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Nice to see some other people pointing out the positive effects here. As a (room-scale only) VR developer, I've been writing about the upsides of VR and VR gam
by thenomad 10y ago
Nice to see some other people pointing out the positive effects here.
As a (room-scale only) VR developer, I've been writing about the upsides of VR and VR gaming for some time - example, http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/05/three-unexpectedly-good-things.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/05/three-un... . There's a lot of skepticism around this area, particularly the claim that games will actually make people fitter - but you only have to play a few rounds of Holopoint or Space Pirate Simulator to realise it's also true.
(As a side note, I'm increasingly dividing VR into "pseudo-VR" (anything where you can't walk around) and "real VR" (room-scale experiences: the Vive, in short, and some Oculus Touch setups). Harsh, possibly, but it really does feel like a different medium once you can get up and interact with your hands.
To my mind, the only interesting VR experiences are those which engage the whole body. That's something I've been trying very hard to do with Left-Hand Path (http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760 http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760) the VR game I developed - at various points, you have to crouch, dodge, crawl, duck, and draw magical symbols in a variety of ways.
I'm doing that because quite apart from the health benefits, engaging my players in actual movement creates a whole new level of immersion. Proprioception is a thing - the sense of the body's place and movement in space.
Getting tired and even "gassed" also helps immersion. I've been playing the VR boxing sim Thrill Of The Fight recently, and it's remarkable how well it simulates real-life sparring in some ways - including getting gassed, and having to spend a while just keeping your guard up whilst you recover the ability to breathe without wheezing. That's an element of immersion I'm never going to get from a PC game.
I play a lot of Dark Souls, but the phrase "in-game stamina management" means something completely different when it's your stamina you're managing.
- fooey 10y agoOn the flip side, that fact that VR is such a physical exertion is exactly why it will absolutely not have a mass market appeal. There's a reason why the Wii and the Kinect were cute and cool, but both failed to get any real market traction. VR as a fitness device might be a thing, but that's nothing like the market of gaming consoles or pc's.
- thenomad 10y agoI don't know - quite a few people go running or play football (soccer) and both of those activities require physical exercise! Soccer, for example, has 270 million active players. That's quite a few people who don't mind physical exertion.
- fooey 10y agoI don't think it's fair to compare VR to Soccer, it's more equivalent to home treadmills, or something like a bowflex. An expensive niche product that usually just gets left in the corner getting dusty.
- thenomad 10y agoHome treadmills are a billion-dollar market in the US alone. And a VR headset is considerably more interesting, convenient, and flexible than a treadmill.
- vehementi 10y agoAnd you've shown somewhere, I assume, that "that reason" is definitively and primarily that physical exertion doesn't work for people and necessarily prevents mass market appeal?