DartBuzzer

@shaneoh They are not gameifying it automatically. They can choose to do so if they want, but I've seen Walmart's training program. They put people in 360 videos, which are clearly not going to be gameified. If you took people on a class trip to Egypt, you can choose to gameify it, or you can put them in that Nefertari app which has no game elements to it at all.

"So everybody, except those who don't, think it's VR, gotcha."

Who cares if they haven't tried it? Their opinion means nothing. Imagine if everyone suddenly said lab-grown meat didn't taste anything like real meat, but they've never tried it. How silly does that make them look? About as silly as you.

@shaneoh You think companies are using it just to make things less boring? That could be noted as one reason in some cirumstances, but it hardly describes the whole usecase across the board. It's been proven that VR lets you retain information better, and has a higher chance at invoking empathy. This feeds into use cases like education and training. Companies are also in some cases using it to communicate. That isn't because it's more fun than a video call, it's because it's more human, and as time goes on, much more convenient and useful.

"Sorry, I know how few you have to spare. Calling these products "Virtual Reality devices" is false advertising, which is about as anti-consumerist you can get."

Says you. Just about everyone else who's used such products? They agree it's VR. The definition, everywhere outside of Sci-Fi (still sometimes in Sci-Fi), meaning everywhere that is grounded in actual real vocabulary agrees on one definition of VR, and that's what we have today.

@shaneoh "When there is something to catch on to, not just a screen strapped to the face" That means nothing at all in response to their comment. They said people will do AR calls with holograms, which is done exactly the same with a screen as it would be done with a brain interface, except for maybe thinking of them to call them.

You're also clueless on how companies are using it.

Opinions are opinions. Facts are facts. You're having trouble separating the two.

Labeling products as VR is somehow anti-consumer now? Here we go again, the brain cells keep eroding away.

All I can say is you have no knowledge of VR, or maybe it's tucked away somewhere and you just like trolling. You've been proven wrong time and time again in this thread. These kind of opinions will be laughed at in the same way people thought the Internet would be a fad, or vehicles wouldn't replace carriages, or that computers would never find use.

@BenGrimm I love how you insist on siding with people spreading falsehoods and can't deal with people correcting others. Like I said earlier, people are free to have their own opinions but if someone is throwing random made-up points about VR, then they are merely spreading misinformation, which is precisely why so many people are confused about VR in the first place, because the media has done a great job at spreading lies.

Spreading lies is anti-consumer. Siding with people who spread lies makes you no better.

@shaneoh No, you are not making eye contact. You are making eye contact with a screen, whilst trying to make eye contact with the person on the screen. Fundamentally different and not personal compared to making actual eye contact in VR.

You are wrong on all of the 5 points I made. I mean seriously, lets take an obvious one, how the heck can you have personal space on a screen? Seriously, explain that. if someone gets right up to your screen, you don't back away, it doesn't invade your personal space one bit.

@shaneoh I answered your question and proceeded to talk about how there wasn't really much point in asking. That doesn't mean the first line is disregarded.

Ah, so you've never actually socialized in VR I see, at least nothing that actually shows it working well.

Please explain how it's on par with video call when I can actually a) feel like someone is inches away from you on a physical scale. b) can do lots of activities ranging from dancing to playing cards, drawing with each other, watch movies together naturally. c) interact within distance of each other naturally using body language. d) make actual eye contact with eye-tracking. e) have the concept of personal space where people start backing away if too close.

I mean there's even more. It's clear as day that it's much more humanized, much more real, and much more useful.

You're not staring at each other in a video call. You are staring at a screen. It's not nearly as personal.

@shaneoh Facebook sure are. That's the entire reason they spent billions in the first place. Also, you have to give more specific timing because opinions change, and it's not uncommon for big technological shifts to go ignored until a tipping point is reached.

It also doesn't really matter what companies think in regards to VR socialization. It's what can be objectively measured. Most people thought the Internet would be a fad afterall. Nintendo also thought gamers weren't interested in online back in the early 2000s.

From an objective sense, VR is much much closer to real life socialization than anything else. It's also objective that we are social creatures, generally speaking. Therefore, it's pretty obvious it would be a hugely useful change for society.

Objectively speaking, being able to in the near to medium term future actually replicate human beings to an indistinguishable degree would be of value to so, so many people in both business and personal sense.

@BetaWolf I'd change that to relief. Though really it has to be done right. People aren't going to fall for it that hard if it's similar to Oculus Go.

@shaneoh You believe that if you want. Doesn't stop it from being false. I know my own intent. Apparently you easily misunderstand me.

Oh, and so you wouldn't say instant communication anywhere changed the world? I think it's pretty clear that you either like to argue for the sake of arguing, or otherwise downplay the most obvious, well-known concepts. Say what you're saying to anyone with at least some decent level of capacity for thinking and they'd laugh at you for how ridiclous your own thinking is.

Those didn't change the world? Come on. What's next, computers didn't change the world, vehicles didn't change the world?

@shaneoh Let me rephrase. Most people who know what VR headsets are, and have used them recognize it as VR.

You can say that's goalpost moving all you want, but that was my original intent.

Perfect examples, how so? It's like you cannot picture VR being useful in any way. Speaking about just one of those examples, socialization, we had phone calls, texting, voice chat, and now VR communication. Anyone who has ever communicated in VR knows that it's at that level, where it's a new paradigm of communication like the examples I gave.

Considering how you know, those all changed the world, although voice chat less so than the others, it should be pretty obvious what VR socialization would do for the world too, especially when you consider it improving like so: https://giphy.com/gifs/1zJDOltoBlwLZ2lRhK/fullscreen

So, if one use case of VR is so world-changing in it's capacity, how am I overplaying it?

@MaaadMatt There is always going to be a small subset of people who are unable to participate in some, or all of a technology's uses. There are people that literally cannot do gaming. So why are we singling out VR after I mentioned that these things can be fixed to a point where it reaches a relatively similar subset of people again - which in turn means that it's really no different in the long term.

@shaneoh It isn't accurate. That's your fairy tale description of VR which doesn't agree with the rest of the world's already established definition that basically everyone agrees with.

How am I aggrandizing it? By counteracting you downplaying it?

Consider that it's not uncommon for people to lean on virtual tables, place their controllers on virtual surfaces, to completely forget about real life (known as presence), to have the concept of personal space. These fundamentally impact the brain. In each scenario, your brain is convinced it's real.

Then consider all the emotional impact the tech has. Put someone in Google Earth and it's not uncommon for them to cry. Put someone in VRChat and they can suddenly live a whole new second life and have truly human connections that technology has never been able to provide. Considering what the technology can do, I'm hardly overplaying it.

@MaaadMatt Which is exactly why you can't say they are related.

@MaaadMatt If it were related, I would have issues as I almost always get travel sickness.

And just a FYI, eye strain and headaches are eliminated with light-field displays and mostly mitigated with varifocal / multifocal displays. Those will be rolled out as time goes on.

At that point, no one would have issues if they are in control of their own movement or otherwise use teleporting, which still provides loads of uses for VR in gaming, entertainment, and in other areas. Motion sickness is also curable to an almost universal extent if you drown the vestibular system in white noise. Expect that to be in headsets as time goes on too.

@shaneoh You misunderstand me. I'm talking about the VR systems only, not Xbox, Switch, or PS4.

There's a fine line between saying negative things about VR, which I do myself because I know the limitations of the hardware currently, and doing what you're doing.

You just bash VR in these threads without reason. I mean literally, you just said keep saying strapping a screen to your face isn't VR. It's belittling the tech, and is just an overall jaded, outdated, bizzare view that only makes you look ignorant.

@shaneoh Not sure what your point is here. A consensus is a consensus. It's painfully obvious too.

Would you also agree the following is an apt description of Switch?

"A piece of plastic, with a screen and circuit boards that has other bits of plastic that slot in and out"

Yeah, try selling it with that product description.

@Dirty0814 It sold 3 million by August, and is likely close to 4 million now. It's selling consistently and would be meeting overall expectations.

This isn't comparable to something like Switch selling tens of millions of units a year. Swich is a 9th generation console with 47 years to look back on. PSVR is a 1st generation headset with 3 years to look back on. Clearly expectations are going to be widely different.

@SwitchForce You do realize that the overwhelming consensus in the VR community is that PSVR was the best supported system in 2018? It had plenty of great titles coming out.

Sony have been supporting it quite well.

@Octane Skyrim VR has had teleport and artificial movement at launch on both PSVR and PC. On PC, you also have mods to allow for armswinging locomotion and walk/run-on-the-spot locomotion. Graphical mods make the game look much nicer on PC too.

Many VR games now have artificial locomotion at least as an option.

@BenGrimm Quote something that fits this then, in this thread? I see nothing. In other threads, sure, but not here so far.

@BenGrimm I haven't seen anyone do that in this thread.

@SethNintendo How would Civ be pointless? It's literally a game about building, establishing, and conquering. This is a key fit for VR which would make you feel like a godlike figure floating above continents, manipulating things on a tiny scale.

People love playing around with tabletop games and the sense of scale in VR. Therefore, if done right, people would love Civ VR.

@RadioHedgeFund You don't seem to understand VR. It's a very social technology. There are games with party modes where people take turns, and these are literally the life of many parties. Bring Beat Saber to a social gathering and it's almost definitely going to be a big , fun event. You can have asymmetrical games as well which let people play with each other locally, with just one headset required.

And lastly, you have VR multiplayer, which is the most social form of multiplayer or online communication that exists. The problem here is Nintendo aren't exactly embracing things like voice chat, so it's hard to see them embracing this much. But if all of a sudden Nintendo did have a VR social space, they would be ahead of everyone else in online social connectivity since PlayStation doesn't have a dedicated space yet.

@The-Chosen-one Well you said it was boring at first, so I'm surprised you're saying it's sometimes fun now all of a sudden.

@shaneoh Strapping a screen to your face is a pretty silly description of VR. This is like describing the Switch as a piece of plastic with circuit boards. It doesn't do anyone favors.

Yes. it's technically a screen with some more components strapped to your face. But that doesn't have anything to do with the end result. The screen disappears when you are using it.

If VR can trick the brain, it's VR, end of story. And it's already tricks people that they are somewhere else, so by definition it's VR.

Concepts like personal space, cramped spaces, natural 3D audio doesn't exist outside of VR. It's tricking your brain at a fundamental level. If someone in a multiplayer 1st person game gets too close to me, I don't really care, no one does. If someone gets close to me in VR, I back away. It feels uncomfortable with them in my face, because I want my personal space, just like real life.

@Joekun It doesn't defeat the purpose if there's a big enough library that you enjoy. I know people who bought (and feel validated with their purchase) a headset just for Beat Saber.

But anyway, there are comfort options for artificial movement usually, and you will likely get used to it with exposure to it.

@Joekun Motion sickness in VR is due to seeing motion but not feeling it. The opposite of travel sickness.

Farpoint might have given you issues, but Beat Saber for example, would be fine, because there's no artificial movement.

@Joekun I don't do well on planes or in cars and I never have issues. They aren't related.

The Batman game has never been a highlight at all, it's just a tech demo that no one really talks about. There are much better games in VR.

@The-Chosen-one What games did you try in the end? Playing it with the right software is key as it can completely shift the scales.

@Lizuka VR hardware doesn't make you automatically sick. It's up to developers what they want you to experience. It's also not particularly restrictive considering every game genre works in VR.

The appeal of VR in gaming is to immerse you in virtual worlds, to explore new-found freedom, to allow for more interactivity, to open up new genres and game mechanics, to socialize with others, to make you experience new emotions, to heighten existing emotions, to create a more connecting and personal story, and to bring some freshness to the industry.

Fan of Mario games? You'd very likely love Astro Bot. Fan of Mario Kart? You'd likely have a blast playing it in VR. Fan of F-Zero? Wipeout would probably be great fun for you.

I'd rather Nintendo make a standalone VR headset like Oculus Quest. The Switch isn't that ideal for VR due to the resolution, JoyCons, and weight.

It's important that people try good VR otherwise it can hurt VR's reputation.

@GhostGarrity Lucky's Tale is a poor example though. Astro Bot, another platformer, has glowing reviews. Many even consider it platformer of the generation.

You are talking about the headset weight, but use words like "ever truly" in regards to mainstream appeal - which is a contradiction because you assume no drastic improvements will happen. People would be fine with a small visor or sunglasses.

As it turns out, Astro Bot is getting lots of people, even non-gamers addicted to the headset. I've seen plenty of posts of people's partners, often non-gamers, take over the headset for hours straight because of that game.

Yes, the best use of VR is to embrace it fully, but utilzing it half-way is still very compelling, with games like Hellblade, Wipeout, RE7. People adore those games despite not fully utilizing the tech.

Motion controls are hardly the end-goal of VR. Oculus are confident they can nail haptic gloves within 10 years. That would be an addiction beyond imagining, because it adds a lot of power to our normal human lives.

@GhostGarrity I think the issue is you haven't played a wide variety of different VR games. Lone Echo is really great, but it's just one example.

If I told you that 1st and 3rd person platformers were hugely benefited by VR, you might not believe me.

Some of the genres that gain large benefits (already mentioned platformers above) are as follows:

Stealth - Being in complete control of how you hide yourself, and the interactivity, and the adrenaline really amps things up.

Horror- Quite obvious.

Racing, Flight Sims, Cockpit games - Obvious.

Any form of multiplayer - There is one thing that will never get boring for humans, and that is other humans. VR is the only way you actually get real human interaction through technology, which means multiplayer games have the most longevity they could ever have.

RPGs - Obvious.

Action and/or Adventure. Obvious.

FPS. Obvious.

RTS. This is a bit of a weird one as I believe competitive E-Sports RTS games will be preferred outside VR. But singleplayer RTS games have a lot to gain in VR, because you can really feel like the commander of an army.

Puzzle Games. Escape rooms are popular in VR. And it's VR we are talking about, you have full control over the perceptual system, meaning you can make mind-bending puzzle games like A Fisherman's Tale, or experiment with non euclidean spaces.

Sports Games: They can become actual sports. Echo Combat is like a new sport for example.

Fighting Games: Taking the UFC franchise into 1st person can make it really engaging, offering very personal 1 on 1 fights in both multiplayer and singleplayer.

So clearly VR has benefits for much of the gaming landscape.

@Pod You're acting like you've tried this. If that were the case, you wouldn't be confusing head tracking with positional tracking. Tracking your head does nothing to help with dodging walls.

@shaneoh It isn't much of a discussion when you keep disagreeing with established definitions. Everyone in the tech industry worth their salt would agree that what we have today is indeed VR. This is easy to see given how the majority of the bigwigs in the tech industry is working on HMDs for VR/AR. You and a small minority of people discussing this think of it as a brain interface, along with the general public that has yet to try it.

@shaneoh Sci-Fi's depiction of VR is a later representation of VR after the hardware had already existed in reality, as I said before. Therefore it's not a real definition of any sort.

I stick around for VR articles because it's my main interest in discussion. I passively absorb Nintendo news for any future switch details.

@Pod Explain how positional tracking works without a headset. How are you supposed to realiably dodge walls?

You cannot do so without a HMD.

Again, Oculus and others lose more the longer they wait. You can't expect them to do secret research and development for 5+ years without releasing products.

@shaneoh Sci-Fi has often taught us that VR uses all 5 senses. But no fiction ever detailed this until after the very first VR HMD was created. There were loose concepts like lucid dreaming that have been around forever, but nothing that says "This is technology that takes over your 5 senses"

@Pod The longer oculus waits, the more money they lose without a chance of ROI. Because they jumped in fast, we actually have some great AA games to play and they are providing Favebook with actual earnings worth mentioning to investors. They made the right choice to jump in sooner.

You cannot play Beat Saber as it exists without a HMD. You could only make a spinoff which feels nothing like the original.

@shaneoh So first you get the definition of VR wrong, now you want to add to that with the definition of shill? I'd order a dictionary if I were you.

And FYI, VR in real life has been around longer than Star Trek, so that example doesn't work.

@NEStalgia By saying this, you are saying every developer for anything is a shill if they defend their market. No, if I was shilling, I'd be linking to deals, and trying everything to get someone to buy a headset today. I have not done anything of the sort.

Do you really think I'm going to throw flower petals at someone saying VR is dying, it will never work, it needs to die ASAP, etc?

I'll respond in a fitting manner. VR is the punching bag of gaming as I've said before.

@Pod Bear Saber requires a HMD because you need positional tracking and depth perception to properly hit blocks. Even disregarding that, making a spinoff would be entirely different and miss all the beats of the original. Without the immersion, you lose some of the drive of pushing through, which is good exercise People can go at it for so long because VR is literally helping their brain forget that it's exercise. Overall it just wouldn't be nearly as fun.

Also, Oculus have done a lot to push software with more than a dozen AA games funded and 3 AAA games on the way. They haven't forgotten anything, just like everyone else here you didn't bother to look. What a surprise, no one does their research.

@JayJ Reread what I said. This isn't about someone saying "VR is still too early for me", it's about people literally spreading false points about the tech which I have corrected in many cases, some of which have, or claim to have experienced VR.

Just so we are clear, some form
of VR experience does not mean they are educated on VR. If someone tried a demo, they have no idea what games there are or what they are like. If someone tried only single player VR games, they have no idea what social VR is like. And even with lots of experience, that means nothing except knowledge of current gen VR. Until you research advancements, look at papers, talks, and find out how VR is shaping as it progresses, you do not have any true understanding of the medium, just like how no one understood PCs in the 70s without GUI and the web.

Likewise, the vast majority of VR tech has yet to be integrated into HMDs, all of which drastically change what VR is like and what it can do.

@shaneoh Oh how wrong you are. The term Virtual Reality was coined by Jaron Lanier, who has always said it involves a HMD, and he himself worked on a HMD. The actual headsets themselves have been around long before the full dive / brain interface concept was thought of in fiction. Dreams used in fiction are the only thing that preceded HMDs.

Again, the average person does not care about having to wait for a brain interface - when they try VR they almost universally become believers in HMDs, but often want to wait for cheaper prices, better comfort etc.

It's only you in your tiny bubble that thinks it needs to be this perfect device to meet your made up definition.

@JayJ That isn't how things are. VR fans often educate people because they are knowledgable about a topic that no one else understands. In this thread, many have commented about how VR has X problem that can't be fixed, therefore it will always be niche. They know they didn't research into it, they know that they don't care much to look, and yet despite knowing this they still cannot back down from their incorrect stance, because they can only ever see themselves as being right and nothing can convince them otherwise even though they are objectively wrong.

This is the mentality of someone who doesn't have creative thinking. They judge books by the cover, and cannot imagine solutions. If there is a literal physical limitation, then by all means they can state how it cannot be fixed ever, but otherwise they come off as arrogant and judgmental people that don't bother to look at the facts.

Just look at the guy in this thread who said VR isn't portable. It takes a few seconds on Google to immediately dismiss that false claim. Again, someone who said VR is dying, where I provided statistics showing growth doubling on Steam.

@NEStalgia It uses an almost identical design to the Oculus Touch controllers which means it feels a generation ahead of PS Move, because it feels more natural since you get finger tracking and better hand presence.

@NEStalgia Oculus Quest is basically perfect tracking in almost all scenarios, as it only has a small blind spot behind you. A future successor can just add 2 more cameras to the back of the headset to get 360 tracking without room for failure.

@NEStalgia Windows MR headsets and all standalone headsets work immediately as you put them on without any camera setup, or without wires in the case of standalone. It always takes only a second to get in and out of VR with Oculus Go, with it in your hands. All headsets will follow suit as time goes on.

@SwitchForce VR is portable, so would you mind stop making things up? Thanks. Oculus Go, Oculus Quest, Vive Focus, Pico Neo, and Lenovo Daydream Mirage all work anywhere, on the bus, a toilet, a plane - everything is self contained.

And VR has far more use cases than a smartphone. A smartphone lets you text, call, use the web, use AR, utilize apps, and do gaming / entertainment. VR headsets do everything there apart from texting, calling, and AR. Texting and calling can be accessed via the web anyway (discord etc) and AR will be common in all VR headsets as time goes on. So therefore, VR overtime does as many things as a smartphone, before talking about many of the new things it does such as screen simulation, telepresence, and avatar social connectivity.

Who has more knowledge than
me on this topic in here? No one, because I've counteracted many false points, and the guy you are referencing has not worked on VR games or hardware, I have. I follow every detail of VR, many papers, research, talks, events. You have never used VR before, and haven't got the slightest idea about the tech on any level. You're effectively just some spiteful, hateful person with nothing better to do but produce lies and bash things that you don't own. It's pathetic.

@Zidentia The issue stems from the fact that many people here have zero experience with VR, or no real knowledge (including yourself on the knowledge part) yet feel the need to state their opinions as facts. "VR will NEVER take off" and the reasons they give are always fixable, which completely breaks their point.