12 ms·

I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaver

I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. What people want is an escape from reality. "Just like" Ready Player One or anything from a wide choice of science fiction novels. The problem is that these systems require a fundamental disconnect from reality. Not only do we not have the input technology, the closest thing we have is a monkey playing pong, but the obstruction of physical world signals is basically non-existent. If it were, then we wouldn't have people in chronic pain. Finally, we already know how this experiment ends. This is basically SecondLife 2.0 (ThirdLife?). We'll have 0.1% stay because they invested so much (money, time, identity) into the world that the sunk cost fallacy kicks in.

cma 4y ago
> but the obstruction of physical world signals is basically non-existent. If it were, then we wouldn't have people in chronic pain. The key one, the vestibular system, is overridable non-invasively: Galvanic vestibular stimulation https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulation https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulati... Vision and sound covered too, though vision can get better with more res and variable focus. Sound can get better with 3d scanning for custom HRTF's matched to the user's ear shape and body (sound reflecting off shoulders etc.).
- hervature 4y ago
  I mean, yea, earplugs and a blindfold work too, but how do I feel like I'm walking through a pasture with wet dirt between my toes if you cannot simulate the sensory system? That's what people imagine. A home-bound person wants to feel what it is like to skydive, not watch a POV video.
  - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
    What if the future generations never gets to experience those feelings? They would not know what they are missing.
    - sigspec 4y ago
      Now that's a bleak thought
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      I have met kids, who have never seen a forest in real live and who tried to swipe away real life objects, so yeah, we might get there.
      - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
        I have seen young people dismiss studies that say that being out in the forest will be beneficial for mental health by saying that for them it's the opposite. Forests gives them high anxiety and being in urban areas will calm them. This included parks.
- modeless 4y ago
  Proprioception cannot be fooled. No matter what you do to your vestibular system it's not going to realistically feel like you're in a fighter jet or a race car. It can't even make walking on an omnidirectional treadmill feel like real walking. Galvanic vestibular stimulation is not really a good idea, independent of the fact that it literally sends high voltage electricity through your skull.
  - cma 4y ago
    Walking on a VR treadmill is actually the opposite example of what you are claiming I believe. It exercises your proprioception without giving you the right vestibular response (except on huge military 12x12ft treadmills and stuff that can accommodate decent amounts of real acceleration from locomotion, I'm assuming you mean consumer "slipmill" type setups where you fully run in place).
    - modeless 4y ago
      Not really. Your proprioception is accurately sensing the same as your vestibular system, which is that you are moving your limbs but you don't have forward momentum because you're not moving. Which is totally fine and indistinguishable from normal in the steady state of walking in one direction at a constant speed as on a regular treadmill, but the illusion falls apart the second you try to turn or change speed, as you'll want to do on a VR treadmill. And it doesn't matter how big the treadmill is, the problem will occur whenever the treadmill changes direction or speed. If you apply galvanic vestibular stimulation to try to "correct" at least the vestibular sense, you will lose your balance and fall over, because you can't fool physics. Even if you're prevented from falling by a harness it won't feel right. The disagreement between your vestibular and proprioception senses will be uncomfortable.
haunter 4y ago
>What people want is an escape from reality. I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. Like it's on mobile? That's all? Peak WoW _was_ a social network something Zuck is dreaming about (and that's while you also have to pay a monthly sub). I've read around and some people say that the difference people can _create content_ in Metaverse but... sandbox MMOs are also a thing for a long time (or just look at Minecraft/Roblox/Fortnite). Or the whole point just to attach your persona to your real name + Meta can monetize everything? But that still just sounds like some F2P korean MMO or a japanese gacha game. Maybe there is more to that but to me at least 1, the Metaverse sounds more like a "vision" than an actual product (yet VR Chat already exist too if the main selling point is AR/VR) 2, if it's an actual product then it's an MMO reimagined for non-gaming "normal" people
- shakes_mcjunkie 4y ago
  WoW but more boring and with more microtransactions.
  - radicaldreamer 4y ago
    Final Fantasy XIV is at least fun
    - bozhark 4y ago
      Maybe if it had auto-path
    - haunter 4y ago
      Imagine the mandatory MSQ in the Metaverse
      - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
        Cut substantially all of the Seventh Astral Era line and maybe we can talk.
echelon 4y ago
You need to check out "Metaverse Twitter". You're missing out on a lot of fascinating developments. The field is in its "90's internet phase" right now. The tech is still immature, but is rapidly growing in capability and ambition. Just like most people in the 90's had no idea how "internet" would be used, I think our ability to conceive of VR/AR/XR/metaverse is similarly myopic. I would give it a 10-15 year timeline before it fully eats the world. But now is the time to build.
- jeffwask 4y ago
  I 100% believe in VR/XR/AR just not one driven by Meta. Edit: To be clear, IMO most disruptive technologies are not driven by established mega-corporations.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Gmail? iPhone? Facebook Mobile? (And earlier, Bell/IBM/Oracle)
    - jeffwask 4y ago
      Trying to make my point or just confused. Not really sure how to read that.
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Not really sure those were that disruptive. They are more prefecting an existing thing, which is not really what people mean by disruptive.
    - chirau 4y ago
      what is Facebook Mobile and how was it disruptive?
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        There was a time when Facebook existed primarily on the PC web. Everyone thought Zuckerberg was dumb for pivoting substantial company resources into mobile (initially HTML5, then pivot to native app). https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/when-zuckerberg-said-facebook-must-focus-on-mobile-nothing-happened.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/when-zuckerberg-said-faceboo...
lapetitejort 4y ago
VR Chat is Second Life 2.0. Horizon Worlds is shaping up to be VR Chat 0.8. People Make Games interviewed people in VR Chat [0] and gave great examples of how behind (intentionally in some cases, in terms of not having lower halves of avatars) Horizon Worlds appears to be. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ
- Miraste 4y ago
  I've used both and Horizon Worlds' lack of development is mind-boggling. It's positioned as the crown jewel of the Metaverse, the core from which Facebook will build the rest of the concept, and yet it's so barebones it's like no one is even working on it. VRChat has completely user-made avatars. To support this, they have a robust content moderation system with a fair amount of user control, and bounded performance requirements. Horizon has very limited Mii-like avatars, but with even less customization. This means they don't have to moderate avatars or worry about performance, and also crushes the boundless possibilities of self-expression into a sea of identical corporate art style drones. VRChat also has user-made worlds. So does Horizons. The difference is that Horizons worlds can only be made out of primitives (cube, sphere, triangle, etc.) This makes it easy to enforce performance requirements and also makes the entire metaverse look like a poorly developed PS2 game. It also runs worse than a well-optimized environment mesh, but apparently Facebook doesn't trust their users to figure that out. Second Life actually shipped with this system originally (in 2003) and later abandoned the system because of these and other problems, but learning from the past is apparently not in vogue at Facebook. VRChat has a fairly granular safety system, with configurable boundaries, default permissions, friend settings, etc. Horizons has a half-hearted attempt at this but leans mostly on the ominous promise that Facebook is recording everything you say and do, and if someone reports you an unreachable Facebook admin will review your past actions for content violations. This works about as well as you'd expect. These and other problems are, IMO, all bad decisions, but they're also low effort decisions and that I do not understand. I actually like VR and want Facebook to succeed here (hopefully incentivizing competition), and the department formerly known as Oculus is doing a great job with the requisite hardware. So why, why, given that the entire company has been bet on this, is the flagship Metaverse software of the world's largest social media company lagging behind a random startup making their metaverse in Unity with practically no money?
closedloop129 4y ago
VR only underdelivers when compared to full emergence. You don't need a television when you have a VR headset. I think that Meta's headsets will be the the consoles for the next generation because TV sets are not a given anymore. So a console becomes more expensive because you have to also buy a television.
- clpm4j 4y ago
  I have to say, that based on my family and friends who I occasionally watch TV shows and movies with, I'm the only person who is able to focus on the TV screen without my phone in sight. Everyone else I know is constantly half-listening, half-watching, while simultaneously browsing IG, Zillow, YT, TikTok, etc. I think our very real phone addictions are going to play an adverse role in VR adoption until the VR app space fully replaces everything in the mobile app space (plus the time it will take for people to break their phone habits and replace them with VR habits)... seems like a uphill slog for Meta.
  - daniel_reetz 4y ago
    Powerful insight. And the tech giants own phone addiction - as a product and data source - also slows the progress of all AR and VR efforts.
    - ryandrake 4y ago
      The first killer accessory in the metaverse will be some kind of pass-through phone gateway or phone proxy that people can use as a substitute for their physical phone, to satiate their compulsive need to (ABC) Always Be Checking it. I don't see people accepting strapping on a headset that blocks access to their primary addiction.
  - jitl 4y ago
    > I'm the only person who is able to focus on the TV screen I don't know why you'd want to do so for most TV. I like to idly code at 1/4 speed during average shows. Like if the cousins want to watch Moana for the 34th time, I'm not gonna dedicate my full attention the whole time, but I do want to hang out with everyone else in the family. On the other hand, I've never wanted to pick up a phone while my VR headset is on my head. It's engrossing! But the downside of VR is that it's so isolating. There's no way for me to be half in a head-mounted display. No one can casually look over my shoulder, nor can I causally peek up from my screen when someone says something interesting.
newaccount2021 4y ago
dbbk 4y ago
> What people want is an escape from reality. I don't think this is even broadly true. We just locked everyone in their houses for the pandemic and people hated it. They want to get out and do stuff and see the world. Not sit on a couch with a screen strapped to their face.
- mhewett 4y ago
  Not everyone. Everyone I know loved it.
  - thewebcount 4y ago
    Likewise! In fact, it was the first time my disabled spouse was able to get some family to talk to her since now they were in the same situation. It also opened up a bunch of services for disabled people since now everyone needed delivery and not answering the door for packages was no longer weird.
    - sterlind 4y ago
      yeah, that's real. I'd lost a lot of connection with friends after my mobility deteriorated, and then suddenly I had a mahjong social club every Thursday with old friends! I didn't feel outcast for being shut-in.
  - swayvil 4y ago
    They probably loved it because they didn't have to work. Which is basically just another kind of sitting with a screen strapped to your face. Except less fun. Work, for most people, is maybe a little too hellish.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  > We just locked everyone in their houses for the pandemic and people hated it. Feel like this is not consensus on a tech forum.
  - dbbk 4y ago
hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
I actually think we had those escapes since I-don't-know-when. People don't need to actually see virtual reality to escape from reality. Actually a good book does a good job too.
mikkergp 4y ago
Echoing your thoughts, I used a friends Oculus and it was really awesome and inspiring and had echoes of that tech I fantasize from science fiction novels. But after five minutes it was really like, I can't wait for version 17 of this thing, because it's so close and yet so far.
listless 4y ago
I want VR to be a thing. I want Ready Player One. I want the Star Trek Holodeck. But I also want a time machine. And honestly, that seems almost as likely as the metaverse ever being a "thing". The technology simply doesn't exist and we are so far off that pivoting to it now seems...either wildly optimistic or HBO Silicon Valley level out of touch.
q-big 4y ago
> It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. Just offer VR porn applications, and a lot of people will urge to get a VR headset and a decent computer to support it. For a lot of kinds of media, porn was the killer application.
- kibwen 4y ago
- bink 4y ago
  "Honey, do you want to borrow Uncle Joe's headset and play in the metaverse?" "No thanks, his headset is always sticky"
thelittleone 4y ago
Fair points though I suggest technology is farther along than monkey playing pong. Consider Neuralink for one. I read the book metaman back in the late 90s and even then they had very simple brain to chip interfaces.
k__ 4y ago
I think Meta will underdeliver, yes. But the Metaverse is alive and well, at least if you can detach yourself of that superficial XR vision many people are touting online. Just look at people buing skins for games and using filters and faceapps for their social media photos and videos. I know many friends that are very active on social media, and they don't look like themselves anymore. Sure, this isn't interactive XR content, but it's a whole virtual world that has detatched itself from reality years ago.
earthboundkid 4y ago
Every time I put on a VR helmet, I flash back to being a teenage boy and cringe while I wait for one of my “friends” to punch me in the crotch. I can’t really see VR taking off for most people because middle school bullying aside, it’s very claustrophobia inducing to be unable to see your surroundings.

cma 4y ago

> but the obstruction of physical world signals is basically non-existent. If it were, then we wouldn't have people in chronic pain. The key one, the vestibular system, is overridable non-invasively: Galvanic vestibular stimulation https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulation https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulati... Vision and sound covered too, though vision can get better with more res and variable focus. Sound can get better with 3d scanning for custom HRTF's matched to the user's ear shape and body (sound reflecting off shoulders etc.).

hervature 4y ago
I mean, yea, earplugs and a blindfold work too, but how do I feel like I'm walking through a pasture with wet dirt between my toes if you cannot simulate the sensory system? That's what people imagine. A home-bound person wants to feel what it is like to skydive, not watch a POV video.
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago
  What if the future generations never gets to experience those feelings? They would not know what they are missing.
  - sigspec 4y ago
    Now that's a bleak thought
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    I have met kids, who have never seen a forest in real live and who tried to swipe away real life objects, so yeah, we might get there.
    - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
      I have seen young people dismiss studies that say that being out in the forest will be beneficial for mental health by saying that for them it's the opposite. Forests gives them high anxiety and being in urban areas will calm them. This included parks.
modeless 4y ago
Proprioception cannot be fooled. No matter what you do to your vestibular system it's not going to realistically feel like you're in a fighter jet or a race car. It can't even make walking on an omnidirectional treadmill feel like real walking. Galvanic vestibular stimulation is not really a good idea, independent of the fact that it literally sends high voltage electricity through your skull.
- cma 4y ago
  Walking on a VR treadmill is actually the opposite example of what you are claiming I believe. It exercises your proprioception without giving you the right vestibular response (except on huge military 12x12ft treadmills and stuff that can accommodate decent amounts of real acceleration from locomotion, I'm assuming you mean consumer "slipmill" type setups where you fully run in place).
  - modeless 4y ago
    Not really. Your proprioception is accurately sensing the same as your vestibular system, which is that you are moving your limbs but you don't have forward momentum because you're not moving. Which is totally fine and indistinguishable from normal in the steady state of walking in one direction at a constant speed as on a regular treadmill, but the illusion falls apart the second you try to turn or change speed, as you'll want to do on a VR treadmill. And it doesn't matter how big the treadmill is, the problem will occur whenever the treadmill changes direction or speed. If you apply galvanic vestibular stimulation to try to "correct" at least the vestibular sense, you will lose your balance and fall over, because you can't fool physics. Even if you're prevented from falling by a harness it won't feel right. The disagreement between your vestibular and proprioception senses will be uncomfortable.

haunter 4y ago

>What people want is an escape from reality. I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. Like it's on mobile? That's all? Peak WoW _was_ a social network something Zuck is dreaming about (and that's while you also have to pay a monthly sub). I've read around and some people say that the difference people can _create content_ in Metaverse but... sandbox MMOs are also a thing for a long time (or just look at Minecraft/Roblox/Fortnite). Or the whole point just to attach your persona to your real name + Meta can monetize everything? But that still just sounds like some F2P korean MMO or a japanese gacha game. Maybe there is more to that but to me at least 1, the Metaverse sounds more like a "vision" than an actual product (yet VR Chat already exist too if the main selling point is AR/VR) 2, if it's an actual product then it's an MMO reimagined for non-gaming "normal" people

shakes_mcjunkie 4y ago
WoW but more boring and with more microtransactions.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  Final Fantasy XIV is at least fun
  - bozhark 4y ago
    Maybe if it had auto-path
  - haunter 4y ago
    Imagine the mandatory MSQ in the Metaverse
    - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      Cut substantially all of the Seventh Astral Era line and maybe we can talk.

echelon 4y ago

You need to check out "Metaverse Twitter". You're missing out on a lot of fascinating developments. The field is in its "90's internet phase" right now. The tech is still immature, but is rapidly growing in capability and ambition. Just like most people in the 90's had no idea how "internet" would be used, I think our ability to conceive of VR/AR/XR/metaverse is similarly myopic. I would give it a 10-15 year timeline before it fully eats the world. But now is the time to build.

jeffwask 4y ago
I 100% believe in VR/XR/AR just not one driven by Meta. Edit: To be clear, IMO most disruptive technologies are not driven by established mega-corporations.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Gmail? iPhone? Facebook Mobile? (And earlier, Bell/IBM/Oracle)
  - jeffwask 4y ago
    Trying to make my point or just confused. Not really sure how to read that.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Not really sure those were that disruptive. They are more prefecting an existing thing, which is not really what people mean by disruptive.
  - chirau 4y ago
    what is Facebook Mobile and how was it disruptive?
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      There was a time when Facebook existed primarily on the PC web. Everyone thought Zuckerberg was dumb for pivoting substantial company resources into mobile (initially HTML5, then pivot to native app). https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/when-zuckerberg-said-facebook-must-focus-on-mobile-nothing-happened.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/when-zuckerberg-said-faceboo...

lapetitejort 4y ago

VR Chat is Second Life 2.0. Horizon Worlds is shaping up to be VR Chat 0.8. People Make Games interviewed people in VR Chat [0] and gave great examples of how behind (intentionally in some cases, in terms of not having lower halves of avatars) Horizon Worlds appears to be. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ

Miraste 4y ago
I've used both and Horizon Worlds' lack of development is mind-boggling. It's positioned as the crown jewel of the Metaverse, the core from which Facebook will build the rest of the concept, and yet it's so barebones it's like no one is even working on it. VRChat has completely user-made avatars. To support this, they have a robust content moderation system with a fair amount of user control, and bounded performance requirements. Horizon has very limited Mii-like avatars, but with even less customization. This means they don't have to moderate avatars or worry about performance, and also crushes the boundless possibilities of self-expression into a sea of identical corporate art style drones. VRChat also has user-made worlds. So does Horizons. The difference is that Horizons worlds can only be made out of primitives (cube, sphere, triangle, etc.) This makes it easy to enforce performance requirements and also makes the entire metaverse look like a poorly developed PS2 game. It also runs worse than a well-optimized environment mesh, but apparently Facebook doesn't trust their users to figure that out. Second Life actually shipped with this system originally (in 2003) and later abandoned the system because of these and other problems, but learning from the past is apparently not in vogue at Facebook. VRChat has a fairly granular safety system, with configurable boundaries, default permissions, friend settings, etc. Horizons has a half-hearted attempt at this but leans mostly on the ominous promise that Facebook is recording everything you say and do, and if someone reports you an unreachable Facebook admin will review your past actions for content violations. This works about as well as you'd expect. These and other problems are, IMO, all bad decisions, but they're also low effort decisions and that I do not understand. I actually like VR and want Facebook to succeed here (hopefully incentivizing competition), and the department formerly known as Oculus is doing a great job with the requisite hardware. So why, why, given that the entire company has been bet on this, is the flagship Metaverse software of the world's largest social media company lagging behind a random startup making their metaverse in Unity with practically no money?

closedloop129 4y ago

VR only underdelivers when compared to full emergence. You don't need a television when you have a VR headset. I think that Meta's headsets will be the the consoles for the next generation because TV sets are not a given anymore. So a console becomes more expensive because you have to also buy a television.

clpm4j 4y ago
I have to say, that based on my family and friends who I occasionally watch TV shows and movies with, I'm the only person who is able to focus on the TV screen without my phone in sight. Everyone else I know is constantly half-listening, half-watching, while simultaneously browsing IG, Zillow, YT, TikTok, etc. I think our very real phone addictions are going to play an adverse role in VR adoption until the VR app space fully replaces everything in the mobile app space (plus the time it will take for people to break their phone habits and replace them with VR habits)... seems like a uphill slog for Meta.
- daniel_reetz 4y ago
  Powerful insight. And the tech giants own phone addiction - as a product and data source - also slows the progress of all AR and VR efforts.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    The first killer accessory in the metaverse will be some kind of pass-through phone gateway or phone proxy that people can use as a substitute for their physical phone, to satiate their compulsive need to (ABC) Always Be Checking it. I don't see people accepting strapping on a headset that blocks access to their primary addiction.
- jitl 4y ago
  > I'm the only person who is able to focus on the TV screen I don't know why you'd want to do so for most TV. I like to idly code at 1/4 speed during average shows. Like if the cousins want to watch Moana for the 34th time, I'm not gonna dedicate my full attention the whole time, but I do want to hang out with everyone else in the family. On the other hand, I've never wanted to pick up a phone while my VR headset is on my head. It's engrossing! But the downside of VR is that it's so isolating. There's no way for me to be half in a head-mounted display. No one can casually look over my shoulder, nor can I causally peek up from my screen when someone says something interesting.

newaccount2021 4y ago

dbbk 4y ago

> What people want is an escape from reality. I don't think this is even broadly true. We just locked everyone in their houses for the pandemic and people hated it. They want to get out and do stuff and see the world. Not sit on a couch with a screen strapped to their face.

mhewett 4y ago
Not everyone. Everyone I know loved it.
- thewebcount 4y ago
  Likewise! In fact, it was the first time my disabled spouse was able to get some family to talk to her since now they were in the same situation. It also opened up a bunch of services for disabled people since now everyone needed delivery and not answering the door for packages was no longer weird.
  - sterlind 4y ago
    yeah, that's real. I'd lost a lot of connection with friends after my mobility deteriorated, and then suddenly I had a mahjong social club every Thursday with old friends! I didn't feel outcast for being shut-in.
- swayvil 4y ago
  They probably loved it because they didn't have to work. Which is basically just another kind of sitting with a screen strapped to your face. Except less fun. Work, for most people, is maybe a little too hellish.
colinmhayes 4y ago
> We just locked everyone in their houses for the pandemic and people hated it. Feel like this is not consensus on a tech forum.
- dbbk 4y ago

hnthrowaway0328 4y ago

I actually think we had those escapes since I-don't-know-when. People don't need to actually see virtual reality to escape from reality. Actually a good book does a good job too.

mikkergp 4y ago

Echoing your thoughts, I used a friends Oculus and it was really awesome and inspiring and had echoes of that tech I fantasize from science fiction novels. But after five minutes it was really like, I can't wait for version 17 of this thing, because it's so close and yet so far.

listless 4y ago

I want VR to be a thing. I want Ready Player One. I want the Star Trek Holodeck. But I also want a time machine. And honestly, that seems almost as likely as the metaverse ever being a "thing". The technology simply doesn't exist and we are so far off that pivoting to it now seems...either wildly optimistic or HBO Silicon Valley level out of touch.

q-big 4y ago

> It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. Just offer VR porn applications, and a lot of people will urge to get a VR headset and a decent computer to support it. For a lot of kinds of media, porn was the killer application.

kibwen 4y ago
bink 4y ago
"Honey, do you want to borrow Uncle Joe's headset and play in the metaverse?" "No thanks, his headset is always sticky"

thelittleone 4y ago

Fair points though I suggest technology is farther along than monkey playing pong. Consider Neuralink for one. I read the book metaman back in the late 90s and even then they had very simple brain to chip interfaces.

k__ 4y ago

I think Meta will underdeliver, yes. But the Metaverse is alive and well, at least if you can detach yourself of that superficial XR vision many people are touting online. Just look at people buing skins for games and using filters and faceapps for their social media photos and videos. I know many friends that are very active on social media, and they don't look like themselves anymore. Sure, this isn't interactive XR content, but it's a whole virtual world that has detatched itself from reality years ago.

earthboundkid 4y ago

Every time I put on a VR helmet, I flash back to being a teenage boy and cringe while I wait for one of my “friends” to punch me in the crotch. I can’t really see VR taking off for most people because middle school bullying aside, it’s very claustrophobia inducing to be unable to see your surroundings.