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Survey says half of developers consider VR market on decline or stagnation

143 comments
  • It's only that way because developers don't seem to be, you know... Developing shit for it.

    Like, I love a lot of what's available and the tech itself is great; but there is no killer app. There is next to nothing but novelty bullshit being made. Even if Meta wasn't the one with the cheapest headset, people wouldn't necessarily be buying into VR because there's not really much to do with it yet.

    One Half-Life game, a chatroom, and a bitching rythym game isn't enough.

    • It’s killer app to me is sim racing but it requires too much additional investment

      • What, like a wheel and some pedals? Or would you go full-on actual car stuff? I met a guy once who turned the entire back half of his trailer into a plane cockpit for his flight sims. Had actual instruments and switches and stuff. I'm sure with what it had to cost, he could have just bought a real plane. lol

  • I think that the biggest problem is the lack of investment and willingness to take on risk. Every company just seems to want a quick cash grab "killer app" but doesn't want to sink in the years of development of practical things that aren't as flashy but solve real-world problems. Because that's hard and isn't likely to make the line go up every quarter.

    • It's mostly the price. If you have 500 or even 1000 to invest to play games, first that puts you squarely in the top 1% worldwide but more importantly a VR headset is the worst choice in terms of breadth of games you can play. So the first choice will always be a PC or a console which leave the VR headset for the people who actually have 2k+ to spend for gaming and actually want one. A tiny tiny minority.

      If you add on top of it that you still have a 50/50 chance of getting nausea each time you play and that it's a pain in the ass (or an additional expense) if you wear glasses, and the space requirement. It's not a surprise if the market is stalled.

      As for useful implementation, my cousin is an orthopedic surgeon and they use VR headset and 3D x-ray scanner, 3d printers and a whole bunch of sci-fi stuff to prep for operation, but they are not using a meta quest2, we're talking 50k headset and million dollar equipment. None of that does anything to the gaming market.

      My though is that the tech need to get a couple of order of magnitude better and be usable as a day to day computer for work. When I can code in one 10 hours a day without fucking up my eyes, vomiting myself, sweating like a pig and getting neck strain it will have the possibility to take over the computer market, until then, it's a gimmick.

      • Even your hypothetical perfect headset would be useless in so many situations where you can game today, can't use it in public, can't use it while watching children, can't use it while talking to other adults in your household,...

        Also, I think the idea that you even need that first person perspective for immersion is deeply flawed, lots of games make you feel immersed without that. Not to mention that it severely limits possible UI elements if you don't want to break the immersion again.

      • As for useful implementation, my cousin is an orthopedic surgeon and they use VR headset and 3D x-ray scanner, 3d printers and a whole bunch of sci-fi stuff to prep for operation, but they are not using a meta quest2, we're talking 50k headset and million dollar equipment. None of that does anything to the gaming market.

        That's really awesome and I love seeing that the tech is actually seeing good uses.

        Yeah. A lot of what you're saying parallels my thoughts. The PC and console gaming market didn't exist until there were more practical, non-specialty uses for computing and, importantly, affordability. To me, it seems that the manufacturers are trying to skip that and just try to get to the lucrative software part, while also skipping the part where you pay people fair wages to develop (the games industry is super exploitative of devs) or, like The Company Formerly-known as Facebook, use VR devices as another tool to harvest personal information for profit (head tracking data can be used to identify people, similar to gait analysis), rather than having interest in actually developing VR long-term.

        Much as I'm not a fan of Apple or the departed sociopath that headed it, a similar company to its early years is probably what's needed; people willing to actually take on some risk for the long-haul to develop the hardware and base software to make a practical "personal computer" of VR.

        When I can code in one 10 hours a day without fucking up my eyes, vomiting myself, sweating like a pig and getting neck strain it will have the possibility to take over the computer market, until then, it's a gimmick.

        Absolutely agreed. Though, I'd note that there is tech available for this use case. I've been using Xreal Airs for several years now as a full monitor replacement (Viture is more FOSS friendly at this time). Bird bath optics are superior for productivity uses, compared to waveguides and lensed optics used in VR. In order to have readable text that doesn't strain the eyes, higher pixels-per-degree are needed, not higher FOV.

        The isolation of VR is also a negative in many cases as interacting and being aware of the real world is frequently necessary in productivity uses (both for interacting with people and mitigating eye strain). Apple was ALMOST there with their Vision Pro but tried to be clever, rather than practical. They should not have bothered with the camera and just let the real world in, unfiltered.

  • I've long been skeptical about VR as a mainstream platform. I think the technology is quite cool, but much like those people who used to say "In ten years everyone will have a 3D printer!" and the like, no, I just don't see it happening. The hassle factor is too great for it to be for everyone. Hell, most people seem to be fine with stereo sound, even though surround sound setups have been available for decades.

    Whether it's space, cost, or lack of software support, it all seems to combine to make it a bit of hobbyist kit at best. If your goal is to sell millions of copies then you need to target a broader market than hobbyists, and it looks like a lot of companies have ploughed enough cash into this that hobbyist sales aren't going to be enough.

  • I use it for sim racing sometimes and it's amazing to feel like I'm in an F1 car or something. Until I get nauseous after 15 minutes or something. It's also a bit of a hassle to set up. That being said, maybe it would be cooler if I got into beat saber or something.

    Was it over hyped? Maybe. But it's still a cool technology and I'd be sad to see it fall into nothingness. I don't see a future where everyone is wearing VR glasses, but it's still a very neat thing to enjoy every now and then.

  • I sometimes use VR. I have a Quest 2. I just don't really care for any of it outside of linking it up to my PC and playing custom tracks on Beat Saber or getting my wheel out for racing games.

    One of the scariest experiences was getting Wreckfest (not sure if it supports VR now but it didn't when I used it), stretching the 2D screen around me, jacking up the POV and having a heart attack when getting side swiped by a bus. That's probably the most fun I've had with a VR Headset 😂

    I've also played Civ V on VR just for shits and giggles because why not.

  • My brother bought the cv1 Oculus Rift pretty fast after it came out, we've both used it for most of the big releases and I've been wanting to buy my own since, but there's been a bit of hesitation considering my brother early uses his own. I also had reservations against buying a Facebook device after they took over, and I was seeing new releases and resolutions going up a bit.

    Then information about the Big Screen Beyond came out, and I really wanted to get it. I checked out the page to buy it several times, kinda wanted to save the money too, though, but I think I was close enough that if I'd known anyone with the facescan iPhone I'd have done the scan and paid the ~$1,500 or so for the full setup.

    Knowing myself and my brother, I would have played multiplayer occasionally and bought a few favorite games like Until You Fall, Bonelab, B&S, and Alyx but mostly it would end up sitting unused. I kinda also wanted to develop for VR but I probably wouldn't have done anything more than the two shitty assets I once imported poorly into Blade and Sorcery.

    Right now I'm glad I have the $1,500 now because there are car issues to take care of. Ultimately I think VR is beautiful, but my world is still a little too rough around the edges to pay huge sums for a daydreaming toy.

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