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Honestly no one really cares about VR that’s the problem. I feel like this is definitely the elephant in the room everybody is ignoring. Almost nobody gives a

Honestly no one really cares about VR that’s the problem. I feel like this is definitely the elephant in the room everybody is ignoring. Almost nobody gives a hoot about VR! I'm a software engineer with a lot of (surprise, surprise) nerdy/geeky/whatever friends and interest in VR is close to zero. A few friends vouched for various games like Half-Life:Alyx and Beat Saber, but nobody was claiming it was a life altering experience and nobody is clamoring to live more of their lives in VR. VR definitely makes a great game controller for some kinds of games and there are even a few killer apps, but I mean like... Wii Sports was a "killer app" for motion controls and that doesn't mean it was a technology that shaped our lives in the long run. And needless to say non-technical folks have less than zero interest in strapping a computer to their head and face. God bless John Carmack, but it feels like he and FB are arguing about execution issues on a product nobody cared about in the first place.

cudgy 4y ago
> Wii Sports was a "killer app" for motion controls and that doesn't mean it was a technology that shaped our lives in the long run. Perhaps it could have been different if companies didn’t just focus on using these technologies as leverage to increase their profits at “unicorn” levels and for unimaginative reasons. Carmack should have known better than to expect a huge, boring company like Facebook to be a good place for a maverick to make a major breakthrough.
nvarsj 4y ago
I don't know about your friends, but playing Alyx opened my eyes to the level of immersion VR can achieve. It's a kind of gameplay that can't be repeated with 2d screens. I really do think it could be revolutionary, based on playing that game alone. If you can get ahold of a headset and a powerful gaming PC - I recommend giving it a try. The problems right now are very fundamental. The quest 2 out of the box is supremely uncomfortable. Casual users will put it on and not want to use it due to VR nausea and the discomfort of the headset after wearing it for 20 minutes. The hardware is not powerful enough to create an experience like Alyx - all the headset games just have basic polygons and colors. Resolution is still poor, FOV is poor. We're still in the infancy of immersion/comfort/usability. I played Alyx on the Quest 1 which I actually think had better immersion due to the OLED screens. IMO the trick is going to be whether Meta can pull off a usable, immersive device in the next 5 years without their revenues completely tanking. The problems to overcome are really hard and still at basic research level which takes years to develop. The other issue is the killer game or app that gets people into VR en-masse. I guess my point is I think writing VR off completely is a mistake - like someone saying what is the point of a cell phone in the 1980s when they were giant bricks and cost a fortune. VR will get good enough at some point that it's like putting on a pair of glasses and stepping into another world without any friction. It's just a question of how long until we get there and who will bring it to us.
- turtleyacht 4y ago
  Disney World's Animal Kingdom has an Avatar-themed "ride" where you are linked to a banshee rider. And they make you wear these silly glasses, with thick, bulbous lenses. So I'm there, mounted on a plastic motorbike, staring down in disbelief at the smaller-than-iPad display where the tachymeter and gauges would be. In front of me, in front of everyone to my left and right, is just plastic nothing. Plastic. And I think aloud, "Okay, are we gonna look down at this little screen the whole time?" The guy next to grins too: Where's the screen? Then it starts. Holy crap. My entire field of vision is Pandora--up, down, left, right, everywhere. And we are flying on banshees! I feel a moment of weightlessness as we careen down a canyon at the speed of gravity. I want to hoot and holler. It's pure joy, and my heart sings. That's virtual reality, to me.
  - heather45879 4y ago
    Absolutely—it’s also imagineering! Disney has done that for almost a century. But they make money because that’s their bread-and-butter. You’re buying an amazing experience at Disney, VR or otherwise. Meta’s bread-and-butter is selling peoples data, irrespective of whether teens are committing suicide on their platforms.
- heather45879 4y ago
  You’re definitely right the technology has tons of potential. Lots of applications in, for instance, content-creation space as well. The problem Meta ran into is that it’s difficult/impossible to make money on it. It’s a niche market at best, and it’s much more difficult to prove the value when compared to something like Facebook. Facebook is easy to use and provides social value to everyone on the planet. And I say that not using it myself but I live in a small town and all business here rely on Facebook; the municipalities use it to communicate; elderly use it… it’s accessible. I’m sure the wall Carmack ran into was the shareholders. To shareholders it’s more often than not about profits. To Carmack it’s probably about the product he envisions, not the profits. But you can’t have both sustainably when folks can live without VR. I would jump on the bandwagon if my VR headset was mine: like a computer I can install whatever I want there—not in a walled garden owned by Evil Corp. The proper VR solution needs to be open source hardware and software. By the people, for the people. Reduce the barrier to entry and people will use it. One more thing: those virtual avatars are impossible to take seriously. If I’m in a virtual boardroom filled with those, I might as well be playing Minecraft.
shimfish 4y ago
Carmack explicitly addressed this in his keynote last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo at around 43 minutes in.

cudgy 4y ago

> Wii Sports was a "killer app" for motion controls and that doesn't mean it was a technology that shaped our lives in the long run. Perhaps it could have been different if companies didn’t just focus on using these technologies as leverage to increase their profits at “unicorn” levels and for unimaginative reasons. Carmack should have known better than to expect a huge, boring company like Facebook to be a good place for a maverick to make a major breakthrough.

nvarsj 4y ago

I don't know about your friends, but playing Alyx opened my eyes to the level of immersion VR can achieve. It's a kind of gameplay that can't be repeated with 2d screens. I really do think it could be revolutionary, based on playing that game alone. If you can get ahold of a headset and a powerful gaming PC - I recommend giving it a try. The problems right now are very fundamental. The quest 2 out of the box is supremely uncomfortable. Casual users will put it on and not want to use it due to VR nausea and the discomfort of the headset after wearing it for 20 minutes. The hardware is not powerful enough to create an experience like Alyx - all the headset games just have basic polygons and colors. Resolution is still poor, FOV is poor. We're still in the infancy of immersion/comfort/usability. I played Alyx on the Quest 1 which I actually think had better immersion due to the OLED screens. IMO the trick is going to be whether Meta can pull off a usable, immersive device in the next 5 years without their revenues completely tanking. The problems to overcome are really hard and still at basic research level which takes years to develop. The other issue is the killer game or app that gets people into VR en-masse. I guess my point is I think writing VR off completely is a mistake - like someone saying what is the point of a cell phone in the 1980s when they were giant bricks and cost a fortune. VR will get good enough at some point that it's like putting on a pair of glasses and stepping into another world without any friction. It's just a question of how long until we get there and who will bring it to us.

turtleyacht 4y ago
Disney World's Animal Kingdom has an Avatar-themed "ride" where you are linked to a banshee rider. And they make you wear these silly glasses, with thick, bulbous lenses. So I'm there, mounted on a plastic motorbike, staring down in disbelief at the smaller-than-iPad display where the tachymeter and gauges would be. In front of me, in front of everyone to my left and right, is just plastic nothing. Plastic. And I think aloud, "Okay, are we gonna look down at this little screen the whole time?" The guy next to grins too: Where's the screen? Then it starts. Holy crap. My entire field of vision is Pandora--up, down, left, right, everywhere. And we are flying on banshees! I feel a moment of weightlessness as we careen down a canyon at the speed of gravity. I want to hoot and holler. It's pure joy, and my heart sings. That's virtual reality, to me.
- heather45879 4y ago
  Absolutely—it’s also imagineering! Disney has done that for almost a century. But they make money because that’s their bread-and-butter. You’re buying an amazing experience at Disney, VR or otherwise. Meta’s bread-and-butter is selling peoples data, irrespective of whether teens are committing suicide on their platforms.
heather45879 4y ago
You’re definitely right the technology has tons of potential. Lots of applications in, for instance, content-creation space as well. The problem Meta ran into is that it’s difficult/impossible to make money on it. It’s a niche market at best, and it’s much more difficult to prove the value when compared to something like Facebook. Facebook is easy to use and provides social value to everyone on the planet. And I say that not using it myself but I live in a small town and all business here rely on Facebook; the municipalities use it to communicate; elderly use it… it’s accessible. I’m sure the wall Carmack ran into was the shareholders. To shareholders it’s more often than not about profits. To Carmack it’s probably about the product he envisions, not the profits. But you can’t have both sustainably when folks can live without VR. I would jump on the bandwagon if my VR headset was mine: like a computer I can install whatever I want there—not in a walled garden owned by Evil Corp. The proper VR solution needs to be open source hardware and software. By the people, for the people. Reduce the barrier to entry and people will use it. One more thing: those virtual avatars are impossible to take seriously. If I’m in a virtual boardroom filled with those, I might as well be playing Minecraft.

shimfish 4y ago

Carmack explicitly addressed this in his keynote last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo at around 43 minutes in.