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I think this article makes very good points, it's very similar to something I've thought about VR vs AR and the internet analogy - which is that something that

I think this article makes very good points, it's very similar to something I've thought about VR vs AR and the internet analogy - which is that something that made (and still makes) the internet very approachable for indie hackers and startups is how simple the UI and UX are (or can be). As a single person, with the right set of skills and enough care and attention, you can build a product on the web that looks and feels just as good, better even, than the big players. You're at no major disadvantage. The same feels at least partially true for AR. It seems like AR UI is likely, at least in the near term, going to look like fairly simple overlay of images, boxes and text over physical objects. Not too different from a web page, basically. In fact I can even imagine that you could build such a UI with a markup language not dissimilar to HTML. You could even use CSS mostly as-is to style the components. Anyone who's capable of building a web page is going to be able to get going with this and build something useful really quickly. VR feels obviously different in this regard. Simplistic UI is not going to look good or have good UX in VR, just as it doesn't in a 3D game. A solo engineer is not going to be able to compete with big company teams of artists, designers, etc to craft good looking VR spaces with comparable levels of quality. I think the best we can hope for in VR is some kind of generic VR world toolkit, that's open source, within which one can overlay one's own UI using pre-designed models etc in a mostly cut and paste fashion (so kind of like how the browser gives you the DOM, and you just define what you want to display with simple markup instead of having to literally render pixel by pixel) - then it might be a bit more possible for solo engineers or small teams to actually build good looking and useful products. But still, it's a stretch to imagine that being competitive with custom designs that bigger teams and companies are capable of producing. I guess we'll see. I like to be optimistic because usually with software and open source people find ways to surprise you with ingenuity and make things possible that you didn't even think of, and come up with usecases and products that you didn't think of in advance.

gizmo686 7y ago
I think it depends on what VR ends up looking like. If it turns out to be just 3d immersive worlds, it will probably be dominated by the big players for the foreseeable future. We will probably have building blocks that individuals can use to make something acceptable in that catagory, but the fundamantal value proposistion of that seems to me to be the visual wow factor, which is already dominated by the big players and really does require a large investment of customized art. On the other hand, I also see a use-case of "VR" as more of a light canceling monitor, to complement current noise canceling headphones. Think about being able to sit down on an airplane and pop on your VR goggles and a pair of noise cancelling headphones to watch an old-fashion 2D movie. Or to have a full giant-display that can replace your 3 monitor desk. These types of VR as a monitor use-cases shouldn't be more difficult then their traditional counterparts (although the tooling and ecosystem isn't as good on VR yet), so there should be room for solo developers to compete.
- davnicwil 7y ago
  That's a good example of a VR usecase I hadn't considered, but to be fair this kind of thing perhaps shouldn't be considered VR at all from the app developer's perspective. By which I mean, the developer wouldn't ever have to know or care that a user would use their regular 2D app in this VR setting, it should just work like any other monitor / web browser etc. I was more talking about applications that are 'native' VR, for want of a better term. Apps that couldn't exist or wouldn't make sense in other formats than VR.
  - gizmo686 7y ago
    I certainly agree that this usecase isn't really "virtual reality" in concept, but it is "VR" as far as platforms go, which I think is what is relevent here. I think that, at least in the near future, developers would need to be aware of the VR platform when working on such apps. Ignore toolchain and issues, developers would still need to design a VR first UI. There is probably a lot of room to innovate around how to take advantage of head gestures; how to take advantage of virtual vs absolute coordinate systems [0]. And, the more mundane fact that VR developers have far more screen real estate to work with then desktop developers, who typically assume that the entire monitor is visible at the same time. [0] I'm not sure what the correct names for this are. Bassically, the fact that there can be an image that is always in the same spot in your vision as you move your head, as well as images that appear to be "static" and therefore whose location in your vision changes as you turn your head.
    - davnicwil 7y ago
      You're right, of course. In the same way that with mobile it's not just making the content fit into the screen but making sure it plays nice UX-wise with a touch interface. You have convinced me - this monitors-in-VR thing could be an exciting area for development, and is definitely open to individuals and startups with little capital. Good shout.
rjf72 7y ago
What you're describing for VR already exists in numerous different platforms, many of which are "free" (e.g. - free until 6-7 figures of profit). My preferred would be the Unreal Engine which is also completely open source on top of having hoards of free content available to get started from nothing. The same is also true of Unity. In my opinion getting a 'sound' VR project up and running is far more straight forward learning process (if not process) than getting e.g. a 'sound' single page application up and running.
- davnicwil 7y ago
  > In my opinion getting a 'sound' VR project up and running is far more straight forward learning process (if not process) than getting e.g. a 'sound' single page application up and running. I'm very glad to hear that, as someone with no experience of game / 3D graphics development I had honestly assumed it would be more difficult and/or involve many more people to build something basic. Really cool to hear that's not the case these days.

gizmo686 7y ago

I think it depends on what VR ends up looking like. If it turns out to be just 3d immersive worlds, it will probably be dominated by the big players for the foreseeable future. We will probably have building blocks that individuals can use to make something acceptable in that catagory, but the fundamantal value proposistion of that seems to me to be the visual wow factor, which is already dominated by the big players and really does require a large investment of customized art. On the other hand, I also see a use-case of "VR" as more of a light canceling monitor, to complement current noise canceling headphones. Think about being able to sit down on an airplane and pop on your VR goggles and a pair of noise cancelling headphones to watch an old-fashion 2D movie. Or to have a full giant-display that can replace your 3 monitor desk. These types of VR as a monitor use-cases shouldn't be more difficult then their traditional counterparts (although the tooling and ecosystem isn't as good on VR yet), so there should be room for solo developers to compete.

davnicwil 7y ago
That's a good example of a VR usecase I hadn't considered, but to be fair this kind of thing perhaps shouldn't be considered VR at all from the app developer's perspective. By which I mean, the developer wouldn't ever have to know or care that a user would use their regular 2D app in this VR setting, it should just work like any other monitor / web browser etc. I was more talking about applications that are 'native' VR, for want of a better term. Apps that couldn't exist or wouldn't make sense in other formats than VR.
- gizmo686 7y ago
  I certainly agree that this usecase isn't really "virtual reality" in concept, but it is "VR" as far as platforms go, which I think is what is relevent here. I think that, at least in the near future, developers would need to be aware of the VR platform when working on such apps. Ignore toolchain and issues, developers would still need to design a VR first UI. There is probably a lot of room to innovate around how to take advantage of head gestures; how to take advantage of virtual vs absolute coordinate systems [0]. And, the more mundane fact that VR developers have far more screen real estate to work with then desktop developers, who typically assume that the entire monitor is visible at the same time. [0] I'm not sure what the correct names for this are. Bassically, the fact that there can be an image that is always in the same spot in your vision as you move your head, as well as images that appear to be "static" and therefore whose location in your vision changes as you turn your head.
  - davnicwil 7y ago
    You're right, of course. In the same way that with mobile it's not just making the content fit into the screen but making sure it plays nice UX-wise with a touch interface. You have convinced me - this monitors-in-VR thing could be an exciting area for development, and is definitely open to individuals and startups with little capital. Good shout.

rjf72 7y ago

What you're describing for VR already exists in numerous different platforms, many of which are "free" (e.g. - free until 6-7 figures of profit). My preferred would be the Unreal Engine which is also completely open source on top of having hoards of free content available to get started from nothing. The same is also true of Unity. In my opinion getting a 'sound' VR project up and running is far more straight forward learning process (if not process) than getting e.g. a 'sound' single page application up and running.

davnicwil 7y ago
> In my opinion getting a 'sound' VR project up and running is far more straight forward learning process (if not process) than getting e.g. a 'sound' single page application up and running. I'm very glad to hear that, as someone with no experience of game / 3D graphics development I had honestly assumed it would be more difficult and/or involve many more people to build something basic. Really cool to hear that's not the case these days.