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

[FakeSympathy]

Remember when motion control was advertised to be the "Next form of gaming"? I remember Wii being hyped around the world as it was fresh concept, if not old concept done right. That was 2006. Four years later. in 2010, Sony would release Playstation Move and Microsoft would release the kinect. Wii did somewhat of a alright job with the motion controls (Never owned Wii so I don't know the details), but PS Move and MS kinect failed hard. The idea itself was audacious and bold, but the execution was terrible especially by Sony and MS.

And now, here we are, six years later, with VR games being released one by one, with everyone praising the immersion.

Do you think VR will truly bring the future of gaming? Or will it die down and the gamers going back to controllers/keyboard and mouse?

 

[Saelune]

I think it will be a long time before controllers and keyboard and mouse truly go obsolete, but I do think VR is here to stay, and only will be gone with more advanced technology that does it better. Plus a lot of the motion tech can and likely will be re-applied to use with VR.

The problem with motion controls isn't that the are bad, its that few took real advantage of it. If you treat something like a gimmick, it will stay that way. I think people just gave up too fast.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I think it will find a niche in its current incarnation, but it will be a long time before VR becomes the main form of gaming.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it is at least functional unlike previous random flailing motion dongles, but at the current prices things will move along at a glacial pace.
Maybe they will become an item for the rich gamer and survive until mere mortals can also have some fun, but it is an awful big gamble for hardware/software developers who will need to rely on very small numbers. Disjointed standards also do not help, if every headset needs a new development cycle the already small market will get fractured even further with every new VR piece.

 

[Fox12]

Not for a long, long time. It's too expensive, and too niche. By necesity it only works with first person games, and it doesn't help that the genre it's best suited for, horror, is itself niche. It would need a Call of Duty style game to really move units. A system seller. Of course, we already have two or three competing versions, so it would be difficult to develop for multiple headsets.

It'll enjoy a nice little niche, and one day probably be a dominant form of gaming, but it has some significant hurdles to conquer first.

 

[Fractral]

I'm all for it. A friend with more disposable income than me let me use his Gear VR headset and I was blown away. I can't imagine what using a proper high end VR headset is like.

VR doesn't have to replace gaming on a screen for it to be succesful. I doubt that even if VR becomes very cheap it will do away with how we game currently, but it's certainly here to stay. It's too amazing an experience not to.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

There is no doubt that VR will be successful.

However, it is just not good enough to replace the current system of keyboard or console controllers. Strangely the problem with VR is not the headset but the controls, I think. VR adds depth but it does nothing to aid newly added control(head movement) from harmoniously working with current, traditional controllers. It doesn't help that keyboard and mouse is still more accurate than VR controllers.

I think VR would still be successful with few good games out, but it wouldn't become major dominating gaming machine. It will sweep niche market of walking simulators, horror games, many games that are considered as 3rd person action-y... But that is as far as it would go.

 

[Recusant]

There's a simple process you should always do when a big new innovation in the video game industry comes out and you're wondering how big of a change it'll make: look at what happened the last time someone tried it, and see what's changed.
-The Wii boasted the brand-new, never-before-tried mechanic of motion control; what was different from Pantomation's attempt thirty years earlier? Obviously, the technology was much more refined, the userbase had increased hundreds of times over, and the potential userbase had an even larger increase. Couple that with the relative price decreases (far more people could afford a Wii than a PDP, after all), and you've got a real shot at commercial success- but the problem Pantomation faced was that it was, ultimately, just a novelty; everything people thought of to do with it was far more quickly, easily, and above all precisely handled with a keyboard. The Wii avoided this by sticking to simpler fare; almost nothing the console had made for it was meaty or heavy, and those few things that were were better handled by using the controller as a controller.

Of course, Nintendo can get away with that sort of thing; light, fluffy, and fun is their bread and butter; it has been for decades. Microsoft and Sony aren't in the same position. So when they released the Move and the Kinect just a few years later, before many refinements had come along, what did they change? Not a lot. The Kinect forewent a direct physical controller altogether, in the process making the assumption that people wouldn't mind constantly being watched. Sony changed even less. They relied on novelty and imitation, assuming that blind brand loyalty would cause people to not question what this system added. It failed, and they moved on.

So what does this say for VR? Well, now we have the Rift and the Vive. So let's look at what happened the last time someone tried this brand-new, never-before-tried mechanic, and see what's changed.

-The Virtual Boy was released in 1995, and flopped so hard that even Sega was laughing. I don't believe that it was actually an attempt by Nintendo to combine motion sickness, headaches and eye strain into a single unit and cast it off into the market wilderness like a sacrificial goat, but that's pretty much what happened. Apart from what must've been an appalling lack of user testing, what went wrong? Well, let's look at what happened the last time someone had tried this brand-new, never-before-been-tried-because-each-decade-apparently-exists-as-a-separate-reality mechanic.

-The Tomytronic 3D was released in 1983, and actually beat out the Virtual Boy in display power, in that it was able to display more than one color. But the games were overly simplistic, and no matter how you gussy it up, novelty lacks the staying power that makes a game, or a game system, or a subordinate or auxillary technology thereto, succeed in anything beyond the short term.

Well, it's no longer 1983 or 1995. So what's changed for this bran- nuts to that, let's just call it this means of playing games? Well, they're calling it "Virtual Reality" now; the industry has certainly advanced enormously in shamelessness. But the lesson we need to take is that novelty alone won't buy you longevity. Does these units change enough that they'll have staying power? Never having used one, I don't know. But you can stick around with a limited but loyal market until you eventually explode (we'd never have had Asheron's Call or WOW if the MU*s of the 70's had gone away), which is what these fancy ViewMasters are likely to get. Whether they can stick around- and thus whether they'll ultimately amount to more than a historical footnote or a semi-sarcastic "brand-new, never-before-tried mechanic" in a forum post I'll be writing in 2031- depends chiefly on the games and other programs released for them.

And it is, ultimately, what is released for them, not what is adapted to them. Valve has always been happy to play around with new tech, and they're certainly no small power in the industry. But when was the last time you heard about the Novint Falcon?

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Every ten years or so people come along and try to make VR work. They tried it in the 80s (it didn't take off, just stayed a niche gadget for a small section of the market), it was tried in the 90s (it didn't take off, just stayed a niche gadget for a small section of the market), it was tried in the 00s (it didn't take off, just stayed a niche gadget for a small section of the market), and now they're trying it again in the 10s. Call me a cynic, but I reckon it won't take off, and remain a niche gadget for a small section of the market.

 

[votemarvel]

At the moment VR is little more than just moving the screen very close to your eyes. Sight and sound are just two of the things that let us enjoy our reality. For VR to truly take off they need to find a way to emulate the other senses too.

I know it's a cliche but call me when they invent the Holo-Deck.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I think it is inevitable, though it will be some time before it could be used for games that are more complex than on-the-rails shooters and VR gimmick games.

Ideally, VR will become mainstream when I am able to afford it.

 

[KraQ]

I highly doubt that keyboard and mouse-- or controllers for that matter-- will go obsolete simply because of a new trend. Even in a world of perfectly simulated virtual realities, video games that play even conceptually similar to the video games of today more or less require tactile digital input. It's not out of the realm of possibility that such simulations might surpass video games in general popularity, but I'm having trouble imagining a future entirely absent of them.

As for VR in general, I can certainly see the current iteration developing a strong niche, but it's not going to be exclusively in the realm of video games, and it's going to be more "enthusiast" oriented. I'm not seeing Joe Sixpack coming home from a day of work to grab a beer and put a clunky headset on.

That'll probably be reserved for when this is possible...

 

[Nazulu]

I think it will stay around and new genre's may occur because of it (giving it's true form), but in it's current form it is nowhere near accessible enough to me. Besides the pricing and many people not wanting to strap a screen to their face, I think it may be more difficult to develop for as well (especially with 3 different versions of it right now).

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

VR still has a long way to go. It's gotten to the point where you can be in the virtual reality and it looks completely real. I've had the pleasure of messing around with Steam's VR (HTC Vive), a demo put me on a sunken ship underwater with fish swimming around. I could hear my friends laugh when a fish swam into my face and made me jump. There was also a life sized blue whale that swam really close. It was all a very pretty and certainly immersive experience.

However, while you can see and hear, you're still forced to use peripherals for touch (Steam uses what looks like two wiimotes, while Oculus uses a controller), there is no sensation of feeling and you're limited to a small play area. Movement like what you would find in a first person shooter will cause your brain to do backflips and make you absolutely nauseous.

There's also the issue of not being able to see or hear (well) what's going on in reality around you, with the case of Vive that gives you a play area you walk around in (rather than sitting in a chair with a controller), there's the risk of tripping over your dog, trying to sit in a chair that doesn't actually exist or the classic wii issue where you forget to use the wrist strap, play Fruit Ninja and end up sending the controller flying into your TV screen.

It's still damn fun though. There was a drawing app and I was literally able to draw a whole campsite complete with grass, trees, a burning campfire, twinkling night sky and a tent, and then I was able to climb into the tent.

I don't think VR will die, too many companies throwing too much money into it and people just want to be able to live in the Matrix and will keep trying until that gets achieved. It's still a high price of entry though, so it might be a while before we see more affordable options.

 

[meiam]

Too few game can really take advantages of it, it's pretty much just simulator game (driving, flying, spaceship, walking) everything else aren't really improve with it, even first person shooter won't take off because of how fundamentally limiting it is. So you have niche game that can use it, except you need super beefy and expansive hardware to run the things and then you need to buy the headset. There are people who will pay 2000$+ for that experience, nowhere near enough to really get VR to take off. And then you get into the problem of compatibility which just make everything worse.

But really, even if the thing was free and could run on a toaster it won't ever even come close to m/k or controller because you can't make game that take advantages of it. It's like motion control, the secret isn't that it failed because nobody made game that really took advantage of it, the secret is it failed because you cannot make game that takes advantages of it. Until you find a way to give player feedback beyond visual and sound (which screen and speaker already do) nothing will move on that front. If you're shooting a gun, you need to feel the recoil, if you're hitting someone you need to actually hit something, otherwise everything immediately fall apart, the magic is broken and you remember that you'rr a dude in a small room with a goofy headset and that if you walk just a bit too far you'll hit the wall of your house.

 

[IamGamer41]

VR brings zero immersion to the game. That is unless the game is made with VR in mind. In which cause the overall game will suffer because developers are forced to put in VR shit into their game that otherwise wouldn't have. Honestly these people who make up this shit like VR is all fine and good but there's still plenty of development with in gaming now that should be focused on before we move into jacking into the matrix.
Who cares how good the VR is if the AI is still shit or people's hair and clothes clip into their bodies? We still can not make a game that has any kinda dense building structure, like say the Division, and have every single building be accessible or every room be explored. Let's get shit like that down first before we start strapping on boxes to our heads and looking at disembodied hands floating around the screen.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I think VR has a lot more staying power then motion controls, but I also think it's way too extreme to become mainstream.

I think eventually, developers are going to hammer out VR software intrigation enough to be able to include it in most games without making it necessary to play, and at that point VR becomes just a nice thing to have, like a good keyboard our a mouse with more then two buttons - Nifty and pleasing, but not necessary.

 

[FalloutJack]

I think it will find a niche in its current incarnation, but it will be a long time before VR becomes the main form of gaming.

I agree here. Niche product with it finding varied use in certain games, possibly...in online multiplayer.

*Points over to Dot-Hack*

 

[visiblenoise]

I don't think the technology is there yet. It'll take some serious neuroscientific, borderline invasive technology (think thought reading, sense emulation) to get me excited. Anything short of that will always be to me a goofy augmentation of what we already have. And what we already have still works best with traditional input devices.

 

[Disco Biscuit]

I don't think it's a matter of "Next Form" at least, not in the short-term. What you're going to see is a slooooow process of adoption that takes a decade to even really kick off. Gaming is a pretty advanced application of any technology, so it's going to be the trailing edge of how it's used. Or rather, games are going to fragment.

I think a lot of "old" and "dead" genres are going to make serious comebacks. Adventure "point and click" games have a lot to offer when you're in the world and "point and click" means "walk around and play with shit". For people who want to virtually fence, or play other sports, it's going to destroy traditional gaming eventually (who knows when though). For space combat and simulation, once again, it eats traditional gaming's lunch. I think RPG's and dating sims could enjoy a kind of split success depending on their core gameplay.

Shooters though, RTS, Fighting Games... just don't translate well. You need treadmills or some other new tech for shooters at the very least, and it's still a tough thing to make that work in a way that isn't motion-controlled PC gaming. RTS could work, but it's going to take time for programmers to understand how to make it work, and it has to accommodate a highly competitive international scene. Finally FG's... seems like a great fit, but is it really? It would fundamentally change what they are, into a sports simulation. I'm sure that's coming, but I'm also sure it will be a different genre.

Meanwhile people are going to realize that VR and AR are not just about porting old types of games onto a new "Screen". When matured, VR/AR can offer new kinds of games, and can emphasize new kinds of gameplay. What might have been dull through the 'window' of a screen and the interface of a controller or keyboard, might be fundamentally more interesting with VR/AR immersion. There is also going to be a huge learning curve for devs to figure out how to make any of this work in practice. If you make a game that the average person cannot PHYSICALLY PLAY for too long with motion controls, you're in trouble. It's not enough to just say "use a keyboard in VR", so we're going to need to re-think a lot of things.

That will take time; time to develop, time to what is developed to be tested by customers, re-developed, and finally broadly adopted. Probably the next 10 years could see the rise of VR and AR as powerful new technologies, but until the end of that 10 years, it will probably stay a plaything of techies with money.