Poll: Will VR truly be the next form of gaming? Or will it fall like motion control?

[MysticSlayer]

Best case scenario: It is as successful as mobile.

Worst case scenario: It flops like motion control.

It certainly isn't going to replace traditional games. It might, however, take ideas that haven't caught on with traditional games and make them interesting for people who can bear the VR headset.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I dont believe the success of VR is reliant on us completely changing our control scheme. I dont see motion controls no matter how accurate replacing a controller or mouse and keyboard for all or even the majority of games.

I believe most who have VR will just enjoy it with a controller or mouse and keyboard then again I am not sure if Vive and PSVR are enforcing the VR control methods if they are at the moment I think that will soon change to optional.

I believe it will succeed at least to some extent but at the moment it is way to pricy to be widely adopted. I do expect to see an explosion of horror titles, sims and especially VR porn.

I have not tried any at the moment although I would like to. At the moment I am content to wait for a huge price drop or at least one platform to emerge as dominant. Dont want to shell out and then see it has no official support soon after.

 

[Disco Biscuit]

Best case scenario: It is as successful as mobile.

Worst case scenario: It flops like motion control.

It certainly isn't going to replace traditional games. It might, however, take ideas that haven't caught on with traditional games and make them interesting for people who can bear the VR headset.

I think AR at least, is bound to the fate of mobile. Screens are a big limitation of mobile computing, and AR/VR offer to solve that problem eventually. If you can cut out the screen, and offer a motion tracking/touch sensitive tablet that didn't have to power a screen, you can probably imagine the possibilities. It's just not there yet, but maybe in a decade it will be. That's more AR than VR though. VR I think suffers from the fact that it makes you totally helpless. It's immersive properties are double-edged.

I dont believe the success of VR is reliant on us completely changing our control scheme. I dont see motion controls no matter how accurate replacing a controller or mouse and keyboard for all or even the majority of games.

I believe most who have VR will just enjoy it with a controller or mouse and keyboard then again I am not sure if Vive and PSVR are enforcing the VR control methods if they are at the moment I think that will soon change to optional.

I believe it will succeed at least to some extent but at the moment it is way to pricy to be widely adopted. I do expect to see an explosion of horror titles, sims and especially VR porn.

I have not tried any at the moment although I would like to. At the moment I am content to wait for a huge price drop or at least one platform to emerge as dominant. Dont want to shell out and then see it has no official support soon after.

AR in particular, would just be something that would allow you to have virtual keys and keyboards wherever you needed them. It would basically turn the world into your touchscreen, but it wouldn't be "motion controlled" by necessity any more than a touchscreen is.

 

[TelosSupreme]

I think VR is and always will be another gimmick/niche in gaming. Where I see it fulfilling its true potential is fields like simulation and medical training. That's where it can do the most good anyways.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I think it's bound to gain a good foot-hold this time around. The tech is pretty impressive now, which was never the case in the past. It definitely needs some killer-apps and less overpriced unity-engine tech demos.

I'm not sold on this Vive room-scale jazz. It seems extremely limiting, and a lot of games have adopted this "point to where you want to warp to" approach for getting around movement (vive controllers don't have analogue sticks). Doesn't appeal.

Oculus controllers have analogue sticks, so it's easier to imagine more complete games being able to utilise them, though there's obviously a fair amount of wait-and-see with how well the hardware tracks (since it's not available).

I'm cautiously optimistic. I know I don't have nearly enough room to make good use of the vive, so I might plump for a rift at some point... Though the waiting list seems to extend to August at this point so, uh... Couldn't impulse buy that if I wanted to.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I can see VR headsets replacing monitors and TVs definitely but I think that will hold true for most forms of live and broadcast entertainment. Already I'm hearing stories of VR being used to make downloaded films play out at cinema quality and of things such as the WWE experience. I've seen some 360-degree videos which I know are meant to be viewed on VR and I'm sure that in the coming years there's going to be a whole lot more of that. Sure, we'll get to the point where VR is used in VR ubiquitously but before that we'll see Pay-Per-View events for a VR Superbowl experience, World Cup, Olympics, concerts...I can see films having their home-release dates (or rather, their blu-ray and DVD release dates) pushed back for premium VR screenings too.

I can see VR being the most likely candidate for "the next big thing" since there seem to be fewer kinks to work out than with what Kinect tried to offer.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The only time I would see VR being popular are when these conditions are met-

It no longer super expensives.

People have big open space to played it in (health and safety are a different matter, just look at the Wii remotes on releases).

The usualy AAA companies back it up.

That in turns leads to some really good games in it (how?).

 

[JaKandDaxter]

Too expensive now to become mainstream. Maybe when its around the $100 dollar range, we'll see more positive consumer interest. But for now, only tech euthansists with disposable income will invest in VR now. And that's a pretty small portion of the market.

I do also have to think of how well will VR peform in certain genres now that its been mentioned. In a 3rd person game like Uncharted or Dark Souls, VR might not make a difference in immersion. And that will affect the appeal value of VR devices.

 

[kiri3tsubasa]

A device that would leave me sick in just a few minutes, yeah, not interested. That is going to be the biggest hurdle that VR will face. People like me who would get ill from using it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

VR is here to stay. Too much money is being thrown at it so it. That means two things:
1. The technology is finally here. For real this time;
2. People in charge want a return on their investment.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Niche for the time being, but it's going to start gaining more and more momentum over the coming years. Eventually it'll hit a killer app, and all hell will break loose.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I think VR will be an alternative to the PC and consoles, not the "next form" of anything.
If it does poorly, it will die out and we will have to wait for a LONG time until someone else comes along to invest in this technology again.
If it does well, we may find it alongside the Xbox and Playstation on the shelves, I'm rooting for the last case.

 

[FakeSympathy]

VR needs to be pretty much a screen that offers 3D & head tracking right now. All of this motion control stuff just isnt interesting for games, it wasnt on Wii, it still isnt. Not to mention full room stuff with motion control, I mean just look at this:

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I think Yahtzee put it best in one of his columns when he said something to the effect of, "No technology that is less convenient to use than what came before it." At the time, he was criticizing either 3D or motion control, but it applies to VR I think (ironic, considering how he is enthused about VR).

I truly believe that, to the average consumer, the "wow" factor of VR (at least what's coming down the pipe now) is not enough to overcome the inconvenience of having to put on the headset, calibrate it, deal with motion sickness, etc, and that's not even getting into the cost. The number of people who need to buy it for it to be "the next big thing" won't bother with it, at least with this generation of the tech.

Motion control didn't have staying power because the core gaming audience just wanted to sit down on the couch or a chair, boot up a game on their TV or PC monitor (which they already own and serve many, MANY more purposes that just displaying games) and play. As soon as the novelty wore off among those who thought motion control was "neat," the motion control fell of the map.

3D didn't have staying power because of the (at the time) high-cost of 3D-capable TVs, the higher-cost of 3D movie tickets, the need to wear the (99% of the time uncomfortable) glasses, and the fact that due to physical conditions, many people couldn't see it right or experienced motion sickness.

As for VR? It has many of the drawbacks of both of the above. Like motion control, it's less convenient and more "involved" than the simple person-machine relationship we currently have. Like 3D, some people just can't use it and it's more expensive. A key difference this time around is that the audience that is "wowed" by VR is not the "casual gamers" and "non-gamers" that were wowed by the Wii. The VR enthusiast audience seems to be mostly core gamers and tech-heads.

 

[pookie101]

VR needs to be pretty much a screen that offers 3D & head tracking right now. All of this motion control stuff just isnt interesting for games, it wasnt on Wii, it still isnt. Not to mention full room stuff with motion control, I mean just look at this:

i wouldnt normally watch a 19 minute long video post but yeah it really illustrates the point that frankly almost everything released for vr so far is shitty shovel ware.

it might improve, and it might find a use with watching film and tv, maybe 3d construction programs? definitely would work for simulators but yeah mostly a niche product for the time being.

ive personally always thought a dome or semi dome style monitor with motion tracking in the top would be a better option than the vr goggles and allow you to still use mouse and keyboard

 

[Qizx]

Just going to agree with some other people here. I think it might, but in the long distant future. VR has a LONG way to go before it will snuff out conventional gaming, and even so I think conventional gaming will still have a market.

 

[cikame]

VR is too dedicated an experience at the moment to 'take off', it's expensive, clunky, demanding of space, i don't know what the baseline is for humans to become lost in a VR world but we haven't got that technology yet, a Star Trek holodeck is pretty much impossible so the closest thing would be delivering the experience directly to the brain somehow.
Games are easy to pick up and play, until VR is easy to do and effective it will be a niche thing.

 

[CaitSeith]

Neither. I think VR will at most be its own thing, with its own library and support, but not replacing the non-VR gaming. In other words, it will be like portable gaming (when you could play on portable consoles only)

 

[theevilgenius60]

Not the next era of gaming. The next era of porn, well, that's a different story. Wish I had invested in some of the companies just for that reason. Profits ahoy!

 

[theevilgenius60]

Edit: Duplicate post