I used to be a casual PC gamer, with a fairly good spec build. Then one day I played some VR games at a friend’s house on PSVR, which blew my mind - not only how much fun I had, but how much fun our non gamer friends had!
After that my wife and me got a second hand Vive for 350, and it’s been amazing. I never play regular games any more, and even she (who never played any games) now enjoys it a lot and plays with me from time to time.
All this is to say that I do think VR is here to stay, it just blows regular gaming out of the water... but it definitely is at its infancy - games look and feel the way PC games did 10 years ago..
The most accurate description that I've heard is that we're at the point where GUIs were in the 80s. The tech was just good enough for it and there were already several products on the market, but designers were still exploring the space and had not agreed on common metaphors yet. Which is exciting to witness, but shows that we're still squarely in the "early-adopter" phase of the curve.
(As for myself, I tried a friend's Oculus Quest extensively two weeks ago. Now I'm sitting at home, drawing up plans in Inkscape for how to rearrange my furniture to accommodate a room-scale VR area.)
VR-devices are good but still not good enough. New generations are much better than last that it completely ruins the experience with older hardware.
I tested VR-headset directed at professional use: VR-2 Pro https://varjo.com/products/vr-2-pro/
Now every VR headset directed at consumers feels like utter crap. PSVR and Vive experience is ruined.
If you are willing to cough up €5995, you get really blown away until something better comes along and there is still long way to go. Field of view is just 87 degrees for example.
The vive is so non casual though. I always felt like it was a big production to clear the space, launch steamvr, often wait for updates. Plus I’m moving around when I’d prefer to be relaxed on the couch.
On the other hand VR is amazing. I’ve since switched to the quest which helps with most of those issues I mentioned.
After that my wife and me got a second hand Vive for 350, and it’s been amazing. I never play regular games any more, and even she (who never played any games) now enjoys it a lot and plays with me from time to time.
All this is to say that I do think VR is here to stay, it just blows regular gaming out of the water... but it definitely is at its infancy - games look and feel the way PC games did 10 years ago..