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Yes, both personally and for work. It's pretty underwhelming, doesn't really enable any experiences that you can't already have with a flat monitor, as shown by

Yes, both personally and for work. It's pretty underwhelming, doesn't really enable any experiences that you can't already have with a flat monitor, as shown by the basically dead VR software market. I think there's maybe some future for VR, maybe, but it's clearly currently on life support and I don't think Facebook has really shown anything interesting to turn that around.

andybak 5y ago
> doesn't really enable any experiences that you can't already have with a flat monitor Apart from presence, spatial awareness, 360 degree stereoscopy with 6DOF motion etc etc. Gravity Sketch, Tilt Brush, Beat Saber can't exist on a flat monitor. Most VR games would be radically different on a flat monitor (if they worked at all) > as shown by the basically dead VR software market. Either your info is slightly out of date or you've using a rather strict definition of "dead": https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-quest-store-revenue-stats-data-apps-earning-1-million-meta-gdc/ https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-quest-store-revenue-stats-da...
- coldpie 5y ago
  The best applications you can point to are Gravity Sketch (2017), Tilt Brush (2016), and Beat Saber (2019). The OpenXR API standard hasn't seen an update since 2019. Valve has left the platform. HTC has left. Sony has left (yes, I know about the PSVR2, but it's clearly not a focus for the company). Microsoft, Nintendo, and Epic never even bothered trying to adopt the platform. There is only one company seriously invested in this ecosystem in 2022. This is not a healthy platform. It's on life support.
  - andybak 5y ago
    Goalpost moving. I picked apps that countered a specific point you made - which had nothing to do with recency. For the record I don't think VR is ever going to see sales like the smartphone market and I don't think it needs to. And I think the "metaverse" is a silly hype bubble. But I do think it's found a healthy niche. Most trends are upwards and income for devs is healthier than it's ever been. Sticking the knife in like you're trying to do just seems to be a little unneccesary - and isn't born out by the numbers I've seen.
    - coldpie 5y ago
      > For the record I don't think VR is ever going to see sales like the smartphone market and I don't think it needs to. And I think the "metaverse" is a silly hype bubble. But I do think it's found a healthy niche. I was responding to a comment hyping VR and saying, "companies ignoring Metaverse now will regret it later on." I find much less to disagree with in your statement, here. I think a lot of people in this thread, and a certain very high-up sociopath at Facebook, see a much larger future for VR than this little niche. I think VR's rather large fall from its 2016-2019 height is good evidence against that.
      - andybak 5y ago
        But I'm disagreeing with what you actually wrote which has nothing to do with who you were replying to. Please avoid hyperbole. There's no need to overstate a sound argument.
        coldpie 5y ago
        Okay, fair enough. I'll restate my original post, with a couple modifications which you correctly called me on. VR doesn't really enable new experiences that people actually want in significant amounts. Tilt Brush has a couple dozen daily users[1] (remarkably consistent; demo stations, I wonder?). Beat Saber seems to be the one VR exclusive game that truly has been a lasting success, holding steady around 1000 to 2000 daily users on Steam and surely more on PlayStation. Maybe that's a clue that there's something there (I think it indicates more the popularity of rhythm games a la Guitar Hero, and a paucity of other VR titles worth playing). But I think if there really was something compelling about VR, we would have seen more than one successful game in the five years since VR has been on the market. Big names like Valve and Sony would have increased their VR resources, not mostly abandoned it. There just isn't good evidence that those couple things VR is genuinely capable of are something people actually want, and it's not like the big names didn't make an effort. My point about the VR software market being dead is that there hasn't been a VR application worth talking about since 2020, with Half-Life Alyx. Everything they're putting out now[2] just looks like more of the bland flat-screen-with-Wii-controls experiences we've been seeing for five years. The gaming sites I follow don't really even bother doing VR reviews anymore. There just isn't significant work going on in this ecosystem, outside of Facebook. [1] https://steamcharts.com/app/327140#All https://steamcharts.com/app/327140#All [2] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/04/ghostbusters-vr-boneworks-sequel-cities-vr-headline-meta-quest-game-showcase/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/04/ghostbusters-vr-bonew...

andybak 5y ago

> doesn't really enable any experiences that you can't already have with a flat monitor Apart from presence, spatial awareness, 360 degree stereoscopy with 6DOF motion etc etc. Gravity Sketch, Tilt Brush, Beat Saber can't exist on a flat monitor. Most VR games would be radically different on a flat monitor (if they worked at all) > as shown by the basically dead VR software market. Either your info is slightly out of date or you've using a rather strict definition of "dead": https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-quest-store-revenue-stats-data-apps-earning-1-million-meta-gdc/ https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-quest-store-revenue-stats-da...

coldpie 5y ago
The best applications you can point to are Gravity Sketch (2017), Tilt Brush (2016), and Beat Saber (2019). The OpenXR API standard hasn't seen an update since 2019. Valve has left the platform. HTC has left. Sony has left (yes, I know about the PSVR2, but it's clearly not a focus for the company). Microsoft, Nintendo, and Epic never even bothered trying to adopt the platform. There is only one company seriously invested in this ecosystem in 2022. This is not a healthy platform. It's on life support.
- andybak 5y ago
  Goalpost moving. I picked apps that countered a specific point you made - which had nothing to do with recency. For the record I don't think VR is ever going to see sales like the smartphone market and I don't think it needs to. And I think the "metaverse" is a silly hype bubble. But I do think it's found a healthy niche. Most trends are upwards and income for devs is healthier than it's ever been. Sticking the knife in like you're trying to do just seems to be a little unneccesary - and isn't born out by the numbers I've seen.
  - coldpie 5y ago
    > For the record I don't think VR is ever going to see sales like the smartphone market and I don't think it needs to. And I think the "metaverse" is a silly hype bubble. But I do think it's found a healthy niche. I was responding to a comment hyping VR and saying, "companies ignoring Metaverse now will regret it later on." I find much less to disagree with in your statement, here. I think a lot of people in this thread, and a certain very high-up sociopath at Facebook, see a much larger future for VR than this little niche. I think VR's rather large fall from its 2016-2019 height is good evidence against that.
    - andybak 5y ago
      But I'm disagreeing with what you actually wrote which has nothing to do with who you were replying to. Please avoid hyperbole. There's no need to overstate a sound argument.
      - coldpie 5y ago
        Okay, fair enough. I'll restate my original post, with a couple modifications which you correctly called me on. VR doesn't really enable new experiences that people actually want in significant amounts. Tilt Brush has a couple dozen daily users[1] (remarkably consistent; demo stations, I wonder?). Beat Saber seems to be the one VR exclusive game that truly has been a lasting success, holding steady around 1000 to 2000 daily users on Steam and surely more on PlayStation. Maybe that's a clue that there's something there (I think it indicates more the popularity of rhythm games a la Guitar Hero, and a paucity of other VR titles worth playing). But I think if there really was something compelling about VR, we would have seen more than one successful game in the five years since VR has been on the market. Big names like Valve and Sony would have increased their VR resources, not mostly abandoned it. There just isn't good evidence that those couple things VR is genuinely capable of are something people actually want, and it's not like the big names didn't make an effort. My point about the VR software market being dead is that there hasn't been a VR application worth talking about since 2020, with Half-Life Alyx. Everything they're putting out now[2] just looks like more of the bland flat-screen-with-Wii-controls experiences we've been seeing for five years. The gaming sites I follow don't really even bother doing VR reviews anymore. There just isn't significant work going on in this ecosystem, outside of Facebook. [1] https://steamcharts.com/app/327140#All https://steamcharts.com/app/327140#All [2] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/04/ghostbusters-vr-boneworks-sequel-cities-vr-headline-meta-quest-game-showcase/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/04/ghostbusters-vr-bonew...