
This VR cycle is dead - smacktoward
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/26/this-vr-cycle-is-dead/
======
danielbln
Early adopter here, initial 2012 Oculus Rift Kickstarter backer, I own all the
headsets. My excitement has all but died down in regards to the current
generation of VR. Mostly, I find the hardware cumbersome and clunky and the
games to be too same-y (teleportation galore) or unpolished. The absolute best
experience I had in VR was playing Half-Life 2 back in 2013, with terrible
resolution and tracking, but it was so immersive I could barely contain
myself. Now though, that I'm no longer wowed just by "being there", the act of
strapping into VR is so cumbersome, the software is buggy at times, the cable
is annoying, the headset is heavy, hot, doesn't work well with glasses etc.

However, I'm still as excited for VR as I was in the beginning in regards to
the technology. Give me a lighter headset, 100% wireless and great
handtracking and finally some long, immersive games (can be ports, that's fine
for me) and I'm ready to shell out money again.

As it stands today though, my VR hype is on hibernation until the next gen
rolls around.

~~~
m_mueller
Valve are the ones who have dropped the ball. They had all the cards lined up.
Killer IP that would make people buy hardware if used correctly (HL3, Portal
3). Probably the best tech currently available (Vive). The biggest PC gaming
storefront (Steam). Their own OS. Each and every one of these components, with
the exception of Steam, was neglected. They had the future of PC gaming right
there ready to grab... and did essentially nothing with it. It may not be too
late but I think Valve needs an organisational restructuring if they want to
pick up their pieces. If they don't it's very likely that they loose most of
their revenue in the next 10 years, because even Steam needs killer exclusive
content, i.e. content that cannot be licensed on another online platform,
which soon will only be Valve games.

~~~
beefsack
It's beginning to appear clear that FPS is VR's pipe dream. The locomotion
part seems non-trivial to solve and dissonance between the virtual and real
world renders VR FPS completely unplayable for a large amount of gamers (it
can make you feel incredibly uncomfortable, can also cause motion sickness.)

HL3 and Portal 3 would be incredibly difficult to implement well in the VR
space, and I feel this is something that Valve understands much better than
many others.

~~~
m_mueller
IMO these franchises have one big advantage: They are in a science fantasy
setting that has already introduced the concept of teleportation. So there is
already precedent for teleporting around the map, making locomotion
unnecessary.

~~~
prawn
I don't play an FPS to teleport around. I play to run, jump, dodge, etc.

~~~
m_mueller
Don't call it FPS then. Have you played Portal?

~~~
nitroll
Portals main mechanic is movement, portals are created to enable new venues of
movement. If portals were simply point at somewhere and click to teleport
there the game would hardly be portal anymore and probably not fun at all.

------
Yen
The article is long-winded, and a bit patronizing(1), but it seems to
generally be saying that "VR is going to drop off in popularity in the near
future, and may never become popular again".

I don't think this will be the case.

A few decades ago, you could experience VR of a similar nature as you can
today ... if you happened to have an in with a nearby university research lab,
with a setup space with carefully calibrated sensors, hundreds of thousands of
dollars of computers, projectors, and other equipment.

Now-a-days, you can experience that VR with about $2,000 worth of computer +
headset, and about as much setup difficulty as a home theater system. This is
_massively_ more accessible than it was.

It's certainly not perfect. $2,000 is still a lot of money, and 550 grams is a
lot of weight to put on your face.

But, even if it's not a smashing consumer success at the moment, the number of
developers, artists, and other creatives who have access to the tools of VR
development, and the size of the potential audience, are _several orders of
magnitude_ larger than they were just a decade ago.

And, really, if the biggest complaints about VR headsets are that they're too
heavy, too expensive, and they look dorky, then I'd say VR's already won, one
way or another. Technology has had this weird habit of getting smaller and
cheaper.

The hype may cool off, but I don't think there's going to be much slowing of
developer behavior or consumer behavior in the near future, and new headset
models coming out will just slowly ramp up enthusiasm.

(1) but seriously, this author is really really concerned about how un-cool
the headset makes you look, as if people staring intently at a movie screen,
or play, or classical music concert are that much more photogenic.

------
amitt
I run a VR/AR-focused VC firm (Presence Capital). We've done 30+ investments
in this space, so you can say that we believe in the long-term potential of
VR. Even given that, we're bearish on how quickly there will be a
profitable/sustainable VR consumer business and have advised most of our
portfolio companies targeting consumers to keep burn low.

That being said, this article and most of the comments here are taking a
singular worldview: consumer-focused VR for a western market. VR is a tool,
not an industry. Context on use is required to assess traction.

VR for B2B or enterprises can make money today and doesn't require mass-
consumer adoption. If you make someone 10x more effective at their job (tools
for sales people: OssoVR) or onboard employees faster (training: STRIVR), you
can overcome the cost and rough edges on the hardware and have an ROI to
justify the cost of the system.

Walmart, for example, recently announced they are using VR to power their
training centers. [https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/walmart-is-bringing-vr-
ins...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/walmart-is-bringing-vr-instruction-
to-all-of-its-u-s-training-centers/)

We're actively investing in VR for training companies and I recently did an
overview of what separates out the best companies in this space:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/08/24/ti...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/08/24/tips-
on-how-to-get-your-vr-simulation-project-funded/#39044a575ed0)

In Asia (and increasingly in the west), VR-arcades are going to be how most
consumers first experience high-end PC VR. Culturally, people there are
already used to going to internet cafe's to use computers by the hour and seek
out 3rd spaces. VR-by-the-hour rooms fit this mold. Additionally, the short
length of most VR experiences makes it easy to have a 15-20 minute session and
not be disappointed by the lack of content. IMAX is starting to open multiple
VR centers and the word within the industry is that the VR Zones opened by
Namco in Tokyo are currently profitable.

More info on this here: [https://medium.com/@amitt/vr-will-be-huge-in-
china-41de0c758...](https://medium.com/@amitt/vr-will-be-huge-in-
china-41de0c758..).

(disclosure: we're investors in STRIVR and OssoVR)

~~~
mncharity
> this article and most of the comments here are taking a singular worldview:
> consumer-focused VR for a western market

Even narrower than that: game VR; on HMDs without (usable) cameras; using
particular software stacks.

The usual way I use my Vive, is on an old laptop with integrated graphics,
doing ducktaped-on camera-passthrough AR, at 30 fps, in coffeehouses and
conference rooms... Let's just say that many people are so focused on the
gaming market, that they're unable to see anything else.

I've been through the mass adoption of PC's, the internet and web, cell
phones, tablets and touch phones, and now here's consumer VR/AR. I've kind of
given up hope of seeing intelligent analysis in the popular press during
transitions.

Still, I was surprised by just how bad this article was. Isn't TC based in SV?
I'd have thought the author could find people to do a sanity check.
Misconceptions like drawing a hard VR vs AR distinction suggests that didn't
happen. One can certainly make an argument for a slow takeoff. Even for a very
slow and multi-phase one. But this article wasn't that. Perhaps I've just been
unlucky to see this post before HN buries it.

~~~
clarry
> Let's just say that many people are so focused on the gaming market, that
> they're unable to see anything else.

This really annoys me. Actually I just want a good HMD that can replace any
standard monitor. A lot of people complain about working in a plane or on a
bus because other people can see their screen. People complain about working
in open offices where they constantly have other peoples' faces moving in
their field of view, distracting them from their screens. People try to build
screen walls and wear isolating headphones to shield them from these
distractions. People complain that they can't work outside in nice weather
because of the glare..

I complain about my laptop because the screen is too small and it's impossible
to have an ergonomic posture -- if it's at the right level for typing, the
screen is too low and I get neck pain. If the screen is at a comfortable
level, it's very difficult to type on. Even when the screen is at a
comfortable level, it's annoyingly small for some things. I complain about big
screens because they're heavy, take up a lot of desk space, are expensive, and
aren't very portable.

There's so many issues that could potentially be solved with a HMD.. but
everyone's just completely fixated on immersion in gaming and movies. _sigh_

A HMD could be a small, lightweight monitor I can keep in my backpack and use
to get a desktop-like experience (plus some exclusive benefits) with a few
minor disadvantages.

~~~
mncharity
Varjo is working on a foveated display - a panel-plus-microdisplay combo.
"Retina"-ish resolution. The development risk isn't small, and it would be
expensive. But you could drive it with current hardware. Fingers crossed.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/19/15820336/nokia-varjo-
virt...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/19/15820336/nokia-varjo-virtual-
reality-headset-microsoft) [2]
[http://www.ubergizmo.com/2017/06/varjo-20-20-vr-
headset/](http://www.ubergizmo.com/2017/06/varjo-20-20-vr-headset/) [3]
[http://www.kguttag.com/2017/06/26/varjo-foveated-display-
par...](http://www.kguttag.com/2017/06/26/varjo-foveated-display-part-1/) [4]
[http://www.kguttag.com/2017/07/10/varjo-foveated-display-
reg...](http://www.kguttag.com/2017/07/10/varjo-foveated-display-regions/) [5]
[https://www.fastcompany.com/40432203/this-finnish-startup-
sa...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40432203/this-finnish-startup-says-its-
building-tomorrows-vr-displays-today) [6] [https://www.wired.com/story/varjo-
vr-microdisplay/](https://www.wired.com/story/varjo-vr-microdisplay/)

~~~
clarry
Maybe. But even that seems too much focused on VR and brings a host of issues
with it (it looks like it needs special software; I don't think it can replace
any standard display).

I think something like the Avegant Glyph is a lot more promising for my needs.
But that thing works at 720p; I'd say bump it up to 1080p and I might buy it.
It's also got a fatal design flaw that allows dust to get behind the lens and
it's basically impossible to remove.. without sending the device back to the
manufacturer. And the Glyph too is focused a little too much on multimedia;
the inclusion of headphones is an obvious giveaway, as are all the comparisons
to a big TV.. ten feet away.

Notice that the Glyph isn't fixated on immersing you; it doesn't try to fill
your entire field of view. It's just a screen in a head-mount (plus
headphones, which I don't want). There's some space around the eyepiece so you
can see and find the coffee cup by your laptop. This means it doesn't run in
to the same resolution issue that immersion-focused VR has to deal with. Thus
piece in front of your eyes is also smaller than the usual VR box that tries
to cover all the space around your face balls.

------
dcw303
Since I sense this is the perfect time to offer a half-baked eulogy, let me
offer my half-baked theory:

I think it was McLuhan who said that each new medium begins by imitating the
old. e.g - The first television programs were basically radio broadcasts with
an image of a talking head. It took a while for tv to break out and capitalize
on the features of the new medium.

VR was always going to be measured by gaming. But its well-documented problem
was that a very large subsection of games (1st person) have a considerable
barf factor for a considerable section of the customer base.

So VR may have had great future potential for new avenues in gaming, but it
was hamstrung by its weakenesses for existing games.

People got too caught up with possibilites to objectively look at how sucky it
was _right now_.

~~~
aaron-lebo
It would be like if the first TV programs were barely audible but they had
images.

VR thus far has been a bit of a step back. Devs have for a long time been
under the impression that tech > gameplay (which is dumb when you think about
it), and now a lot of devs are under the impression that doing something in VR
excuses games not getting the basics right. The fun part is the studios who
are used throwing 100 artists at a job pumping out the highest detail models,
but that doesn't work so well, so they're either gonna go back to the basics
or keep floundering.

The best games I've played in VR have been ports, and they're just as
enjoyable without VR and you aren't hot and sweaty after 5 minutes.

~~~
Taek
Really have to complain about 'Out of Ammo' on that one. It had a really great
gimmick. It's a tower defense where you can become your towers + units and
shoot the enemy with superhero speed and accuracy. That part was really fun.

It was also one of the worst tower defense games I've ever played. Enemies
coming from all sides, rngs that made certain levels unbeatable if you got
unlucky with the tower drops, and wide open areas that meant you couldn't
really create bottlenecks.

For all the potential it had, they really needed someone better at game
design.

\-----

My biggest issue though is that we haven't seen any long form VR games.
Everything decent is more or less like an arcade. One room where you do
everything, and you run out of unique stuff to do pretty quickly.

------
wbillingsley
There seems to be a trade-off between immersion and casual-ness of the game,
and I'm not sure people are that dedicated to immersion to want to trade-it
off long-term:

\- Wanting to slouch on the couch without it affecting your gameplay

\- Wanting to pick up your cup of tea or soda in slow moments in the game

\- Wanting to hear & see if other members of the family have got home

\- Not wanting to look like an idiot with a thing on your head making strange
in-game movements

\- Feeling antisocial because as you only have one head-set others in the room
can't see what you're doing (making it feel antisocial to go into that world)

We're pretty good at getting "immersed" in things without VR, so I wonder if
the immersion gains just aren't worth the social & convenience costs (as well
as the real costs) to most people. A little like even if GOT was on at the
local IMAX, the vast majority of people would probably still watch it on their
smaller screens at home. Maybe even on their tiny phones and iPads...

~~~
DiThi
> \- Wanting to slouch on the couch without it affecting your gameplay

You can easily play some games sitting, but still you can't do no exercise.
That's a plus: a friend I played frequently with has lost more weight playing
than with any other method. (for most people exercising isn't useful for
losing weight but it has many benefits for the brain)

> \- Wanting to pick up your cup of tea or soda in slow moments in the game

I've done that. With a bottle or a cup with a straw. The vive camera makes it
easy.

> \- Wanting to hear & see if other members of the family have got home

It depends on which headset are you using and how much noise people makes
coming home. I usually do hear them.

> \- Not wanting to look like an idiot with a thing on your head making
> strange in-game movements

> \- Feeling antisocial because as you only have one head-set others in the
> room can't see what you're doing (making it feel antisocial to go into that
> world)

People _can_ see what are you doing with a correctly positioned screen. In any
case those problems are temporary and sounds easy to solve. I'm not very
social myself but I want to make a SteamVR "intercommunicator" to talk with
people IRL without losing immersion (or maybe even making it more immersive).

------
slavik81
I don't really understand why they play up the current state of AR. To me, it
seems that AR is a fundamentally harder problem than VR. To do AR right, you
need to solve all the problems of VR, then make the headset transparent, make
the entire system portable, and give it the ability to understand the world
around the user.

Pokemon GO is a cited example of the success of AR, but literally all the AR
does is render your Pokemon over the camera feed, using the gyro to keep it
mostly in the same orientation. It does nothing to make it feel like it's
actually in the world. It moves as your perspective moves, and its perceived
scale changes wildly. That doesn't even deserve to be called AR.

Most players also seem to turn the AR off, too, so it seems weird to attribute
success to the concept. It's a gimmick that makes for cool concept videos like
the one pictured in the article, but it's not nearly as interesting in
reality.

~~~
Raphael
It still places the content in geographical locations, requiring you to
physically travel. It's a form of augmented reality.

~~~
pls2halp
I think this is the key. Ingress was a successful AR game, and the geolocation
was the only AR, no shoddy camera overlay. I think you can draw a parallel to
traditional video games, in that games with a general understanding of maps,
and not much small-scale definition(MUDs, Civilisation, even 8-bit platforms
with no sub-pixel movement) tended to achieve a greater level of achieved
complexity by glossing over small details, in the same way that
Ingress/Pokemon Go only placed the locations in a general geographic area.

~~~
ajsalminen
If this is enough then Google Maps is the most successful application of AR
ever.

------
michaelbuckbee
Three things:

1\. The experience itself is there and "real" in a way it hasn't been before.
The issues seem to be those of the hardware being too big, expensive and
wired. All things that are rapidly being improved on in general computing and
crucially not just niche VR (for example the awesome display advances driven
by mobile phones are pulled into VR headsets).

2\. We're definitely still in the "figuring things out" on the software side.
An absolutely fascinating video is this walkthrough of all the UX attempts
that a developer tried for getting guns to work and feel good in VR.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYrkXK3V2ik&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYrkXK3V2ik&feature=youtu.be)

And everything with VR is this way - there's a half dozen different movement
methods with different quirks that people are trying, there's tons of
optimization and framerate and interactions attempts. Heck even the
controllers are seeing a rapid evolution (stick like the HTC Vive -> Oculus
Touch -> Knuckle Controllers).

------
Animats
I've been saying for several years that VR was the next 3D TV. I got a lot of
hate messages for that. One "thought leader" threatened to ban me from his
blog. I wasn't wrong.

I've tried most of the VR headsets from Jaron Lanier's original rig to the HTC
Vibe. Over that range, the tracking is far better, the resolution is somewhat
better, the headset clunkyness is slightly better, and there's still no killer
app. It's great for FPS games. Rollercoaster sims are fun once or twice. There
are virtual worlds; Second Life and High Fidelity support VR headsets. But
virtual worlds never caught on, even though today they could run in a browser.
Then what?

Augmented reality has potential, but the alignment with the real world has to
be very good, it has to work in the real world, not rooms prepped for it, and
it has to cost a lot less. Those are technical problems that can be solved.
Then you could play Pokemon Go, so there's a killer app ready to roll. Whether
the borghead thing will fly socially remains to be seen. Remember the
glasshole problem.

~~~
danielbln
Here comes the "I told you so" crowd. The main difference to 3D TV is that 3D
TV barely added anything of value to the customer. VR actually does offer a
lot of value, but is bogged down by its current technical limitations.

> But virtual worlds never caught on

Maybe in its odd-ball Second Life version, but WoW and Minecraft would like a
word with that statement.

~~~
aaron-lebo
_VR actually does offer a lot of value, but is bogged down by its current
technical limitations._

Isn't adoption by consumers a measure of value? Maybe it's not actually that
valuable for most people.

~~~
danielbln
I would say that value is also a function of price and ease-of-use, both of
which VR currently sucks at. Still, put a VR headset onto someone and have
them compare it to 3D TV, I guarantee that everyone will say that VR is way
more impressive, immersive etc. Does that mean that they'll buy it? No,
because it's pricey, bulky and cumbersome, but the core value proposition is
there and it is bigger than just "here look, fixed angle stereoscopy".

------
gfodor
I mean, none of the existing devices for VR were ever expected to be massive
consumer successes. The Android standalone HMDs coming out Q4 this year are
going to be the first VR devices I'd personally consider as possibly being
appealing to the mass market.

My personal criteria for a device one could consider a referendum on VR if it
fails in the market:

\- It needs to be at a price point akin to a tablet computer

\- It needs to be able to run for more than an hour without overheating

\- It needs full 6dof head tracking and ideally 6dof controller tracking with
motion to photon latency comparable to vive/rift

\- It needs to be comfortable to wear for an hour for most people

\- It needs to deliver a graphical experience on par with something like a PS2
or PS3

\- It needs to be portable and wireless so it can be passed around and shown
off to others easily

\- Most importantly, it needs to be simple to set up and use. Ie, no external
computer, no wires, no mounting of sensors on walls, no need to plug or unplug
devices before/after use, etc.

~~~
slimsag
Personally I do not think "simple to set up and use" is the most important
part there: it's the price.

I would love to play around with VR, but I'm not going to shell out $600+ for
such a device when I don't know how much software it'll have in the future.

At the time of writing this comment, I found out that the Oculus is $400,
which is quite a bit better (I thought it was $600-$900 still). But I still
don't know what future game/app support looks like for it. My gut says it is
in a downward trend, so I won't be buying into it until I see them being more
popular among e.g. Youtubers etc.

~~~
kalleboo
I might even be convinced to shell out $600 for it, but to me the price is
actually $600 + a high-end gaming PC, since I like most people these days just
have a laptop with mediocre graphics. PlayStation VR looks interesting from
that point of view but I haven't really heard good things about it.

~~~
PeterisP
Again, that is going to solve itself with no action needed from the VR
industry - yesterday's high-end gaming PC is today's budget machine, so within
a few years the basic PCs and consoles that everyone has will have the power
to run decent VR headsets.

------
hnnsj
It's pretty sad to me that there's more excitement for Snapchat filters than
for VR. Also, I'm getting absolutely fed up with the term "social". People are
attention junkies, that's what it is. It's not "social". They're hooked on
likes and instant gratification.

~~~
wingerlang
I don't use Snapchat or VR and even I am more interested in the filters. They
are funny and the friction to try it out is literally zero. The tech itself is
cool as well.

~~~
addicted
Why are Snapchat filters more complicated than what say Photo Booth on the Mac
did a decade ago?

~~~
wingerlang
Aren't they? I didn't have a mac a decade ago, and I never really used photo
booth since I got one anyway.

But I think snapchat has face-altering features as in 3D modifications while
photo booth only changed the image itself or maybe identified "head is at x,y"
at most.

Snapchat can modify your head, make interactive animations and all that jazz.
Do note that I never really used snapchat, but these are my impressions from
the few times someone pointed it at me.

------
bananicorn
I think VR might need something akin to the arcade halls of early video games
to get people interested - a place where people can try the tech, but as a
much more well-rounded experience, if someone went ahead and created something
people actually wanted to try, but maybe couldn't afford, I think there'd be a
market for this. Just not yet in the personal consumer market. Not yet.

~~~
iterator5
We've got a VR arcade in Ballard. It made me realize I definitely couldn't own
one at home due to space limitations, but I like heading to the arcade every
now and then. They have padded booths and booze.

~~~
bananicorn
That's pretty cool actually - I wonder how well the booze pairs with the VR
though.

------
sulam
I spent 5 years building a company in this space in the 90's, and eventually
gave up. I know people still in the space, true believers of a sort I could
not emulate (having people working for you focuses the mind on actually making
money pretty well, at least for me). I stayed out of this cycle because
honestly it doesn't look to me like anything significant has changed. Yes, the
technology is better, but fundamentally the problem is not the technology,
it's the applications and the fact that a significant portion of consumers
only spend time in front of a powerful computer at work (and many don't even
do that anymore).

One more generation of hardware might get us there, if we can somehow keep
Moore's law going.

~~~
toast0
I suspect VR may go away again (although it's lasted longer than i thought it
would). When it comes back for the third round, it's more likely to stick.
Enough people have been exposed to it this round, that I think there may be
compelling content when it comes back. And ten years better hardware would
help a lot.

------
RandomInteger4
After injuring the muscles in my back and shoulders, the only thing I've
wanted VR for wasn't even the VR itself, but just an HMD for computing while
laying down. It's hard to imagine how difficult it is just to sit or stand at
a desk till you injure the muscles that keep everything upright.

The next step ideally would be a keyboard that comes with special gloves, or a
pair of finger tip RFIDs or blutooths, one for each hand, that can be detected
by some sensor on the keyboard, which can be used to calculate finger position
in relation to the keyboard and display a virtual version of that on the
bottom of the screen. These couple of peripherals shouldn't be too expensive
to implement and bring to market I imagine.

Touch typing is great and all, and I don't really look at the keyboard while
typing directly, but for some odd reason, just seeing my hands barely in the
bottom of my vision box makes all the difference in my ability to type
accurately. I turn the lights off and I can't type for shit. Maybe it has to
do with re-orienting my hands to the keyboard. As I type this I notice every
once in a while after pausing that I briefly look down at the keyboard and
then back up.

Anyways, that was a small tangent, but VR should really focus on certain
accessibility aspects going forward.

~~~
mncharity
I too found that I needed to see the keys. But while there are glove startups,
and Leap Motion hand tracking can be usable, it's much easier to just see the
keyboard.

I use camera-passthrough AR on a Vive, with a ducktaped-on camera. The Vive's
own camera is too low resolution (it's both fisheye, and bandwidth limited to
6?? x 4?? pixels). Other people have mounted a camera above the keyboard, and
inserted only the keyboard image into their otherwise VR environment.

Another option is to get an AR HMD. There's Hololens. And a "like Google
Cardboard, but for AR" kickstarter? I've not been following the area.

I've heard, but not tried, that one can make some use of seeing down past your
nose on the Rift.

So I've not found keyboard use a problem. But the low angular resolution has
been.

I get something like 40 lines of readable text without having to move my head.
The Rift/Vive panels are low-resolution per eye, and are PenTile (so it's
really even less), and you're only able to use the center third or half.
That's not much realestate. But, if you're ok with that, you can do RDP...
there are youtube videos. I've heard people who commonly work in small
terminal windows can be happy.

The new Windows VR HMDs (available now as developer versions) are said to be
higher resolution, with perhaps poorer optics, but I've not tried them yet.

AR HMD's have narrower fields of view, and thus higher angular resolution. So
Hololens et al might be an alternative, but I've not tried that.

Depending on your constraints, another option might a projector - projecting
on a ceiling, wall, or suspended screen.

------
dawnerd
Everyone is focused on at home gaming, but the real market for VR is in
attractions - mainly theme parks. Six Flags has been able to take really old
and new rides and turn them into completely different experiences with
essentially just a cell phone.

You also have a LOT of haunts popping up that are VR escape rooms. Universal
Orlando used it in one of their upcharge experiences during Halloween Horror
Nights last year.

There are also some fitness programs starting out that use vr as a way to help
motivate people who would normally not want to work out.

So yes, at home vr never really took off. I don't think anyone honestly
believed it would at the current price point/computer requirements.

~~~
flukus
> Everyone is focused on at home gaming, but the real market for VR is in
> attractions - mainly theme parks.

That's a tiny market that doesn't come close to justifying the current levels
of investment though. When billions of dollars are being injected then you
need mass market adoption, either home or business.

~~~
dawnerd
Don't underestimate how large of a market the amusement industry is.

> United States: Nearly 30,000 attractions (theme and amusement parks,
> attractions, water parks, family entertainment centers, zoos, aquariums,
> science centers, museums, and resorts) produced a total nationwide economic
> impact of $219 billion in 2011.

(The figures there are a couple years outdated. Last few years have seen
record numbers.)

[http://www.iaapa.org/resources/by-park-type/amusement-
parks-...](http://www.iaapa.org/resources/by-park-type/amusement-parks-and-
attractions/industry-statistics)

The video game industry is barely half that:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/15/digital-games-market-to-
see-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/15/digital-games-market-to-see-sales-
worth-100-billion-this-year-research.html)

If investors want to keep blowing money trying to force tech into the home, so
be it.

Ninja edit: Not trying to say you're wrong by any means though. The amount of
money being thrown at putting VR into the home is insane and in my opinion
just outright stupid. Way better to spend that same money in an industry
that's already accepting of the same tech.

------
foxfired
VR is very nice, when it's in the booth, and they already set it up, and they
have a working game already, and there is only one person a head of me in
line, and I can only experience it for a couple minutes because someone else
is behind me waiting.

Try to play a vr game at home with two other people and one device.

~~~
Yen
When I was a kid, sometimes friends would hang out at someone's house, and one
person would play a single-player video game, and the others would watch,
comment, offer advice, and generally hang out. Even though it was a single-
player experience, with eyes glued on screen, it was "social".

More recently, I saw a group of friends set up, with couches outside the
tracking area, and watch each other taking turns at Job Simulator, Accounting
VR, or Space Pirate trainer. They just had fun watching, socializing, and
taking their turn. Panopticon and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes also offer
interesting, asymmetric gameplay.

~~~
retromario
This is exactly the sort of 'social' experience we are trying to achieve with
our game ([http://lateforworkgame.com](http://lateforworkgame.com)). The VR
player controls a giant gorilla and faces off against up to four local friends
controlling tanks and planes.

I think asymmetric VR games are going to be a big niche within the space. If
you like these types of games, there's a big list of them here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/67f9sv/list_of_asymme...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/67f9sv/list_of_asymmetrical_local_party_vr_games_vivepc/)

------
mdekkers
A badly written, badly argued, and boringly long article that boils down to "I
don't like VR, I lack the imagination to come up with any use-case besides
(western) consumer entertainment, so it is useless and therefore dead."

No mention of Hololens, which is unfortunate - and shows how poorly researched
this verbal diarrhea actually is.

~~~
tigershark
Hololens has nothing to do with VR. It is AR.

------
LyndsySimon
I own a GearVR, and have played with a Vive, Oculus, and PS4 VR. Of those, the
only real immersive experience I've had was playing Minecraft on the GearVR.
Yes, the resolution is low, but Minecraft is pretty low-resolution to begin
with.

The key seems to be the lack of wires and freedom of movement. I have a
SteelSeries bluetooth controller, and I sat in a swivel chair to play.

I agree with the article on the whole - there is no compelling use case for VR
as it exists today, or as it will exist in the near future. Higher resolution
will make some uses better (e.g. porn), but it's still going to be very
limited-use.

I can't wait to get my hands on a HoloLens. I think AR is going to be a killer
tech, though I don't think it will really hit "mainstream" until direct
retinal projection or a similar technology is widely available. It's still not
socially acceptable to wear an HMD in public.

------
tanilama
Always not a fan of VR. The biggest issue here: Why do I need them. The media
and some evangelists are selling VR like it is THE new interface for
everything and anything, but they cannot really even convince people with
their own demo out of the scope of some basic gaming and prototyping.

The whole headset too big and uncomfortable point is true, but it comes next
at failing to sell the technology to the mess with a legit reason. Yes it is
cooler and more immersive, but does this advantage outweigh that much that I
should ditch my smartphone and embrace the hype? I am afraid this would come
to AI as well, while the media is fear-mongering over human being taken over
by terminators-like robots, people out there might just not feel there is a
need of democratization of AI at all.

------
Stratoscope
> _Millions of Americans donned a wacky-looking headset to get a glimpse of a
> different reality this week. No, not a virtual reality headset — these
> people were looking up at the sky through protective goggles to witness a
> total eclipse of the sun which cut a shadowy swathe across middle America._

Oh my.

I'm sure you know the old saying: when you read a news report about something
you happen to be an expert in, you'll likely find that they got it very wrong.
And then you'll wonder what else they get wrong.

I'm an eclipse veteran, and I certainly hope millions of people did _not_ wear
protective goggles to witness the total eclipse. Because they wouldn't have
seen a thing.

You need eye protection for any _partial_ eclipse, including the partial
phases before and after totality. But not _during totality_. The solar corona
is only about as bright as a full moon, and "eclipse glasses" would block it
out completely.

Water under the bridge now, at least until the next total eclipse! But when a
writer leads off a news piece with something so far from the mark, why should
I believe anything they write?

Maybe I'm being overly judgmental. After all, the eclipse comment was supposed
to be just a clever lead-in for the article. But it was so wrong I just didn't
have the patience to read the rest of the piece.

~~~
et1337
You discredited the article because it said people used protective glasses to
watch the eclipse?

I'm not an "eclipse veteran", I don't know anything about it, but my feed was
nothing but eclipse glasses for three whole days. I would say people wore
glasses.

~~~
Stratoscope
Touché. ;-)

Yes, I did dismiss the article after that first paragraph, and as I mentioned
probably unfairly on my part.

Sorry, it was just a real peeve of mine in the weeks leading up to this
eclipse to see so much misinformation spread by the news media. It was the
same thing that happened in the 1979 eclipse that I got to see in all its
glory.

It was really sad to see so many people denied that experience because of
unjustified fear, when it's possible to view a total eclipse in complete
safety as I did. And the same thing happened again this year.

This astronomer's experience in 1979 was all too typical:

[http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/35055369/i-was-robbed-of-my-
ecli...](http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/35055369/i-was-robbed-of-my-eclipse-
experience-dont-let-that-happen-to-you)

OK, enough of my eclipse gripes. Just explaining why this put me off from the
rest of the article.

By way of contrast, if that opening paragraph had mentioned that all the
people who used eclipse glasses during totality missed the whole thing because
of misinformation and fear, now _that_ would have caught my attention and led
me to believe that the author might have some good insights in other areas
too.

Y'all can get back to VR now... :-)

~~~
mncharity
I've wondered why this isn't a market niche. Some news stories are easily
anticipated. People die, so papers write obits ahead of time. Water mains
break, and TV news... starts from scratch, showing boring pictures of water
while making inane comments. Why isn't it a thing, that say film students, go
out and interview water main people, and create fun graphics, and then when a
main inevitably breaks, offer media outlets "you can be inane and boring and
wrong, or pay us $$ for this content package"?

------
make3
the fact that acceleration = instant nausea makes VR pretty much doomed imho
unless there is some magic anti-nausea injection being developed that would
come in the mail with the thing. Not saying that games can't be built that
don't give nausea, but severely limiting acceleration (including turning)
really constrains the design space. Only being able to teleport or stay in
place or at constant speed is really poor

~~~
AgentME
I think a lot of people (consumers and developers) are still stuck in the idea
of games requiring a large space of movement. Some games on the Vive like Out
of Ammo, Fantastic Contraption, and Xortex (the arcade game in The Lab) are
good examples of new gameplay styles that really benefit from the Vive's
roomscale VR and aren't hampered by its limitations.

------
avaer
I'm really liking the HN discussion, but this article has the smell of PR
submarines. No investigation or new info, just waxing poetic whether the suit
is back or dead.

Is there any party that would benefit if people believed they should wait five
years for VR?

EDIT: In case it's not clear, I'm talking about [1]

[1]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

~~~
Yen
My suspicion is that it's just the author's opinion, and because negativity
sells. But I could be wrong.

If it is a submarine piece, well, the author does seem particularly sold on
the idea of AR vs. VR. Brings up several emotional negatives of VR that AR
would be the savior for. The author specifically mentions Pokemon Go, and
Snapchat.

------
falcolas
For years I have been quite negative about VR, the negativity driven by
attempting to use current generation VR for applications that it doesn't fit
well. However, I have finally come to the conclusion that the current VR
setups are an amazingly good fit for two uses:

\- Space/Driving/Flying Sims

\- Emulating a room

The first is fairly obvious - you're sitting in a chair, looking outwards. You
have the visual context of your cockpit to keep you from getting nauseous, and
the immersion is out of this world.

The last is where things get pretty exciting to me: It's the next evolution of
the home theater. You can emulate any theater, any screen size, and include
proper sound processing to give a spatial sense to the audio. The
possibilities here are pretty damned close to endless.

There are other great uses for emulating rooms - such as for architects giving
virtual home tours, or giving 3d artists a more natural medium to work with.

Yeah, it might be a long hard slog to global adoption, but it can only go up
from here.

------
madaxe_again
_I had to abandon Minecraft on a 2D screen after getting motion sickness from
just a faux 3D-perspective_

Does he get motion sickness watching F1 on TV?!

I'm inclined to take this article with a big pinch of salt, as regardless of
how many truths it touches, there's an undercurrent of hatred. Also seems to
pretty much disregard the vive.

------
Daseinen
I'm building a business in the VR space -- a VR real estate aggregator that's
beginning as a VR centered brokerage in NYC. We recently had our beta launch,
but I've been working on it, off and on, since late 2015. So, obviously, I
think VR has something special to offer. What VR does is incredible, and
incredibly valuable. But it has a very limited scope.

I've been bearish about VR since the beginning. Even when it's approaching
perfection, it's too socially isolating. Lots of things are as socially
isolating, but few FEEL so overtly isolating. Moreover, we're accustomed to
viewing things from a narrative distance -- a sort of 3rd person impersonal
viewpoint. VR is intransigently stuck in 1st person. That's great for certain
kinds of video games, and can be great for video once software allows for
truly interactive video experiences. But it's still a deeply limited
perspective. Think of all the forms of entertainment you've ever used. Now
eliminate all those that aren't 1st person. That's what's left for VR.

AR will end up covering everything. We love computers, information, virtual
socialization, but we also want to feel like we're engaging in those things as
an extension of the world we live in on a day to day basis. AR allows an
increasingly rich interpenetration of the virtual and the real. It's going to
take over completely.

But I'm confident that VR will always have a place. It's like a motorcycle to
AR's car. For example, VR is unquestionably the future of the home search.
Being able to tour through many homes, walk neighborhoods, check out the local
bars and restaurants, all without having to travel. That's invaluable. AR just
won't cut it for these purposes. And VR will eventually be used extensively
for 1st person gaming, a relatively small range of focused media, some art,
training, and probably for home-movies (think of going back, 20 years later,
to be in the room during your kid's 5th birthday!).

So I remove all the magical talk. Then look at the functionality, and I think
you'll see that VR's value is tremendous, within a limited domain.

------
dcw303
Slightly OT but since posting at this time gets the eyeballs of a few Tokyo
folk, I'll ask this: has anyone been to this VR amusement centre in Shinjuku
yet?

[https://vrzone-pic.com/en/](https://vrzone-pic.com/en/)

~~~
stuzenz
Not Shinjuku, but a few months ago I was in Odaiba and had plans to book in
for this place on short notice - sadly it was all booked out.
[https://project-ican.com/en/vr-zone/](https://project-ican.com/en/vr-zone/)

Thirdhand, but my friends have told me it is really worth it. Odaiba is known
as a popular dating spot - so it isn't hard to believe that they regularly get
fully booked out for something new like that.

------
corysama
Welcome to this VR cycle's Trough of Disillusionment. I'm looking forward to
the coming Slope of Enlightenment.

VR is not going to immediately obsolete your smartphone, computer monitor, TV
and car. But, it is a wonderful new option for a great many things. It's not
ready for daily use by hundreds of millions of people today. But, it is
getting better pretty fast. Give it time (and a lot more investment). When it
is ready, I expect to see a lot of people immersed in new worlds with new
interfaces and new opportunities reporting back "Well, yeah I use a VR
interface at work. It's OK, I guess. I wish they'd fix this one feature..."

------
darksim905
A lot of the complaints I see in the comments center around weight of the
headset & resolution. Regarding weight wouldn't it make more sense to have an
overhead track installed where you live discrete, that takes the stress off
the helmet?

[http://techblog.steelseries.com/images/ikeahaxx/6.jpg](http://techblog.steelseries.com/images/ikeahaxx/6.jpg)

This person seems to have it mostly correct except the wires still touch their
back. It would make sense to me to have nothing touching you so you don't feel
encumbered.

------
exodust
Within days of buying an Oculus DK2 back in 2014 and trying a ton of
applications, I knew the tech was years away from where it needed to be, so I
sold the rift on ebay.

After the novelty wears off, you're left with this _thing_ strapped to your
head, and it's not comfortable. It's not ergonomic, it's awkward, and a
blindfold to actual reality.

No doubt the headsets are improved from DK2, but they would need to be a LOT
better before I bother trying again. 5 years is wishful thinking. Try 10 to 20
or more for the kind of VR that is like wearing regular sunglasses.

------
allenleein
HTC is also exploring options that could range from separating its virtual-
reality business to a full sale of the company.

Smartphone Maker HTC Explores Strategic Options:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/smartphon...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/smartphone-
maker-htc-is-said-to-explore-strategic-options)

------
Lio
> Sony’s device is slicker, but underpowered and incapable of even delivering
> PS4 level graphics let alone surpassing them.

Hmm, I've got Resident Evil on my bog standard PS4 and PSVR; it plays its
fine.

It's a AAA game and seems to contradict the above assertion.

It could be better but that's true for all games on all systems.

------
emptyfile
Not sure how you write a VR article without ever mentioning non-gaming
applications. Gaming itself is a niche market.

And for AR, mentioning Pokemon GO and Google Glass multiple times without
mentioning HoloLens is plain bizzare.

------
mgc99
I read a novel published about 20 years ago (1999), that "predicted" how VR
would take over the world. It starts with the VR headsets of today that you
wear over your face with poor graphics and that don't seem very realistic.
Then came better ones with eye tracking which replaced keyboards and mouse
with eye tracking. Then electrodes which would directly interface with our
brains to replace our sense of hearing and vision. Then wireless electrodes so
you dont have to wear a helmet but are in VR/AR the moment you step into a
room with a computer. Then slowly a Matrix like world where people are plugged
into VR from their birth and have no idea there is a physical world or
something beyond VR. Pretty interesting.

------
tbcktu
VR is absolutely perfect for sim racing and I hope it doesn't go away. Even if
it just becomes another niche device that sim racers spend way too much money
on.

------
brandonhsiao
I like how it takes them six paragraphs to say "VR is underperforming." I
really need to learn how to speedread...

------
realworldview
VR: still rubbish. Not rocket science.

------
mcbruiser3
I have to say, this article comes off as pretty biased. Gauging the future of
VR by comparing it to social / mobile gaming adoption is a false comparison
and just makes the author look dumb.

First of all, the author mainly writes about mobile and social games, so she
obviously has no interest in VR and has probably never even tried it.
Unfortunately for those on the fence about VR, she's painted an unfair and
bleak picture. That's unfortunate for them because they may miss out on
something quite fun and interesting.

I was a VR skeptic right up until two weeks ago when I tried a friend's DK3
and have since purchased a CV1 during the summer sale event. I was not a gamer
beforehand, but the immersion of VR has sucked me in. That fact that you have
to move to play is what makes it fun.

------
timavr
Maybe AI is dead too. It needs to get to the point where I have AI assistant
which can feed me with the spoon and solve my relationships problems while
doing it.

