It’s sort of a quandary, though. It does make sense to get as many apps out there as possible so that as many people as possible can find something in VR that might compel them to buy the hardware. This shotgun approach though as you note is not likely to create a killer app. But focusing on a few big-budget titles runs the risk of either not appealing to enough people because the focus is too narrow, or catastrophic failure, if the studio screws the pooch.
It comes down to this, I think: can VR offer a gaming experience that is compelling enough to motivate people to buy the gear, and unique enough that it can only be done in VR,so that you have to buy the gear? At VRDC last month pretty much everyone said the same thing–the biggest challenge right now is making sure that what you develop in VR needs to be in VR. Otherwise, you dilute the concept and people just shrug.
My real takeaway is that VR might not be ready for games (and it’s associated development costs) yet. There are other areas where VR can get adoption and technology development (to lower headset costs in the near future) that are more suited for the extremely niche-like. things like serious game, industrial application, even teleconferencing.
Smartphones revolutionized gaming for a while (no matter what you think of the games in question) but adoption was driven by google maps and a web browser in your pocket. Games came after that.
Right now most of the buzz around VR is gaming related, and I think that’s going to limit it’s adoption short term.
Or to paraphrase you: It comes down to this, I think: can VR offer a mainstream, non-game, experience that is compelling enough to motivate people to buy the gear, and unique enough that it can only be done in VR,so that you have to buy the gear?
I do think there’s a very good reason to develop for VR now, which is creating technology and know how for when (and if) the market grows and matures, and I do encourage my students to pursue that route (just tempering their expectations to become millionaires). But a game centered business plan searching for short term profit in the platform is at this point too risky, in my opinion. You need either a subsidy or be able to eat the costs.
Arizona Sunshine exists in SteamVR for Vive as well. I’ver been playing it that way and it’s great fun & doesn’t have the tracking problems that Rift has.
From the standpoint of a consumer (me) VR just isn’t super attractive right now. I look at the high up front costs combined with what looks like kinda shaky early tech and a lack of any “must have” games and it just doesn’t look worth it.
This is a purely personal view, but based on sales numbers I suspect I am not the only one looking at VR in this light.
This should probably be considered the sane, default view for now.
I love both the Vive and Rift but I don’t recommend them to anybody yet, unless they have patience and a good chunk of disposable income.
I am having a ball playing Arizona Sunshine. It’s hard to describe just how challenging and satisfying it is to head shot a zombie, despite having done it hundreds of times now (never mind the thousands of times in other games). It’s hilarious when one lurches at me and I miss 5 head shots in a row despite them being literally in my face. Then I panic and unload into their chest, which is hard to miss but generally causes me to run out of ammo before they expire so I have to eject the cartridge and slap a new one in by tapping my belt.
Or I could have fired off the shotgun/uzi in my left, but that’s hard to remember when panicking and they are coming at you from all directions.
Finished Arizona. It’s another short but great VR experience. Will definitely be going back
Speaking of short but great I picked up Superhot VR as well. I am positive I look like a total fucktard playing it but I feel absolutely bad ass. I am also tired and sore. You move and twist around a lot because unlike zombies red crystal mannequins get guns and like to use them.
Finished Superhot VR. It was in fact both super, hot, and short.
Finished “I expect you to die” as well. I really liked this, though again it’s pretty short. The opening credits are done in the style of every Bond movie ever, so I was set to detest it immediately. I don’t like Bond credits when Bond is doing them. Instead I kept thinking to myself ‘ok that was cool’, or ‘damn, that was neat’, over and over until I realized how great just that intro was. If you are a fan of the Bond style opening credits it’s a must see.
The game itself just exudes polish as you mostly just sit down with the touch controllers and interact with the environment to discover the puzzles, all based around spy scenarios like escaping an underwater lair or defusing a bomb.
I then loaded up the Climb, which was much more fun than I was expecting. Kinda tiring too - my noodle arms certainly couldn’t do the real thing. I really started getting engrossed when I realized how fast you can move. Still, it’s a climbing game and it seems it wants you to repeat the same scenarios in order to advance. I will probably keep coming back to this but I expect it to lose it’s charm unless you like scoreboards.
The last thing I tried was a community mod of Doom 3 BFG for VR. Loaded it up and it was pretty exciting to see it all in 3D, including your arms waggling around ridiculously if you twist the touch controllers. The movement system however is based on the analog sticks and that’s pretty much vomit city for me. I didn’t even make it twenty feet from the initial landing of the ship before I had to call it quits.
Getting your VR legs seem to be a bit of a myth, at least for me. Either the games stay within the well known rules for avoiding VR sickness and I am perfectly fine, or they break those rules and I want to toss my cookies.
Oculus First Contact was a cute intro. Especially the little firework rockets where you pulled their string to fire them. Neat. ToyBox was cool too; I liked sweeping your fist through the objects to scatter them, or trying to hit stuff using the ping pong bat. Or throwing and catching those glaive things.
Then I played some of I Expect You to Die, The Climb, and Space Pirate Trainer. All were pretty great, and as you say a bit tiring on the old arms in the case of the last two. :) I’m saving Arizona and Superhot until last though I suspect they’re similar to SPT.
But really I’ve been side-tracked and spending a fair bit of time in awe in Google Earth VR. Pretty amazing stuff! Little dioramas are so cute! I hope they hurry up with native Rift controls so I don’t need to click the stick to fly. Also some ‘Okay Google!’ voice search would be wonderful. And perhaps quicker streaming. But still!
Also sculpting in Medium is somewhat of a revelation. They do need the pressure sensitivity on the trigger though, like Quill has - but man. Moving an object around, pulling to zoom, laying down clay, flattening, painting, all so cool and tactile.
My nephew brought over his Vive kit yesterday and I got to try it out. Holy cow. Awesome. I tried a couple of the TheBlu ocean experience things, a bit of Space Pirate Trainer, and fiddled with Google Earth.
The biggest wow/sense of presence was probably TheBlu, though it’s obviously not much of a game. Still, surprising how in-the-moment it feels. Walking along the deck of the sunken ship I expected my carpet to feel like wood planks.
Space Pirate Trainer perhaps revealed some of the limitations of the field of view. It felt like things were constantly shooting me just outside of my narrow peripheral vision. Kind of a middling game, in any case.
Google Earth was really cool, though streaming was slow because the wi-fi is a bit janky in that area of the house (should have taken a moment to grab an ethernet cable).
Glasses were not an issue with the Vive, which was a relief. It definitely takes some fiddling to get the headset in that sweet spot, but I’ve got a goofy shaped head.
The tracking is amazing. You can do anything: walk, kneel, spin around – the system always knows exactly where you and the controllers are. It’s a bit uncanny. My internal debate between Vive and Rift is over. Room scale all the way!
So now I’m a bit hooked and want my own kit. I’ve got a decent PC in the family room for media and gaming. It’s a Windows 10, with an i5 at 4.5. Can’t recall the memory, either 8gb or 16gb (easy and cheap enough to upgrade if needed). The graphics card is a 770 so probably not up to the task. Seems like a 1080 is the state of the art these days? I’ve got a 980ti in my desktop workstation so perhaps I just get a 1080 and swap the 980 over to the family room?
“Short” will be the norm for a while, for sure, given the technical and psychological limitations of VR. Pretty much every developer I’ve heard has mentioned that the ideal VR experience is quite short compared to traditional gaming sessions. People get disoriented, or even physically ill, after long periods in VR gear it seems.
I keep loading it up again and exploring, it’s the surprise app of VR for me. Given that it’s Planet Earth it’s probably the one VR experience I wouldn’t call short. Random areas though are lacking the 3D data which is disappointing, and the controls are not intuitive at all. I think they did them this way to prevent motion sickness, which works, but it’s hard to explain it to newcomers. Also don’t start the tour in NY, NY. It’s too overwhelming.
I keep demoing VR and any existing PC gamer inevitably goes out and buys their own. I tell them not to buy it yet but do they listen?
Yes, a 980ti is plenty for VR for now. I still use a 970 while waiting for the 1080ti.
I can see where you’re coming from, but after a few sessions this was no longer the case for me. I could easily spend an hour or two in VR without issue. However, room-scale experiences tend to involve moving around a lot so I usually get physically tired. I think short is still a good idea because often people have one VR headset and they want to show off stuff to multiple people and short sessions helps with turn-taking. But I also think short experiences is because devs haven’t had the tools to develop these experiences easily for very long. Building your own VR engine is a pain and Unity / Unreal have only been VR capable a bit over a year, I think.
Vanishing Realms and Fantastic Contraption are good examples of experiences that have enough content for longer play times. (I personally lost interest in both before getting tired, but they’re still very neat experiences.)
Set the following comfort options at the console or in your auto-start script. I’m also REALLY prone to VR nausea and found that it made the game completely playable for an hour or more at a time.
pm_walkspeed 65
vr_movemode 6
vr_forwardonly
Walkspeed slows you way down, move mode 6 means you have to actively click to move instead of just moving when you touch the pad, forward only means you only move in the direction you are looking.
Heh, I don’t really have a dog in the fight, just reporting what I’ve heard from developers I’ve seen/talked to. Keep in mind that the people I’ve talked too are also developing, or only developing in some cases, non-game applications, for non-gamers. I suspect the general public has a lower tolerance than experienced gamers. But time will tell.
Oh my god the Rift controllers are here! Only played the tutorial thingy and I Expect You To Die, but already the immersion improvement is incredible. Can’t wait to try out all the cool Touch/Vive only experiences. My wallet’s going to be hurting by the end of the year.
The Star Wars VR Rogue One mission added to Battlefront was such a joy to experience but also such a tease. It’s very polished and well executed. You get to sit in the cockpit of a frikkin X-wing!! You can push the buttons, some of them even work! The mission plays out like an early campaign style mission where it starts out as a milk run but ramps up heavy near the end. I’m not a fan of the grotesquely generous lock-on for lasers but that’s Battlefront. It’s a great proof of concept that a true X-wing game would be phenomenal.
ED is a bit more involved and ambitious than the more action space-sim games like X-wing/Tie games. Plus it lacks the SW license which is a huge factor in the enjoyment. K-2SO is in the VR mission and is so good.
