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A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used V

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR headsets. Related, we cycled through about 5 games and none of graphics were particular realistic or immersive. I didn’t walk a way from the experience thinking wow! And note I’ve had this “wow” experience playing PS4 games on a higher end TV that supports HDR. (2) We had a 1 hour session with the goggles and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay. The headset was also uncomfortable after 30 minutes or so. Playing games while sea sick is about as much fun as it sounds. It’s pretty awful. (3) The arcade was expensive. I paid nearly $100 for 1 hour for 2 people in a MCOL area. One of the reasons for the high cost is the arcade required an employee to help us cycle through games and explain gameplay and controls. It dawned on me after the experience that my son and I would have to buy two headsets, not just one, for any couch coop play. Maybe we’d have to buy two copies of games as well? Gaming is really becoming a social experience, which is why Fortnight is such a big hit because it’s essentially free and cross platform. VR is dead in the water unless they bring to market must-have games (or other apps and Beat Saber is nowhere close to this), solve the sea sickness problem, and somehow bring down the cost so two headsets cost about as much as a current generation console. I think it’s also very premature for Meta to go after the business market. It first needs to convince geeks like me to buy and evangelize about VR. If anything, my experience at the VR arcade convinced me NOT to buy VR goggles. Good luck building out a new market if this is a typical reaction to the state of VR today.

threeseed 4y ago
a) 10 million Quest 2 devices have been sold. There is already a market. b) Business market is already a large adopter of VR devices e.g. for training, warehouses, architecture/car etc demos etc. Meta is big enough to tackle both markets at once. And Quest Pro helps to validate newer technologies that will trickle down into their cheaper models. c) Motion sickness is better on newer devices and from research videos Meta already understands what are the causes of it. It's now largely an engineering question of how to get solutions translated into shipping products.
- nprateem 4y ago
  My employer could send me one. I wouldn't use it. I don't want to be virtually present in meetings. I've left the office and can multitask now (eg do household chores, go for walks). I'm not going back to an office, physical or virtual.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    > My employer could send me one. I wouldn't use it. I would, if it was high quality enough to be comfortable for long term use, and there was decent enough virtual desktop software to have many floating windows of all the software you use.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      would you use it to let your employer monitor your attention, physical behavior and activity? beyond what an audio call provides them with
      - mellosouls 4y ago
        The one (using it to give another option for working) doesn't imply the other (consenting to increased monitoring).
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        already commonplace for employers to track mouse movement and the like for monitoring remote workers, sometimes to have video requirements as well (where video is not just another option to work with colleagues but a policy requirement so that managers/owners can surveil), because that's what they're able to track with the tech within a laptop. give them more sensors and they won't leave it to workers to decide (except to decide to leave those jobs in search of ones that surveil less). workers can organize against these conditions but it's not left to individual consent.
      - mensetmanusman 4y ago
theptip 4y ago
> I think it’s also very premature for Meta to go after the business market. I strongly disagree here. The enterprise market is relatively cost-insensitive, and so it's a great vertical to target. The partnership with Microsoft is strategically very sound; if you can get Teams inside the Quest headset, then you can plausibly replace every lightweight Windows laptop with a Quest Pro (i.e. for road warriors doing spreadsheet/doc/email/collaboration work, not developers). The question is, how far away are they from replacing monitors with VR displays? I suspect this generation is not the one that wins that battle (though Immersed was making this work on Quest 2, so maybe), but it plausibly could be next generation, in which case this is the correct time to be building the MS partnership. On gaming -- we are multiple generations away from VR being more than tech demos, IMO. Beat Saber was fun, but pretty much everything else feels boring after 30 mins. I agree with your assessment that VR gaming is quite underwhelming, but I disagree that they need to win over geeks to crack the enterprise market; they just need to get Nadella on stage to provide a compelling use-case to enterprise users, talking in the enterprise language.
- mindover 4y ago
  What are advantages of a VR headset over an affordable Windows laptop? This sounds like a really odd suggestion.
  - theptip 4y ago
    Unlimited monitors in a small, light package. Potentially much better ergonomics (unproven), float your monitors above your hammock or comfortable chair or whatever. Potentially much better collaboration, since you can be “in the room” with your team, see their facial expressions, etc.
    - mindover 4y ago
      Almost none of that is something road warriors from the parent comment need or ask for. Do they want to edit spreadsheets in a lower resolution, headache causing, uncomfortable headset without even seeing their hands or the keyboard properly? My guess would be no. The unlimited monitor argument is only relevant if the resolution, battery, ergonomics, pass-through, etc vastly improve. So at this stage it's still a fantasy. > Potentially much better collaboration, since you can be “in the room” with your team, see their facial expressions, etc. Seems like you are talking about some theoretical future AR or MR headset. As of today MQP can not do any of that.
alasdair_ 4y ago
Half Life: Alyx is extremely realistic and immersive and is the game I most commonly use to show people VR for the first time. I have a nice PC gaming rig however - I'm not sure what it's like otherwise.
- avx56 4y ago
  I played through the whole thing on a 1660 Ti Mobile, and it looked great on medium settings on a Quest 2.
- 4ggr0 4y ago
  If you want to see the most barbaric side your friends have to offer, put them into Blade & Sorcery, if they don't mind graphic violence. My gf is the sweetest, non-confrontational human I know. She once cried because she saw a dead frog on the street. After 5 minutes in Blade & Sorcery she was brutally decapitating already dead enemies while giggling, throwing them off cliffs while watching how they fall down etc. When she took off the glasses after 10m we both just had to laugh, as she was heavily breathing and sweating from all the fighting. One of the craziest things I've ever seen her do. Same things has happened for the two other people I put into this game, and for myself. Just wanted to chime in because I agree with you about HL: Alyx. Currently playing it, and it's the best thing I've ever witnessed in VR. Crouching behind a virtual wall because enemies are shooting and throwing grenades at you never felt so terrifyingly good.
- blamazon 4y ago
  HL:A is a masterpiece. VR was made for that game, not the other way around. I spent like 3k buying the Index and building a new PC just to play it and it was absolutely worth it. I've never felt such a consistently visceral adrenaline response from a game before.
caconym_ 4y ago
The "problem" with VR is that it doesn't yet have the mass market appeal of traditional consoles or PC gaming. For higher-end VR gaming, that's mostly because the hardware is (as you say) quite expensive and compromised in various ways; however, it's an absolute game-changer for some people, e.g. flight and space sim players, for whom none of the issues you've raised are relevant. For lower-end stuff, I imagine it's facing the same old problem of trying to market a new product category to consumers who don't really understand or care. I can't really speak to what Meta's doing, but as somebody who pre-ordered a Vive at launch and has had some of my most compelling gaming experiences ever in VR, I think you should recognize that you aren't really in the target market for higher-end VR gaming. The absolute size of that market is certainly a concern for the continued development of VR tech, but so far it seems to be doing alright as a relatively niche gaming sector (see: the Valve Index). > somehow bring down the cost so two headsets cost about as much as a current generation console You can get an Oculus Quest 2 for $400 + tax.
sergiotapia 4y ago
Half Life: Alyx is the killer VR app. It's so good that it ruined VR for me entirely. I can't play any other VR games, they all just feel like tech demos or shoddy old Unity asset flips. It's scary good and immersive. Try it, it will blow you away.
- AndroidKitKat 4y ago
  Dang, are there really no other HL:A quality games for VR? I picked a Valve Index and have been playing through Alyx an hour or so at a time and each time I think to myself "I never want this game to end." I've been trying to find some games to play after it but haven't really found any. I've installed the HL2 VR mod and played that a few times, but without teleporting movement I got sick quiet easily. I saw another commenter saying you have to acclimate yourself to that, so I suppose I will try that in between sessions of Alyx. Here's to hoping someone makes something as polished and as beautiful as HL:A
- notjustanymike 4y ago
  Try "Into the Radius", it's far lower budget but has that same immersive wow factor through smart art choices and clever interactions with physics objects.
baby 4y ago
Interesting, my first experience with the Vive was mind blowing and I left thinking that VR was the future. It’s quite an outdated headset now.
zmmmmm 4y ago
I had to laugh because you typify so much the average commenter about VR ... "I tried it once for an hour and here is my essay writing off the whole field".
- jjfoooo4 4y ago
  Well, it's consumer hardware, how many hours do you expect people to log before they "get it?" It's useful to hear the experience of casual testers, enthusiasts will praise the technical achievements, but that doesn't mean it's a good product.
  - jayd16 4y ago
    Probably more than one before they can say there are no games worth playing. How many games and how many minutes of gameplay could that have been?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
crooked-v 4y ago
> and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay Part of the problem here is that you tried to push through it. Basically the only way for someone who immediately experiences VR sickness to acclimate is to stop after 5 to 15 minutes, give it a while to go away, return to it, and repeat the cycle a couple of times until it stops completely. If you just try to push through it, that actually makes it worse by aggravating the reaction you're having. Of course, an arcade making the (poor) decision to brush over any issues isn't going to tell you this. > The headset was also uncomfortable after 30 minutes or so. I'd bet they were using first-party headstraps, which for whatever Godawful reason are almost universally uncomfortable across every brand. Companies like BoboVR produce a different style of much-more-comfortable 'halo' strap arrangement that rests the weight on your head more like a hard hat instead of clamping it to your face. > It dawned on me after the experience that my son and I would have to buy two headsets, not just one, for any couch coop play. There are a couple of games that mix one VR player with one or more non-VR players. Carly and the Reaperman, for example, has one player in VR manipulating the environment, and the other playing a traditional platformer. Another example (and an excellent party game) is Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, where one player is defusing a bomb in VR but only the players outside VR have the bomb defusing manual.
- lovehashbrowns 4y ago
  There’s also Phasmophobia, a ghost-hunting game that supports VR. You can play with people without them needing a VR headset. It’s also one of those types of games that’s completely different in VR than regular desktop. Without VR, it’s a fairly fun game with a really good learning curve to it. On VR, it’s a completely different game; the atmosphere is amped up by like 1,000 and it becomes the scary game it was meant to be. I wasn’t even able to complete the tutorial on VR.
- trynewideas 4y ago
  > Part of the problem here is that you tried to push through it. Basically the only way for someone who immediately experiences VR sickness to acclimate is to stop after 5 to 15 minutes, give it a while to go away, return to it, and repeat the cycle a couple of times until it stops completely. Considering the context of adoption obstacles, this is worse than VR just making people feel nauseous. If VR made you feel bad, be sure to both remember how bad it made you feel, and also voluntarily make yourself feel bad again, repeatedly, until (maybe) you won't feel as bad anymore, and then you can have the day-1 experience? Am I tracking this correctly?
mardifoufs 4y ago
Was it the original HTC Vive? Or even the pro? Because both of those are pretty old by now, with even the pro being a pretty minor upgrade to the original that came out in 2015. I'm pretty sure the hardware improved a lot, and having used the quest 2 (just once or twice at the office, not really into VR/gaming in general) it's a massively different experience from the older vive.
RajT88 4y ago
> And note I’ve had this “wow” experience playing PS4 games on a higher end TV that supports HDR. I recently installed Skyrim SE and played it a bit on my new 4k HDR OLED. Then I wandered off and installed the Skyrim VR on my gaming PC. As you say - The 4k HDR remaster is "WOW!". The VR version is more, "Neat." And this is a game where people - rightfully - talk about wanting to live in the game.
criddell 4y ago
There's a VR place near me called Sandbox VR that gets good reviews on Yelp and Google. My family went and it was... okay. We played together for about 45 minutes and we all came away with the same opinion - it was kind of fun, but none of us really wanted to play it again. I don't know which headset they used but I do know we each had an entire PC in a backpack strapped to us.
- nvarsj 4y ago
  Fairly sure they use HTC vive which seems to be the standard for overpriced VR experiences. It’s mostly fun to play in a group I think. But the actual games are very underwhelming - they feel like tech demos. And on top of that the staff never sets IPD or anything so unless you adjust it yourself things can be a blurry mess. The experience of a game like Alyx on the Index/Quest is about 100x better.
- baby 4y ago
  I did something similar twice and it was meh. Trying real games was mind blowing on the other hand, and buying the go and then the quest was amazing. Different experiences. I’m waiting for the quest 3 personally
  - criddell 4y ago
    I’ve been checking in on VR occasionally over the past 30 years (first VR experience was playing Dactyl Nightmare in 1991 and 1992). VR still feels like it has a long, long way to go.
    - baby 4y ago
      Have you tried half life Alyx? I’ve yet to see someone say that after they tried the state of the art experiences. Also, I hear people say that video games are dumb and pointless sometimes, which reminds me that I might myself not realize when something has incredible potential. I think a lot of people might never see the potential in VR, when it’s already there with millions of people using the Quest already
YetAnotherNick 4y ago
> We had a 1 hour session with the goggles and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay. The headset was also uncomfortable after 30 minutes or so. Playing games while sea sick is about as much fun as it sounds. It’s pretty awful. This reduces significantly wit time. Also on the first time you don't know which setting works for you, having correct IPD, straps etc. When I used my quest 2 for the first time, I could hardly use it for 10 minutes, and now I could use it for 1 hours. I think if I use it everyday even that limit will be increased.
- disqard 4y ago
  I'm curious about whether that 1 hour can keep scaling. Would you personally consider using it to "work in a virtual office" for several multi-hour stretches every day?
esskay 4y ago
> There is no killer, must have game for VR. This is the main issue with it right now, and part of the problem has been that to get AAA quality games on it you need to teather because none of the existing headsets have anything close to the power needed to run a decent game, not to mention they get very uncomfortable, very quickly. I mentioned elsewhere about Apples apparent headset thats possibly coming out this year. This _could_ be where Apple can shine. Whilst they've not exactly got a great rep as a gaming power house, if their headset does indeed end up using their M2 architecture it means its going to be extremely power efficient and very light weight - solving two of the biggest issues. But it also means its got graphics capabilities for most modern AAA titles. Obviously they'd need to work with a few studios to incentivise them to develop for their OS, but given their history of entering and significantly disrupting markets I'm sure they'd have no problem bringing along a few decent studios and getting them to work with their headset. Combine that with their existing App Store and Arcade+ services and you've got thousdands of developers itching to get their games released on the platform. If they can successfully replicate the popularity of their iOS developer ecosystem it would completely destroy Meta and their quite frankly crap little selection of apps. --- For what it's worth I found initially I felt pretty awful using it, it does take time to adjust and you're best using it in short bursts for the first few weeks. Recently I decided to do something stupid and try out the F1 2022 game on it (via cable plugged into pc), expecting it to make me feel extremely sick. I was pleasently surprised at how amazingly good it felt. I was able to complete a couple of races without feeling sick at all - its definitely an acclimatization process that the manufacturers need to make a lot clearer is needed.
bni 4y ago
VR arcade is stupid beyond belief. VR device is for using at home, slowly familiarizing yourself with it and using it for short bursts until you got used to it and don't feel any bad effects. I did this and its amazing for games and especially simulators like DCS.
monocularvision 4y ago
For me, the real “killer” VR experience is playing Walkabout Mini Golf with a friend remotely on Meta Quest 2’s. I have never felt like a remote person was right _there_ as I have when playing that game. And this is with silly, head-only avatars. The combination of such realistic feeling gameplay and multiplayer is way more compelling than I thought it would be.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. Slight nitpick: Those would be the HTC Vive Pro headsets. The "HTC Vive" came out in 2016 and is a pretty shitty device by today's standards. Also, it retailed for $600. > We had a 1 hour session with the goggles and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay. This varies from person to person, but most people only get sick when playing games where the real-world movement doesn't match game-world movement. For example, most people can play Beat Saber with no motion sickness problems, but will feel sick almost instantly if they play a racing game or a game that lets you walk by using a controller input. I've had VR since late 2016 and this still rings true. I can play PokerStars VR for 4+ hours and my only complaint will be the weight of the headset starting to feel overbearing. On the other hand, 2 minutes of Assetto Corsa and I feel like I'm gonna lose my lunch. > The arcade was expensive. I paid nearly $100 for 1 hour for 2 people in a MCOL area. One of the reasons for the high cost is the arcade required an employee to help us cycle through games and explain gameplay and controls. Shitty experiences in VR arcades are exacerbated by the fact that they're usually staffed by people that just needed a job, and not VR enthusiasts that care about sharing their excitement for the platform. (EDIT: Also, as someone else mentioned, having IPD configured properly is crucial. If the staff aren't setting IPD, then it can create headaches and sickness.) > solve the sea sickness problem It's a difficult problem to solve because the core issue is the mismatch between movement in the worlds as mentioned above. When your eyes detect movement, but the vestibular system in your inner ear says your not, your monkey brain thinks you ate something poisonous and creates the urge to purge. A company called Otolith Labs has supposedly created a device that potentially solves the problem (https://otolithlabs.com/vertigo/ https://otolithlabs.com/vertigo/) by making your vestibular system essentially send static, but they're targeting it to sufferers of vertigo rather than VR players. > and somehow bring down the cost so two headsets cost about as much as a current generation console. As others have said, the Meta Quest 2 is $400. And it's PC VR compatible, so if you have a gaming PC, you can use it with that. > I think it’s also very premature for Meta to go after the business market. We're still years from business use for VR aside from maybe virtual meetings with avatars. I think the biggest limiter is resolution. Text needs to be decently large to be readable in VR. I have a 1440p monitor that only uses what, 45 degrees of my eyes' FOV? When I think of what I would use VR for, I'm thinking essentially unlimited monitors. I could have several pages of documentation visible at any time.

threeseed 4y ago

a) 10 million Quest 2 devices have been sold. There is already a market. b) Business market is already a large adopter of VR devices e.g. for training, warehouses, architecture/car etc demos etc. Meta is big enough to tackle both markets at once. And Quest Pro helps to validate newer technologies that will trickle down into their cheaper models. c) Motion sickness is better on newer devices and from research videos Meta already understands what are the causes of it. It's now largely an engineering question of how to get solutions translated into shipping products.

nprateem 4y ago
My employer could send me one. I wouldn't use it. I don't want to be virtually present in meetings. I've left the office and can multitask now (eg do household chores, go for walks). I'm not going back to an office, physical or virtual.
- RajT88 4y ago
  > My employer could send me one. I wouldn't use it. I would, if it was high quality enough to be comfortable for long term use, and there was decent enough virtual desktop software to have many floating windows of all the software you use.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    would you use it to let your employer monitor your attention, physical behavior and activity? beyond what an audio call provides them with
    - mellosouls 4y ago
      The one (using it to give another option for working) doesn't imply the other (consenting to increased monitoring).
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        already commonplace for employers to track mouse movement and the like for monitoring remote workers, sometimes to have video requirements as well (where video is not just another option to work with colleagues but a policy requirement so that managers/owners can surveil), because that's what they're able to track with the tech within a laptop. give them more sensors and they won't leave it to workers to decide (except to decide to leave those jobs in search of ones that surveil less). workers can organize against these conditions but it's not left to individual consent.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago

theptip 4y ago

> I think it’s also very premature for Meta to go after the business market. I strongly disagree here. The enterprise market is relatively cost-insensitive, and so it's a great vertical to target. The partnership with Microsoft is strategically very sound; if you can get Teams inside the Quest headset, then you can plausibly replace every lightweight Windows laptop with a Quest Pro (i.e. for road warriors doing spreadsheet/doc/email/collaboration work, not developers). The question is, how far away are they from replacing monitors with VR displays? I suspect this generation is not the one that wins that battle (though Immersed was making this work on Quest 2, so maybe), but it plausibly could be next generation, in which case this is the correct time to be building the MS partnership. On gaming -- we are multiple generations away from VR being more than tech demos, IMO. Beat Saber was fun, but pretty much everything else feels boring after 30 mins. I agree with your assessment that VR gaming is quite underwhelming, but I disagree that they need to win over geeks to crack the enterprise market; they just need to get Nadella on stage to provide a compelling use-case to enterprise users, talking in the enterprise language.

mindover 4y ago
What are advantages of a VR headset over an affordable Windows laptop? This sounds like a really odd suggestion.
- theptip 4y ago
  Unlimited monitors in a small, light package. Potentially much better ergonomics (unproven), float your monitors above your hammock or comfortable chair or whatever. Potentially much better collaboration, since you can be “in the room” with your team, see their facial expressions, etc.
  - mindover 4y ago
    Almost none of that is something road warriors from the parent comment need or ask for. Do they want to edit spreadsheets in a lower resolution, headache causing, uncomfortable headset without even seeing their hands or the keyboard properly? My guess would be no. The unlimited monitor argument is only relevant if the resolution, battery, ergonomics, pass-through, etc vastly improve. So at this stage it's still a fantasy. > Potentially much better collaboration, since you can be “in the room” with your team, see their facial expressions, etc. Seems like you are talking about some theoretical future AR or MR headset. As of today MQP can not do any of that.

alasdair_ 4y ago

Half Life: Alyx is extremely realistic and immersive and is the game I most commonly use to show people VR for the first time. I have a nice PC gaming rig however - I'm not sure what it's like otherwise.

avx56 4y ago
I played through the whole thing on a 1660 Ti Mobile, and it looked great on medium settings on a Quest 2.
4ggr0 4y ago
If you want to see the most barbaric side your friends have to offer, put them into Blade & Sorcery, if they don't mind graphic violence. My gf is the sweetest, non-confrontational human I know. She once cried because she saw a dead frog on the street. After 5 minutes in Blade & Sorcery she was brutally decapitating already dead enemies while giggling, throwing them off cliffs while watching how they fall down etc. When she took off the glasses after 10m we both just had to laugh, as she was heavily breathing and sweating from all the fighting. One of the craziest things I've ever seen her do. Same things has happened for the two other people I put into this game, and for myself. Just wanted to chime in because I agree with you about HL: Alyx. Currently playing it, and it's the best thing I've ever witnessed in VR. Crouching behind a virtual wall because enemies are shooting and throwing grenades at you never felt so terrifyingly good.
blamazon 4y ago
HL:A is a masterpiece. VR was made for that game, not the other way around. I spent like 3k buying the Index and building a new PC just to play it and it was absolutely worth it. I've never felt such a consistently visceral adrenaline response from a game before.

caconym_ 4y ago

The "problem" with VR is that it doesn't yet have the mass market appeal of traditional consoles or PC gaming. For higher-end VR gaming, that's mostly because the hardware is (as you say) quite expensive and compromised in various ways; however, it's an absolute game-changer for some people, e.g. flight and space sim players, for whom none of the issues you've raised are relevant. For lower-end stuff, I imagine it's facing the same old problem of trying to market a new product category to consumers who don't really understand or care. I can't really speak to what Meta's doing, but as somebody who pre-ordered a Vive at launch and has had some of my most compelling gaming experiences ever in VR, I think you should recognize that you aren't really in the target market for higher-end VR gaming. The absolute size of that market is certainly a concern for the continued development of VR tech, but so far it seems to be doing alright as a relatively niche gaming sector (see: the Valve Index). > somehow bring down the cost so two headsets cost about as much as a current generation console You can get an Oculus Quest 2 for $400 + tax.

sergiotapia 4y ago

Half Life: Alyx is the killer VR app. It's so good that it ruined VR for me entirely. I can't play any other VR games, they all just feel like tech demos or shoddy old Unity asset flips. It's scary good and immersive. Try it, it will blow you away.

AndroidKitKat 4y ago
Dang, are there really no other HL:A quality games for VR? I picked a Valve Index and have been playing through Alyx an hour or so at a time and each time I think to myself "I never want this game to end." I've been trying to find some games to play after it but haven't really found any. I've installed the HL2 VR mod and played that a few times, but without teleporting movement I got sick quiet easily. I saw another commenter saying you have to acclimate yourself to that, so I suppose I will try that in between sessions of Alyx. Here's to hoping someone makes something as polished and as beautiful as HL:A
notjustanymike 4y ago
Try "Into the Radius", it's far lower budget but has that same immersive wow factor through smart art choices and clever interactions with physics objects.

baby 4y ago

Interesting, my first experience with the Vive was mind blowing and I left thinking that VR was the future. It’s quite an outdated headset now.

zmmmmm 4y ago

I had to laugh because you typify so much the average commenter about VR ... "I tried it once for an hour and here is my essay writing off the whole field".

jjfoooo4 4y ago
Well, it's consumer hardware, how many hours do you expect people to log before they "get it?" It's useful to hear the experience of casual testers, enthusiasts will praise the technical achievements, but that doesn't mean it's a good product.
- jayd16 4y ago
  Probably more than one before they can say there are no games worth playing. How many games and how many minutes of gameplay could that have been?
deleted 4y ago
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crooked-v 4y ago

> and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay Part of the problem here is that you tried to push through it. Basically the only way for someone who immediately experiences VR sickness to acclimate is to stop after 5 to 15 minutes, give it a while to go away, return to it, and repeat the cycle a couple of times until it stops completely. If you just try to push through it, that actually makes it worse by aggravating the reaction you're having. Of course, an arcade making the (poor) decision to brush over any issues isn't going to tell you this. > The headset was also uncomfortable after 30 minutes or so. I'd bet they were using first-party headstraps, which for whatever Godawful reason are almost universally uncomfortable across every brand. Companies like BoboVR produce a different style of much-more-comfortable 'halo' strap arrangement that rests the weight on your head more like a hard hat instead of clamping it to your face. > It dawned on me after the experience that my son and I would have to buy two headsets, not just one, for any couch coop play. There are a couple of games that mix one VR player with one or more non-VR players. Carly and the Reaperman, for example, has one player in VR manipulating the environment, and the other playing a traditional platformer. Another example (and an excellent party game) is Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, where one player is defusing a bomb in VR but only the players outside VR have the bomb defusing manual.

lovehashbrowns 4y ago
There’s also Phasmophobia, a ghost-hunting game that supports VR. You can play with people without them needing a VR headset. It’s also one of those types of games that’s completely different in VR than regular desktop. Without VR, it’s a fairly fun game with a really good learning curve to it. On VR, it’s a completely different game; the atmosphere is amped up by like 1,000 and it becomes the scary game it was meant to be. I wasn’t even able to complete the tutorial on VR.
trynewideas 4y ago
> Part of the problem here is that you tried to push through it. Basically the only way for someone who immediately experiences VR sickness to acclimate is to stop after 5 to 15 minutes, give it a while to go away, return to it, and repeat the cycle a couple of times until it stops completely. Considering the context of adoption obstacles, this is worse than VR just making people feel nauseous. If VR made you feel bad, be sure to both remember how bad it made you feel, and also voluntarily make yourself feel bad again, repeatedly, until (maybe) you won't feel as bad anymore, and then you can have the day-1 experience? Am I tracking this correctly?

mardifoufs 4y ago

Was it the original HTC Vive? Or even the pro? Because both of those are pretty old by now, with even the pro being a pretty minor upgrade to the original that came out in 2015. I'm pretty sure the hardware improved a lot, and having used the quest 2 (just once or twice at the office, not really into VR/gaming in general) it's a massively different experience from the older vive.

RajT88 4y ago

> And note I’ve had this “wow” experience playing PS4 games on a higher end TV that supports HDR. I recently installed Skyrim SE and played it a bit on my new 4k HDR OLED. Then I wandered off and installed the Skyrim VR on my gaming PC. As you say - The 4k HDR remaster is "WOW!". The VR version is more, "Neat." And this is a game where people - rightfully - talk about wanting to live in the game.

criddell 4y ago

There's a VR place near me called Sandbox VR that gets good reviews on Yelp and Google. My family went and it was... okay. We played together for about 45 minutes and we all came away with the same opinion - it was kind of fun, but none of us really wanted to play it again. I don't know which headset they used but I do know we each had an entire PC in a backpack strapped to us.

nvarsj 4y ago
Fairly sure they use HTC vive which seems to be the standard for overpriced VR experiences. It’s mostly fun to play in a group I think. But the actual games are very underwhelming - they feel like tech demos. And on top of that the staff never sets IPD or anything so unless you adjust it yourself things can be a blurry mess. The experience of a game like Alyx on the Index/Quest is about 100x better.
baby 4y ago
I did something similar twice and it was meh. Trying real games was mind blowing on the other hand, and buying the go and then the quest was amazing. Different experiences. I’m waiting for the quest 3 personally
- criddell 4y ago
  I’ve been checking in on VR occasionally over the past 30 years (first VR experience was playing Dactyl Nightmare in 1991 and 1992). VR still feels like it has a long, long way to go.
  - baby 4y ago
    Have you tried half life Alyx? I’ve yet to see someone say that after they tried the state of the art experiences. Also, I hear people say that video games are dumb and pointless sometimes, which reminds me that I might myself not realize when something has incredible potential. I think a lot of people might never see the potential in VR, when it’s already there with millions of people using the Quest already

YetAnotherNick 4y ago

> We had a 1 hour session with the goggles and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay. The headset was also uncomfortable after 30 minutes or so. Playing games while sea sick is about as much fun as it sounds. It’s pretty awful. This reduces significantly wit time. Also on the first time you don't know which setting works for you, having correct IPD, straps etc. When I used my quest 2 for the first time, I could hardly use it for 10 minutes, and now I could use it for 1 hours. I think if I use it everyday even that limit will be increased.

disqard 4y ago
I'm curious about whether that 1 hour can keep scaling. Would you personally consider using it to "work in a virtual office" for several multi-hour stretches every day?

esskay 4y ago

> There is no killer, must have game for VR. This is the main issue with it right now, and part of the problem has been that to get AAA quality games on it you need to teather because none of the existing headsets have anything close to the power needed to run a decent game, not to mention they get very uncomfortable, very quickly. I mentioned elsewhere about Apples apparent headset thats possibly coming out this year. This _could_ be where Apple can shine. Whilst they've not exactly got a great rep as a gaming power house, if their headset does indeed end up using their M2 architecture it means its going to be extremely power efficient and very light weight - solving two of the biggest issues. But it also means its got graphics capabilities for most modern AAA titles. Obviously they'd need to work with a few studios to incentivise them to develop for their OS, but given their history of entering and significantly disrupting markets I'm sure they'd have no problem bringing along a few decent studios and getting them to work with their headset. Combine that with their existing App Store and Arcade+ services and you've got thousdands of developers itching to get their games released on the platform. If they can successfully replicate the popularity of their iOS developer ecosystem it would completely destroy Meta and their quite frankly crap little selection of apps. --- For what it's worth I found initially I felt pretty awful using it, it does take time to adjust and you're best using it in short bursts for the first few weeks. Recently I decided to do something stupid and try out the F1 2022 game on it (via cable plugged into pc), expecting it to make me feel extremely sick. I was pleasently surprised at how amazingly good it felt. I was able to complete a couple of races without feeling sick at all - its definitely an acclimatization process that the manufacturers need to make a lot clearer is needed.

bni 4y ago

VR arcade is stupid beyond belief. VR device is for using at home, slowly familiarizing yourself with it and using it for short bursts until you got used to it and don't feel any bad effects. I did this and its amazing for games and especially simulators like DCS.

monocularvision 4y ago

For me, the real “killer” VR experience is playing Walkabout Mini Golf with a friend remotely on Meta Quest 2’s. I have never felt like a remote person was right _there_ as I have when playing that game. And this is with silly, head-only avatars. The combination of such realistic feeling gameplay and multiplayer is way more compelling than I thought it would be.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

> They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. Slight nitpick: Those would be the HTC Vive Pro headsets. The "HTC Vive" came out in 2016 and is a pretty shitty device by today's standards. Also, it retailed for $600. > We had a 1 hour session with the goggles and I felt quite sea sick during and after gameplay. This varies from person to person, but most people only get sick when playing games where the real-world movement doesn't match game-world movement. For example, most people can play Beat Saber with no motion sickness problems, but will feel sick almost instantly if they play a racing game or a game that lets you walk by using a controller input. I've had VR since late 2016 and this still rings true. I can play PokerStars VR for 4+ hours and my only complaint will be the weight of the headset starting to feel overbearing. On the other hand, 2 minutes of Assetto Corsa and I feel like I'm gonna lose my lunch. > The arcade was expensive. I paid nearly $100 for 1 hour for 2 people in a MCOL area. One of the reasons for the high cost is the arcade required an employee to help us cycle through games and explain gameplay and controls. Shitty experiences in VR arcades are exacerbated by the fact that they're usually staffed by people that just needed a job, and not VR enthusiasts that care about sharing their excitement for the platform. (EDIT: Also, as someone else mentioned, having IPD configured properly is crucial. If the staff aren't setting IPD, then it can create headaches and sickness.) > solve the sea sickness problem It's a difficult problem to solve because the core issue is the mismatch between movement in the worlds as mentioned above. When your eyes detect movement, but the vestibular system in your inner ear says your not, your monkey brain thinks you ate something poisonous and creates the urge to purge. A company called Otolith Labs has supposedly created a device that potentially solves the problem (https://otolithlabs.com/vertigo/ https://otolithlabs.com/vertigo/) by making your vestibular system essentially send static, but they're targeting it to sufferers of vertigo rather than VR players. > and somehow bring down the cost so two headsets cost about as much as a current generation console. As others have said, the Meta Quest 2 is $400. And it's PC VR compatible, so if you have a gaming PC, you can use it with that. > I think it’s also very premature for Meta to go after the business market. We're still years from business use for VR aside from maybe virtual meetings with avatars. I think the biggest limiter is resolution. Text needs to be decently large to be readable in VR. I have a 1440p monitor that only uses what, 45 degrees of my eyes' FOV? When I think of what I would use VR for, I'm thinking essentially unlimited monitors. I could have several pages of documentation visible at any time.