projector screen and use VR for simracing as there really is no comparisson here. So VR Great for sim cockpit type games, flying and racing but for everything else, it's back to good old pancake mode monitor instead.The one trick though is that I drink about a liter of water every hour I'm using the headset, even when doing low impact games like golf. The headset is super dehydrating, and I suspect that is the cause of many people's discomfort.
You have to have a bottle nearby that you can drink by feel.
I just got a new different headset (Quest Pro, coming from an Index) and I had to figure out how to make it comfortable enough, because you're right that out of the box, they rarely are. (Except Index, which is still one of the best all-around headsets, even years on)
But I figured out a comfort fix because I'm hooked: I'm in VR 10-20 hours a week these days, because I use it to transcend my physical body and hang out with friends around the world. There are even sleep worlds in VRChat where people literally sleep in VR! Also, less intentionally, sometimes you're hanging out and someone passes out on the couch and starts lightly snoring. As above, so below. :)
In some ways, sci-fi is here! It's just, like bars, beaches, or boardgames, not for everyone.
For regular folks, you must have messed something up in your real life pretty badly to waste it in VR in such ways. Real life can have amazing experiences, adventures, passions, extreme sports, experiencing different cultures through real social interaction. But it requires actual effort to get there, not just throwing some money at the problem. Efforts build character, lack of them shows.
If all that sounds old school, boy am I glad to belong there.
For the kind of design that's actually comfortable, look at third party suppliers like BOBOVR, which have various designs that have actually learned from what's done in other industries. For example, halo strap designs (like https://www.bobovr.com/products/s3-pro) distribute the weight around the head like a hard hat/welding mask instead of clamping things to your face, making the results immensely more comfortable.
> It's impressive, but it starts to hurt after an hour or so.
The issue is that "impressive" wanes after a few weeks or months, while comfort tends to improve by additional adjustments and customization. What VR is missing is long-term content, the stuff you use VR for after the initial wow-factor has vanished, the stuff that takes advantage of the 360° 3D screen in front of your eyes and the 6DOF controls without just being gimmicky.
That's one issue I think Apple handled much better than Meta. On VisionPro you have full 2D app support, so most of the apps just work. It might sound boring, but VR needs to embrace that kind of boring when it wants to survive long term, since boring stuff is what people do with computers 24/7.
On Meta Quest things are much more of a mess. There is no clear vision for what's the headset is actually good for. You have a few lackluster games here, a few exercise apps there, a "Metaverse" that still feels woefully incomplete, basic 2D app support without Google Play Store, no easy way to watch movies and a whole lot of other half done ideas.
I also believe in The Market. With the number of years VR headsets have been one the market I am quite confident no one somehow missed a lucrative genre. I see a lot of people projecting that they wish VR were the Next Big Thing, but they seem unable to wish it into reality.
Author mentions Beat Saber which would seem to contradict the argument that VR is focused on hyper violent games. Is VR taking off now or not?
My sense is that VR will always be a niche thing — maybe akin to 3D movies, TV. Or like Guitar Hero a (much more expensive) fad.
Games aren’t the VR killer app that people mistakenly think it is. Nothing is. VR as glasses is a gimmick. Sensory depravation of vision far outranks whatever thing you want to do on a computer. It’s too much effort for no gain and so far it’s been too much marketing and too much tech hyping things up. It’s cringe to see it unfold like it isn’t obvious. Wearing ski goggles indoors to use a computer makes you look like a tool.
The most popular VR app of all time is a 3D chat room.
I mean, look at VRChat. People spend thousands of dollars on gear (before even getting into the physical space needed for full immersion) to... wander around talking to each other and play low-quality clones of minigolf and Among Us games.
In the case of Quest stuff, PC link users being treated somewhat as second class (no direct DisplayPort input) and the lock-in of the crappy Quest desktop software doesn't help matters.
I agree that VR will always be a niche, but I would also say that there's a good chance of the niche growing with the introduction of a well-built, affordable, well rounded headset that's built on the SteamVR ecosystem.
Beat Saber just happens to have a intuitive controls and no motion sickness because of the stationary game play.
But it's mainly considered as an introduction to VR gaming not it's final form.
I believe that explanation also covers the Brewster Stereoscope (500k units sold in the 1850s), the ViewMaster (the US DOD bought 100k units alone as part of the future of education), the 1950s wave of 3D movies, the 1990s wave of VR, the 2010s wave of 3D movies, and the rapid rise and fall of 3D TV.
It also covers my experience every time I try this stuff. A while back I rented an Oculus Quest. For the first week, everybody was super into it, and I really loved some of the games. By the end of the second week, nobody even noticed when I mailed it back; we had all returned to playing games on Switches and the consoles.
I think the reason we keep having this problem is that a mixture of the concept (3D is obviously better that 2D, right?) plus the wow from a novelty experience suffices to attract investor money. This time, gobs and gobs of it.
This might be true for some categories of games, and not true for other categories.
For example, I've played VR on/off since I think the first version of Oculus Rift, until now using a HP Reverb G2. For action games and most categories of games, it is just fun and useful for a small amount of time.
But when it comes to simulators like flight simulators and (realistic) racing games, I literally cannot go back to faux-3D anymore. The sense of depth you get when flying/driving and being able to turn your head around helps so much that going back to non-VR is just impossible now, there is no comparison.
I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling like this regarding simulators and VR. But can it hold up a whole market segment with just this? Unsure, but not impossible either, simulator rigs/hardware seems to be doing more-or-less OK even though it's very niche.
But I'll note that as entertainment experiences, plenty of people are happy to play flying and racing games on a 2D screen, so I suspect that this particular niche is quite small, similar to the fraction of dedicated fans who insist on 3D screenings of movies.
I'm sure it's not big enough to justify the billions spent on R&D, and I suspect it's too small to interest the major players in the long term. But perhaps the niches are enough to justify continued production of 3rd-party headsets.
But we do prefer stereo over mono in audio domain, right?
i disagree. if we got half-life alyx level games as often as flatscreens people would still be playing. I do think we need lighter cooler headsets (at least compared to valve index) for longer play sessions.
the big trend now on PC is flat2vr. UEVR and luke ross have been carrying pcvr on their back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q02UCNXLJY8
A VR headset works by putting small displays very close to the eyes to achieve a wide field of view, which is cheaper and more convenient than using large displays further away (like in CAVE system). But for that, one needs one set of optics per eye, as our eyes can't focus that close, and since we need one set per eye, we might as well show different pictures and support stereoscopic 3D.
In other words, VR headsets are a convenient way of displaying a wide field of view, and you get 3D for free.
I think what VR adds to that is a more natural way of experiencing that 3D environment. But I'm not convinced that makes much of a difference to gaming audiences. The hardcore gamers were always fine with learning less-natural controls. And I don't think casual gamers care much about the 3D environments; quite a lot of popular games are 2D and people seem happy with it.
I also think the novelty 3D experience is more central to the gee-whiz appeal of VR than you do. It's really cool! Just like every stereoscopic 3D experience is really cool. Albeit briefly.
Superhot is one of the games that most impressed me in VR. And then I looked up how well it sold in non-VR versions. At first that seemed wrong to me, but the more I thought about it, them more it made sense.
VR gaming faces a low ceiling because (a) VR headsets present a challenge to how our eyes, neck, and proprioceptive systems are accustomed to working and induce a associated fatigue, and (b) VR gaming is more isolating than any other kind of gaming. You disconnect entirely from your surroundings, which is fun as a novelty, but is an "all-in" activity that you can't semi-attentively engage in like you might a portable/mobile game, TV game, a PC game.
I love when academics take on a medium. Those who can't do teach.
For a good overview of VR today, see Phia's "The Virtual Reality Show."[1] There really are "VR natives", and she is one of them. She's tried almost all the available hardware and environments, including full body and face tracking, and even the omnidirectional treadmills. She's very critical of flaws in hardware and software. Cost is a big issue. The headset isn't all you need. For real immersion, you need face, eye, and body trackers and controllers, all of which cost extra. The good ones aren't cheap. The cheap ones aren't good. She posts videos of her live self and her VR self side by side so you can check the tracking quality.
All this gear provides good social VR immersion if you're in good shape, have good balance, a mobile face, an extroverted personality, a sizable hardware budget, plenty of free time, and an interest in virtual worlds. That's a niche.
Watching Phia does show that except for cost, weight, and complexity, VR does currently work. The original article claims it doesn't, but that probably reflects too much attention to Facebook/Meta's rather weak system.
Apple with their VisionPro is quite a bit further along and their Persona[2] are available to consumer, though the price tag of the device puts it out of reach for almost everybody.
I played a few more games since then, nothing as good as HL-A (I haven't heard that anything is as good as that is...). My eyesight isn't great so I have to wear glasses inside. I only have one pair of glasses that fit okay. Getting focus on glasses + lenses + adjustment takes time. The eyes do get strained after 45-60 minutes and I get a little nauseous, so that limits my enjoyment. If there was a way to use my feet to walk Ready Player One style that'd be really super awesome and might alleviate the disconnect between virtual and physical movement.
These days my son plays multiplayer shooter games and occasional multiplayer sword fighting. He seems to enjoy it, especially the social aspect of it.
Also, at parties the various visiting youth play, lots of Superhot playthroughs as it's so easy to get into casually.
For the movement, try out Gorilla Tag. For most people, it turns out that arm-swing movement eliminates nausea; it's just enough to convince the brain that you're the one doing it and not something else.
The people who live in places with nice big room habitually empty of obstacles which they can monopolize for an hour are probably not the prime demographic for VR gaming escapism.
I keep telling myself I'll play one or two of the things in my Steam library once I finally finish a hardware project and clear some junk away...
I find the best experiences for me are those that require less "getting your VR legs": puzzling places, zombieland or that kayak infiltration game. Of course everybody has different preferences, but to the author's point: not everyone wants (or can) play high intensity action games (which is what AAA focuses on).
As an aside: the other big one are sports games (usually racquet), playing ping pong or tennis feels realistic and its a good exercise.
Sure, those aren't going to immerse me in a sci-fi or fantasy world the same way, but if recreation is the goal I'll take the in-chair experience.
But all of them run into the fact that making a good simulation (VR or not) requires time and money, and that's something VR games rarely have in abundance.
Compare to the price of a Switch, which is portable (or the smartphone you already have…) or to a TV, which is usable by multiple people at once.
And then if you still get one, gaming alone at home in a way that’s more isolating than the stereotypical nerd basement gaming dungeon, while also forcing you to worry about the environment around you so you don’t bump into things or people, turns out to suck. A lot.
So even if you get a headset, good odds you won’t use it much.
That’s putting aside discomfort or motion sickness.
I keep hearing about 'its just behind the corner, just lighter / better resolution / just resolve XYZ problem' literally from 90s (VFX1 for example), but the 'almost there' mantra never changed, just the details. When Apple's solution has fallen hard on the market, it was pretty clear how far from success we are and Apple adjusted plans accordingly.
I gave up on the topic for good, actually grew up some time ago and found out real life out there, with some effort offers massively more than any such goggles will ever offer in my lifetime. Most (rather successful and smart) women I ever talked to about this express immediate disgust with this, it downgrades men to weird boys in their eyes. I still see young me dreaming about alternate realities, but when you want powerful experience now or in near future use psychedelics (responsibly).
There is no good enough content, nobody wants to invest into this too much due to all above, there is no 360 porn to speak of to break barrier like it used to with previous digital revolutions. Human's senses are much harder to fool well than few geeks thought it would.
In the game, I was essentially a metal sphere that could "jump" and float through a huge maze. It was a puzzle game.
Tried a ton of games on more modern headsets and never got into them. Zombie games, shooters, sims, etc - nothing came even close to the fascinating experience of that colossal maze.
So in my view, VR games have moved in the wrong direction. From games that explored the new opportunities VR offered to trying -- and failing -- to match the console game experience.
There is still a lot of indie energy exploring the possibilities of VR. For cool environment you can find a lot in VRChat. For mechanics there are things like Monkey Tag (new motion mechanic) or Silent Slayer on Quest (experimenting with MR).
I think while this touches on something I don't think immersion and embodiment are mutually exclusive.
The only reason I would use Quest 3 only for fitness. I actually very like it, really entertaining, and keeps you motivated.
The only reason I would use AVP just to see new Apple TV Shows (Immersive) which are only 5-6 minutes long, and watch videos/photos in Spatial format, that really give me some emotions. I have tried to use it as external display, hard to compete with setup of 2 5K/6K monitors. Also, it is so easy to get out of the Mac, and come back without putting headset on. Sure, you can walk with the headset, but why would you.
What I really like right now is Meta AI glasses. I can snap a photo of my dogs on the walk, without taking my phone out, I can talk to AI while visiting museum without trying to get through the crowd to the sign. That device really amazed me. And it just a simple sunglasses, with being a bit more annoying, just because they weight a bit more, only after 3-4 hours I start noticing them on my nose.
It certainly limits my enjoyment, because I don't have the time to build up the tolerance and I can go max 30m, whereas he can go 3+ hours easy.
I do admit though, that played even the limited amount I have has somewhat ruined the 2d experience of games for me - VR is just so much more visceral!
The other issue is just the amount of incompatible VR ecosystems out there, Cardboard, Daydream, PSVR1, PSVR2, Rift, Go, Quest are all separate system with little or no compatibility. That means you constantly end up with good content that only a fraction of the VR market can access, which is a huge problem when VR is already short on content.
Finally, VR never managed to integrate with the rest of the gaming world. Ports of regular games into VR were actively discouraged in the early days and only a few of them ever happened. That meant the whole promise of VR allowing you to "step into your games" fell flat very early on. None of your favorite games could be revisited in VR, instead you where stuck with a lot low budget indie tech demos. Lately that has been changing with UEVR, which allows to mod VR support into Unreal Engine games, but that still is just an unofficial hack, not a feature embraced by any of the VR companies.
There is of course also the big "motion sickness" bogeyman in the corner and while that can certainly be an issue, most people just get used to it. I think the efforts to mitigate the issue (don't port games to VR, make everything slow and boring) have done far more damage to VR than they helped, since it simply means we are stuck with a whole lot of games in VR that simply can't compete with what's available in the world of non-VR gaming. That's kind of a big problem when VR was always supposed to be the "next-level" of gaming and yet it feels like a step backwards.
Gran Turismo is also very fun. Though, honestly, the steering wheel kit will do more to build that experience than the VR headset.
I think the biggest thing killing VR for many otherwise great games, is that I really can't just walk around. Maybe if the "treadmill" options pan out, that can be solved. As things are, though, it is very jarring to have to pen yourself in, or to rely on controller for walking. Shame, as otherwise it works really well.
The comfort issue is real too. Even with the fairly svelte PSVR2, it's annoying to wear those things.
I think VR is super cool. Playing an hour of beatsaber, pistol whip, or superhot is tremendously entertaining. I also get why people aren't flocking to VR in droves. Compared to other forms of entertainment it's expensive, clunky, isolating, and potentially causes motion sickness. I don't believe in the metaverse / AVP future where your average person is going to work 40 hours a week with a headset on or whatever. My fear is that Meta is going to wake up to the fact that the returns for the billions of dollars per year they're burning trying to make Metaverse a thing are never going to materialize and then give up on the whole thing. Why can't VR just be a niche subdomain of the games industry?
If they just accepted it for what it is, VR could be a small but profitable business within Meta's portfolio or a profitable/sustainable spinoff.
There's no way around including stimulating elements in making of entertainment content; contents lacking in those never take off, just as SIE's CONCORD had proven earlier this month. I am of the opinion that this has nothing to do with diversity or equity or inclusion as those words are defined despite how cheaply these terms are thrown around, to be clear. The problem has to be lack of avid and neutral pursuit of engineered enjoyment.
1: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=VRChat,Boba%20tea,Beat%20SaberBiggest challenge with VR is the design philosophy for headsets. No matter how much I and others pushed against it - many VR folk are intent on sticking all the hardware on people's heads and faces.
Instead, we need more walkman like designs, where the compute and batteries sit on a user's hip, and the tethered headset is as light as physically possible. Cables for tethering can be a pain, but not as much as putting 500+ grams on your face.
Light headsets are amazing, and yes, I've worn prototypes. Ideally, get headsets down to 80-100 grams and the experience is radically improved.
There are a few small companies pushing on the design, but not main stream enough.
But the vast majority of games (on Oculus at least) are very much casual games in the vein of Beat Saber, but they all suck and our Oculus has been gathering dust once the novelty of Beat Saber wore thin.
I don't think the article makes a compelling case for a "why". I'll take a shot at it -- it's a technological dead end. Maybe there are applications for AR once the technology matures, but VR is never going to be a holodeck. The movement-based mechanics of the Wii and the Kinect and whatever the Playstation crap was had a moment in the sun and then we all moved on because there was no killer app, just a bit of novelty.
Which is where I am a bit mystified by the article's claim of "hyper realistic" games. Even on PCVR the quality of PC VR games in general is quite low. We're a far cry from hyper realistic experiences. Typically either the graphics suffer and you have smooth FPS or the graphics are great and you have bad FPS, or you are a rich person that owns an RTX 4090 etc.
For me it's only a matter of a few more years. Most games on Quest atm to me look like cheap mobile games. I hate those low poly / untextured styled games with a passion.
The author perhaps does not understand that to make truly immersive, relaxing experiences in VR you need a LOT more power. There 's nothing very relaxing about being in a forest made of low poly trees, shitty looking water and distant scenery that looks blurry AF.
Even on YouTube at the best quality I can find, there is hardly anything truly relaxing or immersive. Take a random video of the Grand Canyon in VR and everything in the distance is just flat.
Colours is also a huge problem. Watch a VR video of someone walking on the beach : the sky is blue yes but a weird half light blue that is nowhere near anything like the kind of brightness of the real sky. It's all deadened and flat.
The technology just isn't there. So right now, violent, in your face action is where VR shines. Typically anything that moves, and anything that comes close to the camera gives a much better sense of immersion. I find myself often times almost putting my nose to everything because it's when things are up close that you get that sense of 3D the most. Anything taht is even a couple meters away becomes flat and featureless.
Anyway I could just rant on and on. VR is great. The kind of games that currently do well on it do so for a reason. I'd love to just travel in VR, to be immersed on some remote island, basking in the sun, or to listen to the crickets and watch the starry sky.. all those things currently are awful experiences in VR due to the technical limitations.
Until VR headsets provide a seamless, pleasant experience, they will remain in the hands of early adopters and enthusiasts.
I get the feeling the author has never actually played Beat Saber.
But I do agree it's a great example of a VR game that's accessible and fun, and that you can play for hours.
VR felt like it would be the ultimate gaming experience.
Sadly it gave me a headache, made me feel sick and was a real hassle to set up and make happen.
There’s too many competing forms of entertainment without even one of these problems.
Unironically the standaline headsets also help because the most vertigo-inducing thing is to run PCVR with an underpowered PC. It makes you nauseous before you consciously notice the skipped frames etc.
"No one wants to strap shit to their face."
Yeah.