
Oculus Start: Technical and Financial Resources for Beginning VR Developers - indescions_2018
https://developer.oculus.com/oculus-start/
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staunch
VR is _still_ like tablets and PDAs before the iPhone and iPad. No surprise
that Zuck hasn't done what Jobs did.

I'm enjoying (in a friendly way) that many people have already given up on the
technology and think it's going to fade away again. Because anyone that doubts
VR is real and going mainstream is going to be in for quite a surprise!

Oculus is still figuring out what the killer app for VR is, which means
they've done a pretty bad job. That's what has slowed progress so much. Even
this attempt at encouraging developers is weak. Where's the actual funding?!
It's almost as if they don't get how big what they're doing is.

To be fair though, transforming computing can take _many_ months even in the
modern world.

Oculus should put games on the back burner and ask themselves what really cool
life-improving things they could do with VR if they weren't limited by
consumer pricing. They need to jump start the industry with a truly compelling
experience and that _might_ not be easy at $300.

Business customers can afford much, much more.

Just like VisiCalc launched the personal computer, so could a VR app that
enables virtual offices, for example. Every tech worker could be afforded a
$1-$3k head mounted display if it improved their productivity even slightly.
Something like a 16K-16K display. That's a solid multi-billion dollar business
that they can use to bring the amazing version mainstream.

VR could plausibly trigger a seismic shift towards remote work, transforming
cities, economies, and the world. That ought to be a big enough thing to get
VR off the ground initially.

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whywhywhywhy
> Oculus should put games on the back burner

To be fair Oculus are one of the ones in the industry looking beyond games.
Look at Oculus Medium[1], it makes something that was extremely fiddly and
required hours of practice into something instantly intuitive.

I don't actually think VR will hit the mainstream, work like spreadsheets just
don't benefit much from being in 3D space. The true magic of VR is the hand
tracking, being able to interact with computing with both hands in 3D space.

Definitely feel VR will find it's workplace niche in the creative space rather
than standard office work. Worth mentioning too that games are an innovation
driver, so don't discount them so fast.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m1Jm_Osxls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m1Jm_Osxls)

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andybak
Agree about the creative space but I'd like to point out there's several high
quality content creation apps from other sources:

[https://www.gravitysketch.com/](https://www.gravitysketch.com/)

[https://www.masterpiecevr.com/](https://www.masterpiecevr.com/)

[http://lyravr.com/](http://lyravr.com/)

[http://nvrmind.io/animvr/](http://nvrmind.io/animvr/)

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/606920/EXA_The_Infinite_In...](http://store.steampowered.com/app/606920/EXA_The_Infinite_Instrument/)

[https://mindshow.com/](https://mindshow.com/)

That's not even mentioned lots of other non-game applications. I've been
trying to keep tabs on what's available on Steam and the Oculus Store:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwqLF3CpYWxZ6kipzWGH...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwqLF3CpYWxZ6kipzWGHaBn8rKPsptKxRCfHjVngxzA/edit?usp=sharing)

~~~
nickthegreek
Medium is hands down the best 3d sculpting app that's on VR right now. I was
also incredibly impressed with what mindshow was capable of.

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lobo_tuerto
If you select Mexico from the dropdown menu, the whole form just disappears,
no feedback, no info, nada. That's cold.

They should be more inclusive if they want to find that VR "golden thread".
But this, this is not the way to do it.

Why even include countries that are not eligible on the dropdown? Maybe just a
case of bad UX I guess.

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topgunsarg
Sounds more like a bug than they just decided to hide the entire form from
people who select Mexico...although I didn't bother to start the application
process to verify that.

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lobo_tuerto
Well, I just checked now, and they have removed Mexico and the other non-
participant countries from the list now.

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Kyragem
VR will never have mass market adoption if they don't solve VR sickness first.
Recent studies even show that it especially affects women due to physiological
differences in visual and vestibular systems and may explains why only 5% of
oculus/vive owners are females. Instead of funding lots of mediocre games,
Oculus should really dedicate some resources in solving this particular
problem, which excludes a large portion of our population from using VR.

~~~
Ajedi32
Is VR sickness still an issue in games without artificial locomotion? Most
games these days tend to at least include an option for a locomotion system
that doesn't result in VR sickness. (Like teleportation.)

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georgeecollins
Yes, but I think people are getting better at finding ways of working around
it. The locomotion problem in VR reminds me of the camera problem in the early
days of 3D games. It's hard to imagine now, but when games became 3D nobody
knew what was the best thing to do with the camera. Should it be in a corner
of every room you walk into so you could watch yourself walk by? Should it
follow you? If so, how does it follow you through a door, or when back into a
corner. All the conventions that you take for granted in games took a couple
years to figure out.

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joeevans1000
VR _is_ cool regardless if it's going to take off.

Unfortunately for Oculus, the Vive won this race. It's so much better as
hardware. Further, when Facebook bought Oculus it became clear it was only a
matter of time before the Rift was going to be contaminated with the
increasingly unpopular (with young people, anyway) Facebook products.

Oculus was a failure for Facebook, or, rather, Facebook was the failure of
Oculus.

