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VR seems to have an insurmountable motion sickness problem. I tried the Quest with a dozen friends and half of them felt sick enough within minutes to never try

VR seems to have an insurmountable motion sickness problem. I tried the Quest with a dozen friends and half of them felt sick enough within minutes to never try it again.

_jaej 4y ago
You just need to start with the basics, take a break the moment you feel ill, and keep going. Within a few weeks most people are entirely used to it.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  That may be, but you're going to need an extremely compelling use case for people to go through with that.
- puranjay 4y ago
  But…why? Why would you persist with something that makes you sick even when the enthusiasts admit they use it once or twice a month?
  - andybak 4y ago
    Not sure who you’re speaking to but I use it several times a week.
  - DonHopkins 4y ago
    Puking doesn't stop some people from drinking!
    - krrrh 4y ago
      Unlike drinking, using a VR set won’t help you get laid.
  - pharke 4y ago
    Sorry, those people aren't enthusiasts. There are people that spend 8 hours a day in VR. Hell, there are a lot of people that fall asleep in VR.
    - Deritiod 4y ago
      Huh? I only know one person who used bis VR set extensively like for 2-3 month and then falled back to play egoshooters. 'a lot of people' != Not market relevant
      - pharke 4y ago
        That's cool but try jumping in to Pavlov or VRChat on a Friday night and then tell me there isn't a thriving community. It's not mainstream but it definitely isn't dead.
        Deritiod 4y ago
        And how many active people can you find there in comparison to all apple iphone owner?
        pharke 4y ago
        You're trying to compare Apples to Oranges here, VR is still pretty early on in its development. Like Motorola DynaTAC[0] early. The iPhone of VR is probably still 2 decades out. We're still figuring out our UI metaphors and trying to reach a critical mass of competent users where it's possible to just "call" someone up in VR without first asking if they have a headset, asking if they know how X app works, figure out where to meet etc. It's like trying to get someone to email you in the early 90s. Trying to compare this nascent technology to the iPhone is really disingenuous, there are probably a billion iPhone users worldwide. I'd struggle to count on one hand branded devices that have the same number of users. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC
    - puranjay 4y ago
      Man, if it really was that amazing, you'd see it in the numbers. Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014. Its still a rounding error in terms of revenue in their annual reports. Personally, I just felt it was gimmicky - try it once or twice for curiosity's sake, then forget about it. Nothing on VR enthusiasts - I'm sure you have reasons to love it. But as a piece of tech, unless there are drastic improvements, I just don't see it gaining mass adoption.
imglorp 4y ago
This might be especially true if they're prioritizing aesthetic concerns over performance: per OP, they axed the compute-heavy base station. Carmak talks about increasing frame rate and increasing depth calculation as mitigators against sickness. BTW I feel sick merely playing Quake 1 at arm's length from a small monitor. https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-end-vr-motion-sickness-for-good https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-en... https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motion-sickness-5181084 https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motio...
_flux 4y ago
May I ask, what kind of experiences did they try on the device? It seems well-accepted hypothesis that having artificial locomotion in VR can induce motion sickness (cases where the VR body moves but your own body doesn't), whereas with "sit", "stay still" or "walk around IRL" (and even "teleport around") scenarios are highly unlikely to cause it. There is a still a lot of experiences left in the latter scenario, though it does exclude driving games (in particular if you don't see the cockpit) or first-person shooting-and-moving-around games. And then the worst thing to do with newcomers is to put them down for a ride in a VR rollercoaster.
pharke 4y ago
It's only insurmountable if you never try it again. There is a learning curve where some people feal quite sick at first and then slowly get used to it. You can mitigate this with "training wheels" settings in the experience like blinkers, cages, hiding the VR body, and alternate locomotion schemes like teleporting. Some people even swear by just setting up a fan to blow air on them while they're using VR.
zmmmmm 4y ago
I'm a bit sceptical of this comment. I've probably shown mine to ~30 people and not a single one had motion sickness with any of the "safe" experiences, assuming the device is adjusted properly (IPD). If you stick them on a roller-coaster or a super laggy app as their first experience then yeah that's going to be a problem. But for safe experiences - I think there is a percentage of people who experience disorientation or nausea but it's certainly not half (maybe 10% or so).
- redisman 4y ago
  I got nauseous after a few hours of Half Life Alyx. Until then my test was going smoothly. I would imagine most games where you can move freely would be fairly bad for me. I even took a Dramamine to try to play some more which worked but wasn’t something I’d want to do often
  - zmmmmm 4y ago
    Half-life Alyx is pretty bad actually. Even I as a veteran get a tiny bit queasy with that occasionally - definitely wouldn't class it as one of my "safe" experiences. But even then "after a few hours" is pretty long really. Most people wouldn't stay in VR that long anyway. Native Quest games are the best as they are entirely on-device with no latency anywhere.

VR seems to have an insurmountable motion sickness problem. I tried the Quest with a dozen friends and half of them felt sick enough within minutes to never try it again.

_jaej 4y ago

You just need to start with the basics, take a break the moment you feel ill, and keep going. Within a few weeks most people are entirely used to it.

kalleboo 4y ago
That may be, but you're going to need an extremely compelling use case for people to go through with that.
puranjay 4y ago
But…why? Why would you persist with something that makes you sick even when the enthusiasts admit they use it once or twice a month?
- andybak 4y ago
  Not sure who you’re speaking to but I use it several times a week.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  Puking doesn't stop some people from drinking!
  - krrrh 4y ago
    Unlike drinking, using a VR set won’t help you get laid.
- pharke 4y ago
  Sorry, those people aren't enthusiasts. There are people that spend 8 hours a day in VR. Hell, there are a lot of people that fall asleep in VR.
  - Deritiod 4y ago
    Huh? I only know one person who used bis VR set extensively like for 2-3 month and then falled back to play egoshooters. 'a lot of people' != Not market relevant
    - pharke 4y ago
      That's cool but try jumping in to Pavlov or VRChat on a Friday night and then tell me there isn't a thriving community. It's not mainstream but it definitely isn't dead.
      - Deritiod 4y ago
        And how many active people can you find there in comparison to all apple iphone owner?
        pharke 4y ago
        You're trying to compare Apples to Oranges here, VR is still pretty early on in its development. Like Motorola DynaTAC[0] early. The iPhone of VR is probably still 2 decades out. We're still figuring out our UI metaphors and trying to reach a critical mass of competent users where it's possible to just "call" someone up in VR without first asking if they have a headset, asking if they know how X app works, figure out where to meet etc. It's like trying to get someone to email you in the early 90s. Trying to compare this nascent technology to the iPhone is really disingenuous, there are probably a billion iPhone users worldwide. I'd struggle to count on one hand branded devices that have the same number of users. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC
  - puranjay 4y ago
    Man, if it really was that amazing, you'd see it in the numbers. Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014. Its still a rounding error in terms of revenue in their annual reports. Personally, I just felt it was gimmicky - try it once or twice for curiosity's sake, then forget about it. Nothing on VR enthusiasts - I'm sure you have reasons to love it. But as a piece of tech, unless there are drastic improvements, I just don't see it gaining mass adoption.

imglorp 4y ago

This might be especially true if they're prioritizing aesthetic concerns over performance: per OP, they axed the compute-heavy base station. Carmak talks about increasing frame rate and increasing depth calculation as mitigators against sickness. BTW I feel sick merely playing Quake 1 at arm's length from a small monitor. https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-end-vr-motion-sickness-for-good https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-en... https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motion-sickness-5181084 https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motio...

_flux 4y ago

May I ask, what kind of experiences did they try on the device? It seems well-accepted hypothesis that having artificial locomotion in VR can induce motion sickness (cases where the VR body moves but your own body doesn't), whereas with "sit", "stay still" or "walk around IRL" (and even "teleport around") scenarios are highly unlikely to cause it. There is a still a lot of experiences left in the latter scenario, though it does exclude driving games (in particular if you don't see the cockpit) or first-person shooting-and-moving-around games. And then the worst thing to do with newcomers is to put them down for a ride in a VR rollercoaster.

pharke 4y ago

It's only insurmountable if you never try it again. There is a learning curve where some people feal quite sick at first and then slowly get used to it. You can mitigate this with "training wheels" settings in the experience like blinkers, cages, hiding the VR body, and alternate locomotion schemes like teleporting. Some people even swear by just setting up a fan to blow air on them while they're using VR.

zmmmmm 4y ago

I'm a bit sceptical of this comment. I've probably shown mine to ~30 people and not a single one had motion sickness with any of the "safe" experiences, assuming the device is adjusted properly (IPD). If you stick them on a roller-coaster or a super laggy app as their first experience then yeah that's going to be a problem. But for safe experiences - I think there is a percentage of people who experience disorientation or nausea but it's certainly not half (maybe 10% or so).

redisman 4y ago
I got nauseous after a few hours of Half Life Alyx. Until then my test was going smoothly. I would imagine most games where you can move freely would be fairly bad for me. I even took a Dramamine to try to play some more which worked but wasn’t something I’d want to do often
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  Half-life Alyx is pretty bad actually. Even I as a veteran get a tiny bit queasy with that occasionally - definitely wouldn't class it as one of my "safe" experiences. But even then "after a few hours" is pretty long really. Most people wouldn't stay in VR that long anyway. Native Quest games are the best as they are entirely on-device with no latency anywhere.