Interesting ideas...the author writes that you don't "need VR" but what about new and interesting types of sensory engagement this enables?
This would include the additional depth perception cues, the additional sensory feel and wayfinding affordances of a world, as opposed to the intuitive feel...
To me that's a pretty substantial difference that might even allow one to skip typical rest/withdrawal cycles and remain in-universe longer, while still getting the needed rest. So the medium itself may in fact be more persistent than say a text & keyboard-driven world, in effect creating a more persistent universe which would probably then feel more real, and more engaging.
I wrote that it doesn't need VR, not that it wouldn't benefit from it. My 2 cents is that currently and for the foreseeable future VR is not a big asset, I think it's clunky and ridden with fundamental problems we don't know how to solve even in the realms of academic research, much less in products we can actually make and sell for reasonable prices and so on. That said, it's orthogonal to the point I really wanted to talk about, that's why I didn't elaborate further :)
This would include the additional depth perception cues, the additional sensory feel and wayfinding affordances of a world, as opposed to the intuitive feel...
To me that's a pretty substantial difference that might even allow one to skip typical rest/withdrawal cycles and remain in-universe longer, while still getting the needed rest. So the medium itself may in fact be more persistent than say a text & keyboard-driven world, in effect creating a more persistent universe which would probably then feel more real, and more engaging.