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> you can get a pretty visceral and convincing facsimile of a high performance car. What? Higher resolution displays, better rendering, better input devices, a

> you can get a pretty visceral and convincing facsimile of a high performance car. What? Higher resolution displays, better rendering, better input devices, and headsets with 360 degree fields of view help the immersion - but a huge part of driving (and other extreme sports you might want to emulate as an E-sport) is the raw acceleration, which you just can't duplicate with a video game (other sports have a physical exertion component, which is also hard to simulate). You don't feel like you're on a sitting on a rocket. You imagine you feel like you're sitting on a rocket.

munchbunny 9y ago
I'm okay with just imagining feeling like I'm sitting on a rocket if it means I also only have to imagine paying for the rocket. My point is that VR hits a "close enough" point at a much lower price, and flat screens didn't really do it. This dynamic doesn't exist with, as an example, skiing, where actually skiing isn't much more expensive than virtually skiing. Maybe one day having a car for the track will be economically feasible, but for now I'm pretty happy with primarily accessing the sport through VR at a fraction of the price. I've actually looked at the cheap end of actually racing cars, but it's just not feasible because of hidden costs until a lot of things change about my lifestyle. Until then, a VR headset is far more doable. I suspect a lot of people are in a similar boat, so having something pretty cool to actively participate in is a big improvement over just watching.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  > My point is that VR hits a "close enough" point at a much lower price, and flat screens didn't really do it. This dynamic doesn't exist with, as an example, skiing, where actually skiing isn't much more expensive than virtually skiing. That's a good point. I'm not sure that skiing is a great example - it can be an extremely pricey hobby if you don't live near a good hill - but I agree there's a broad distribution of the experience achievable against the cost (I imagine an XKCD-style graph in the style of [1] or [2], with "How much it costs" on the X axis and "How awesome it is" on the Y axis, with labels for "VR auto racing", "Actual auto racing", "simulated bowling", "actual bowling", "Kerbal Space Program", "SpaceX", "Surfing", "Simulated surfing", etc. [1]: https://xkcd.com/1904/ https://xkcd.com/1904/ [2]: https://xkcd.com/1880/ https://xkcd.com/1880/

munchbunny 9y ago

I'm okay with just imagining feeling like I'm sitting on a rocket if it means I also only have to imagine paying for the rocket. My point is that VR hits a "close enough" point at a much lower price, and flat screens didn't really do it. This dynamic doesn't exist with, as an example, skiing, where actually skiing isn't much more expensive than virtually skiing. Maybe one day having a car for the track will be economically feasible, but for now I'm pretty happy with primarily accessing the sport through VR at a fraction of the price. I've actually looked at the cheap end of actually racing cars, but it's just not feasible because of hidden costs until a lot of things change about my lifestyle. Until then, a VR headset is far more doable. I suspect a lot of people are in a similar boat, so having something pretty cool to actively participate in is a big improvement over just watching.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
> My point is that VR hits a "close enough" point at a much lower price, and flat screens didn't really do it. This dynamic doesn't exist with, as an example, skiing, where actually skiing isn't much more expensive than virtually skiing. That's a good point. I'm not sure that skiing is a great example - it can be an extremely pricey hobby if you don't live near a good hill - but I agree there's a broad distribution of the experience achievable against the cost (I imagine an XKCD-style graph in the style of [1] or [2], with "How much it costs" on the X axis and "How awesome it is" on the Y axis, with labels for "VR auto racing", "Actual auto racing", "simulated bowling", "actual bowling", "Kerbal Space Program", "SpaceX", "Surfing", "Simulated surfing", etc. [1]: https://xkcd.com/1904/ https://xkcd.com/1904/ [2]: https://xkcd.com/1880/ https://xkcd.com/1880/