It Might Be Time to Admit the Great VR Experiment Has Failed

At least VR does what it promised, unlike crypto and AI.
I also think there are economic reasons, we don’t live during a time when people can buy expensive toys.
Steam deck was a hit because it was economical, just $500 and have access to a whole PC.
- If you don't mind Meta/Facebook, then the oculus quest headsets are also very affordable hardware and deliver a good experience. I think the issue lies with content.
  Smartphones or handhelds like the steam deck with flat screens could use plenty of already existing content made for screens. With VR you want different content that is made specifically for it. There is a decent amount of games (but still much fewer than for other devices), but honestly not that much more.
  Additionally it also can only really be used at home, where most already have other devices.
  It's a chicken and egg problem. But imo if there were more genuine unique productivity tasks and experiences available through VR, we would see more adoption.
  
  Good experience is debatable. A lot of the games on standalone quest run at like 40 fps, which isn't unplayable for me, but I'd rather run it on my gaming pc except for I can't because theres so much quest exclusives
  
  I agree that they offer a good VR experience from a VR-feel standpoint- that said, Meta inherited all the best UX that came out of Oculus just to massively deteriorate it since then
  
  I begrudgingly bought a quest, its too cheapo. VR would be so much better if it was a PCVR headset I had, plus need body trackers but too expensive.
- Its a shame, I would have thought that by this time atleast the price would go down enough for mass adoption, considering there isn't that significant of advancement in tech, atleast from what I've seen.
  Mass adoption would push more developers to work on software for VR, which would pretty much staple it as a new form of entertainment consumption.

PCVR very much isn't dead, especially with Valve likely releasing their next headset within the next year.

- VR gaming is still pretty niche and expensive if you want a truly good experience. There also haven't really been any major advancements in the space since the Valve Index almost six years ago.
  Inside out tracking is still not where it needs to be and the base stations for outside in tracking are cumbersome.
  Additionally, for the full promise of VR gaming to be realized you really need accurate full body tracking to include full hand tracking, a compact, easily stowable, but accurate omnidirectional treadmill, and some way to do all of the tracking without the need for base stations.
  And all of that needs to be standardized across the industry.
  I too enjoy VR gaming, but there's been basically no movement in the VR space in a long time, and to most people VR is a novelty at best. Unless someone gives us a decade's worth of advancement inside of a year or two, I expect modern VR will go the way of the virtual boy. Only to be revived again in 20-30 years.
- The issue is it takes too much effort to play vs normal gaming unless you are able to dedicate a room to it. For people in areas where housing costs are low enough that you can afford a big house, or for people who are single and don't have other people in the house to cater to, this might be fine. But for most people, a good VR session involves moving shit out of the way, strapping on a helmet, putting wrist straps on and figuring out whether you want to do that blind after putting the helmet on or trying to put the helmet on with things in your hands, then playing in a specific area so you don't kick your coffee table (and hope your dog doesn't walk in front of you while you are walking).
  Contrast that to picking up a controller while sitting down.
  If the awesome games were there to make the extra effort worth it, then fine. But there just aren't the great games yet. I have a VR system and haven't put it on in months because I just don't care enough. It has become a novelty.
  
  Quest 3 can launch straight into passthrough mode, most games can be played standing or sitting in place (I play in a regular sized living room without moving anything around). It's actually quicker and easier for me to play in VR than boot up my gaming rig.
- I posted the article mostly for discussion, I personally have had a great time play AC: Nexus VR lately. But it does feel like the market is in a bit of a weird place right now as Meta/Apple are both pushing AR and non-gaming use cases, when the only thing these headsets have really been shown to be superior at is playing games.

What Meta has been doing with VR has failed. PCVR continues and continues growing and will still be around when the great Zuck moves on.

I can't think of a single VR game that has come out that felt like a fully fleshed out game. The games I've played the most have all been ports (e.g. Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Fallout 4, The Forest) because native VR games are typically only 3-6 hours long.
Meta really make it annoying to use too. My next headset will definitely not be a Meta.
- alyx and blade & sorcery feel fleshed out.
  beat saber and its clones seem so stupid when first hearing about them but they are absolutely perfect for the medium. here you have a looot of replayability
  most people can't play vr for long periods anyway - a mix of rising sweat and motion sickness buildup or eventually physical exhaustion if you flail around to hard lol
  
  To add, I've gotten dozens of hours out of:
  the lab*
  beat saber*
  20 hours out of:
  elite dangerous
  10 hours out of:
  Alyx**
  squadrons
  keep talking and nobody explodes
  Pavlov
  space pirate trainer*
  5 hours out of:
  budget cuts
  super hot VR~*
  Arizona sunshine
  hot dogs, horseshoes, and hand grenades
  Less than 2 hours:
  job simulator
  I expect you to die
  quivr
  bone works
  Vegas infinite
  VR chat*
  duck season
  gorn
  9732 blade runner*
  Truly a unique VR experience that I loved and consider making my Index purchase worth it. ** What I'd consider to be on par with other AAA game experiences that are story focused and cross the bar for me on being considered "art" (most videogames are "art" but I mean to say this game crosses into Celeste, God of War, BioShock, Papers Please territory).
  I probably have less than 150 hours in VR but I was moving for most of the years I owned my vive or index and in small rooms for their use, and I sold my index a little more than 2 years ago because I moved from the US to Germany and assumed valve was releasing their next set anyday.
  I'll be buying the first headset that seems next gen, most are getting close but always missing something I consider rather important like HFR or decent pixel density or outside tracking (although I've heard maybe inside out is getting better).
  I think another factor to consider when looking at my 150 hour estimate is some amount of that is with other people. My dad, my less engineering savvy friends, at house parties. Those hours are worth more than X hours on my normal PC. It was an amazing experience to put my friends in their first VR headset and see them light up. I'd pay what I paid twice over to be able to give that experience to more people.
  Which I think highlights that hours in VR needs to always have a multiplier applied to it because you can't get that experience elsewhere. I imagine a good racing setup or horas setup would have the same intrinsic value compared to normal gaming. Now that I think about it, same thing applies to handheld gaming too. These different unique modes or experiences are worth more than their hours tell.

If you’ve already got a VR headset and you’re happy with it, I’m envious. But for the rest of us, it’s worth asking the question: just what is it going to take to get on board?
Speaking for myself, if I can use a headset about as well as I do a regular display, that'll do it for me. I'm less-interested in a gaming-specific peripheral, though that'd be nice frosting on the cake. If I can just carry a headset in a case and a display-less laptop, that'd probably be sufficient to get me onboard the HMD train.
There are real benefits to that:
Privacy. My screen isn't visible to anyone nearby.
Wider field of view possible.
No glare issues.
Potentially less power use, since one isn't blasting light everywhere just to get a little into one's eye.
Able to use in any orientation easily, like lying down.
My experience so far has not led me to believe that this is near. I've found HMDs to be twitchy about the location relative to the eye, prone to blurriness if nudged a bit off. Blurriness around the edges. On my Royole Moon, fogging up is an issue, due to shields to eliminate light from bleeding in. Limited resolution. For some, inability to easily see the surrounding world. Limited refresh rates. Many headsets can't really be used with headphones, which is okay, as long as you're fine with the headphones that come with the headset. [EDIT: As someone else pointed out, setup time is a hassle as well. I want using one to be as trivial as it is today for me to open my wireless headphones case and throw the headphones on my head, with just the addition of a cable.]
I don't personally really care all that much about price, if the thing can serve as a competitive monitor replacement, since then it's not just a toy.
I'd also add that I think that there are some genres, like flight sims, where VR has legitimately succeeded. Like, compared to multiple-monitor rigs that some serious flight sim fans have set up, VR is pretty much better in all ways. No physical control panels and such, maybe, but they really want the wide FOV and ability to use the head/eye as an input device.
I'm sure that there are probably some AR applications where you can find an AR headset making sense. Maybe stargazing or something.
But what the article author seems to want is a transition to a world where basically all or a large chunk of new video games are VR-based. And yeah, that hasn't happened.
EDIT: Honestly, most of the games I find myself spending a lot of time playing aren't even 3D in the first place. That's not due to lack of hardware. I have a pretty maxed-out PC, can run them fine. It's just not what I think is most-entertaining to do --- many of the games that I find really deep and replayable are 2D, so I'm not playing the 3D games that I do have. If the games aren't 3D, it's hard to see how VR buys much.
- I don't see input being discussed as much as it should, but when modern games became very realistic, let's say Battlefield 4 era, it became clear for me that the current challenge for gaming is input. You can make an character animation do anything but you can't instruct it to the character, maybe that is why this quick time action bullshit is so popular, because you can make a very complex cinematic scene but you can't make the player give the input for it.
  That is all to say this problem is 10x worst for VR games. Like the biggesr benefit of a 3D view is to move around but if you can't do that in a natural way it kinda sucks, that is why 3D movies sucks, you are not moving around the scene. I guess that is also why VR works well with flight sims because in a real plane you are confined to your sit and can only look around. Now a shooter or other FPSs you WALK around and that has not being solved.
- People underestimate the huge impact and importance that people give to touch and proprioception. Physical inputs will always be orders of magnitude far more satisfying than waving hands in the air without feedback.
- Man now I want one as well, so one you imagined. :)

I've always said that AR was the real future. Technology that isolates people from others in the same room as them always seems to fail.

I have 450+ hours of Pavlov on PSVR2, plenty of hours in other games as well. The biggest issue imho is size / type of players. There's not always good servers/people around when playing Pavlov and it's just not fun single player. But being able to play basically VR CounterStrike at home is just awesome to me, the tech is great.

I bet Half life alyx was supposed to be HL3, but the tech wasn't there yet so the project changed.

Personally i don't see VR as the future of gaming, VR is all about an increase in immersion which isn't always what you want in a video game. It'll be its own unique thing. As to whether or not it'll remain niche entirely depends on how the technology develops and its ease of use. From what i tell now, and what VR will probably be used for predominately (and well its mostly being used this way anyway) is socializing. Yeah you can play video games with it but I think the primary drive for VR for a lot of people will be what is essentially digital chatroom, movies, theme parks basically VR chat and things like it.

I bought a used PSVR2 recently for playing Gran Turismo, but was surprised how cool the gunplay is in some games, so have mostly been playing Resident Evil 4 (which I already had from buying a collection of used games, but never played).

Uh, what VR?

Good thing Zuck has to deal with all those terrible consequences resulting from his country-sized expenditure on the failed metaverse project.

VR won’t be viable until it’s transparent and unobtrusive; a contact lens, for example. A giant headset that you strap on to your face just isn’t appealing to most customers outside of the initial novelty factor.
- It already is viable, it's just not super mainstream.
  
  It’s been viable for enthusiasts for a while, but the reason it’s not mainstream is most normal people just don’t want it. It’s clumsy, cumbersome, the content is generally poor, and it’s either a Meta product or very expensive for something that’s ultimately a gimmick at the moment. Not to mention the “metaverse” tarnishing VRs image.
  Even Apple couldn’t make it successful with today’s tech. Best case scenario IMO; company’s starting long term VR moonshot projects right now might have something with mainstream appeal in the distant future.

Ok, now do AI. I feel like normal people knew VR was dead again 3+ years ago.