
Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio - sidcool
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/13/google-is-reportedly-shutting-down-its-in-house-vr-film-studio/
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theNJR
I bootstrapped a VR company (1) after leaving a high paying CMO job. I put in
around $100k, we released three games, one got some funding from HTC, we were
shown at GDC, SIGGRAPH, VRLA, etc. We hit around 2,700 MAU before my co-
founder tapped out after no salary for two years.

I took six months off from VR to go back to a normal job that paid well. That
got acquired (in a very non-meaningful way, at least for me) in December and
I’ve been drawn back to VR. Immersive computing is the inevitable next
platform. Recent data(2) shows the kind of growth you’d expect and hope for at
this stage.

As others have said, the Quest will be a game changer. I think an NDA says I
can’t confirm or deny that I have one, but I certainly agree it is a game
changer. During my six month break from VR, I didn’t have any of my half dozen
headsets setup. We had turned my living room into our office prior to
dismantling, so it was nice to just have my living room back to normal.
Setting up my Vive again after six months reminded me of what a pain in the
ass that process is. The Quest fixes all of it.

VR is not 3D TV. Anyone who has experienced both knows that to be true. AR
will have a much higher install base, but VR will have an addressable market
of tens/hundreds of millions.

I’ve been working on a postmortem about my VR company for a while, but can’t
seem to finish it. Partially because I’m not sure if that company is over yet.

I’ve got plenty to say about VR, VR startups and VR venture, so any questions,
ask away.

(1) [http://www.RLTYCHK.co](http://www.RLTYCHK.co)

(2) [https://www.roadtovr.com/monthly-connected-vr-headsets-on-
st...](https://www.roadtovr.com/monthly-connected-vr-headsets-on-steam-have-
grown-exponentially-analysis)

~~~
insertcredit
Like you I think the Quest will change everything. I feel that it has to, at
this point, for VR momentum to break through. Do you think Oculus will
dominate the space in the coming decade? I can't help but be reminded of
Sense/Net from Neuromancer as a potential VR-only business with massive upside
and potential (userbase in the hundreds of millions if not billions) that can
be done _today_ if VR headset proliferation went beyond gamers. I am thinking
if Carmack and Abrash can't get it done, chances that anyone else will are
slim, at least in this generation.

~~~
theNJR
I have conflicting thoughts about Oculus' domination. Last night was an
interesting example, Facebook went down and took Oculus with it. But beyond
that, if this is going to be the platform of the future, we're going to need
more than one company behind it. History tells me that there is a better
solution being built in a garage right now. If Lucky Palmer could do it in the
2010's, someone else can be doing it again now. I'd certainly vote for that
company to be stand alone.

Have you read The History of the Future
([https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062455966](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062455966))
yet?

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pmoriarty
How's the market for VR doing in general? Is it growing or shrinking?

Around the time the first Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and Microsoft's HoloLens
were released some years back seemed to be high water mark of media stories
about VR. Since then it seems to be pretty quiet.

Is VR dying on the vine?

~~~
throwaway66666
I have spent quite sometime with Vive, Rift and PSVR. (rift, psvr at home,
vive at my office)

PSVR is unironically the hope for VR right now, even though it has by far the
lowest quality.

It has some very good games (Astrobot, Wipeout, RE7, Ace Combat 7, Moss, Beat
Saber). It's cheap, easy to set up (aimed towards couch VR instead of room
scale), cool helmet design, and the fact that the headset works as a regular
monitor for non-vr games and one person can be watching TV while the other
person gaming, is genius.

Compared to let's say Oculus where you need, 4 usb ports (3x usb 3.0), cables
everywhere, space, a ~$1200 pc/headset combo...

I do believe in VR though and am excited for what the future holds.

~~~
chime
> PSVR is unironically the hope for VR right now, even though it has by far
> the lowest quality.

For me it's the upcoming Oculus Quest. I've been refreshing /r/oculusquest
daily, hoping to get a release date or a way to reserve it.

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wlesieutre
My big hope for the Quest is that they'll say "Surprise! The USB-C port isn't
just charging, it also supports VirtualLink alternate mode!"

Would be great to have one device that can operate as _both_ a standalone
device and be connected to a computer for more graphically intense experiences
than the Quest's snapdragon hardware can provide.

IIRC it's running at a lower framerate than a Rift does, but it'd still be
cool to have that option because I have no plans to buy a dedicated PC-
connected headset.

Odds of this actually happening are probably not good, but fingers crossed
anyway.

~~~
throwaway34241
I'm pretty sure they've already said to the public that the Quest hardware
isn't capable of of video input over USB-C, so I wouldn't hold out any hope
for that. They did say they were investigating streaming from a PC over
wireless though which might be even better if they can get it working
decently.

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onion2k
This is Google saying VR _as a medium for passive consumption_ is dead, or at
least the market isn't ready yet. There's could still be plenty of potential
for interactive media like games though.

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jobigoud
> This is Google saying VR as a medium for passive consumption is dead

Not quite. The OP is about 3DOF content where the stereo is baked. You can't
move your head around and can't tilt your head.

You can have passive content like a static or living scene that isn't
interactive but where you can move your head a bit or explore, and it can be
photorealistic (6DOF video, light fields, which Google is also working on).

VR has this property of being the best hardware to consume some kind of
contents that don't fully take advantage of it. Like monoscopic 360° videos,
stereoscopic 180° video or stereo panoramas. Not quite VR but there is no
better way to consume them. I wonder if it sometimes confuse people assessment
of VR potential.

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Ajedi32
> The OP is about 3DOF content where the stereo is baked

The OP is about Google Spotlight Stories, which mostly produced non-
interactive 6DoF experiences. Obviously on Daydream headsets or YouTube videos
which don't support 6DoF you'd only get 3DoF, but if you download the videos
on Steam 6DoF works just fine:
[https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Google%20Spotlig...](https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Google%20Spotlight%20Stories&vrsupport=401)

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exolymph
when is google _not_ shutting something down, tbh

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godzillabrennus
When they are raising prices on it...

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paule89
VR is in its infancy for over 30 years now. It is just not really good.

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andybak
> It is just not really good.

I suspect you having been shown the right content. I could reel of a long list
of amazing work being done in VR. Google Earth in VR is one of the most
astonishing things I've tried in the last decade. Narrative works like
Dispatch and Manifest 99 show the potential of VR as a storytelling medium.
Tilt Brush, Gravity Sketch are already genuinely useful creative tools...

Oh - and Beat Saber. :-)

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tomclive
I have a Mixed Reality headset and Google Earth is amazing with room-scale VR.
It's not something I would have thought would work as well as it does.

Beat Saber is the only VR game I keep coming back to - the controls are spot
on. So simple and intuitive. You really need to work to get used to all the
buttons and sticks to control most other VR games.

~~~
andybak
> You really need to work to get used to all the buttons and sticks to control
> most other VR games.

This is a controversial opinion but I prefer the Vive wands to the Oculus
touch for this very reason. It pushed developers towards simpler control
schemes on the whole.

Trying to remember which button does what is not immersive.

Picking the controller up with the wrong hand every single time is not
immersive.

Being reminded you're using a game controller is not immersive.

The best controls in VR are your hands but failing that - the Vive wands are
often used as a lump with a single trigger - which I find ideal.

This is one of the reasons why public demos are always smoother with the Vive.
You just pass people the controller and show them where the trigger is (and
maybe the big trackpad button if necessary)

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SeanDav
It could just be that VR at Gooogle scale is not ready. There may still be a
huge part for VR to play in "niche" markets like games, training simulators,
data visualization etc.

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duxup
Yeah perhaps there's just not that much room for large companies who want to
throw gobs of money and resources at it.

Smaller players, even capable hobbyists, who iterate and find what works and
what doesn't and keep rolling on / don't shutdown if they don't hit a goal in
X time, might just be the folks who find what works.

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mark_l_watson
I was a co-founder of a VR lab at SAIC in the 1990s. We shut down because we
lacked a clear path to monetization even though everyone who tried our system
loved it.

It seems like a `chicken and the egg` problem: if enough people had VR gear
then studios would have a chance of profitability.

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jaimex2
Daydream hardware didn't support most phones for no reason, I don't know what
they thought was going to happen.

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jimhefferon
> aggressively hocking

Possibly they mean "hawking"?

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Ensorceled
I think they mean “hock” in the pawn off sense of the word and not intense
falconry.

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michaelscott
"Hawking" can also refer to the sale of goods, usually in a kind of bazaar-
like fashion

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moron4hire
No, that's "hocking".

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oliveshell
Actually, it’s “hawking”!

To _hock_ something is to pawn it, i.e. sell it because you need the money
(and possibly plan to buy it back later):

[https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/hock-
hawk/](https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/hock-hawk/)

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aboutruby
Reality is almost nobody wants to wear VR headsets, and that's going to take a
while for VCs to admit that.

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samstave
Billions of people never knew it existed. Nobody knows what they even did or
produced.

Flagged as who gives a heck.

~~~
buboard
billions of dollars were also invested, at the expense of other technologies

