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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 t

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...
    - bigzyg33k 5y ago
      You’re making an error here with your user estimations - you’re using steam as a way of tracking users, and while the quest 2 is also the most popular headset on steam, most users with a quest do not have a gaming pc, and primarily play games stand-alone
    - andybak 5y ago
      > Tilt Brush has a couple dozen daily users I've got access to the developer console for Open Brush which is merely the open source fork of Tilt Brush. I'm looking at the stats and your estimates are nonsense. Now - we can get silly and quibble about "significant amounts" but I get the feeling you're not arguing in good faith. VR is a mixture of wonder and disappointment, it's both overhyped and at the same time a genuinely a new medium. I'm not especially interested in it's commercial success. It can limp along for another decade as long as there's enough interest to keep it alive - even on life support. I've seen enough genuinely innovative work created to justify my interest so far. It's the most interesting medium to arise in my lifetime (and I'm not especially young). It may never take over the world and that's fine. It just needs to pay it's way and keep it's head above water.

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...
  - bigzyg33k 5y ago
    You’re making an error here with your user estimations - you’re using steam as a way of tracking users, and while the quest 2 is also the most popular headset on steam, most users with a quest do not have a gaming pc, and primarily play games stand-alone
  - andybak 5y ago
    > Tilt Brush has a couple dozen daily users I've got access to the developer console for Open Brush which is merely the open source fork of Tilt Brush. I'm looking at the stats and your estimates are nonsense. Now - we can get silly and quibble about "significant amounts" but I get the feeling you're not arguing in good faith. VR is a mixture of wonder and disappointment, it's both overhyped and at the same time a genuinely a new medium. I'm not especially interested in it's commercial success. It can limp along for another decade as long as there's enough interest to keep it alive - even on life support. I've seen enough genuinely innovative work created to justify my interest so far. It's the most interesting medium to arise in my lifetime (and I'm not especially young). It may never take over the world and that's fine. It just needs to pay it's way and keep it's head above water.