It always feels like some form of VR tech comes out with some sort of fanfare and with a promise it will take over the world, but it never does.
It always feels like some form of VR tech comes out with some sort of fanfare and with a promise it will take over the world, but it never does.
The shit with VR, specifically, is baffling to me. We have pretty good tech for it and yet nobody seems to know what to actually do with them. Hardware is at a good starting point, but the software is mostly bullshit.
I shit you not I know a University where they have AR (with haptic gloves, not just VR) headsets worth around 70k euro and nobody uses them.
A student watched porn in class on one of them though, so I guess the taxpayer investment was worth it…
Gaming. It has completely replaced flatscreen gaming for me. Playing FPS on a screen feels so ridiculous to me now.
The sad part is VR has excellent accessibility applications. I have a head-mounted magnifier that’s just a Samsung Gear headset and cheap phone with some gubbinz stuck on the side. (Let’s ignore the fact the magnifier costs $3000 when the components cost maybe $700-$K tops, but that’s assistive tech for ya). If VR really went mainstream It would help reduce the cost of the AT that relies on it.
Now if only we could find a mainstream market appeal for tiny piezoelectric crystals then braille displays could stop costing an arm and a leg.
VR has given us an incredible amount of funny videos where the user will decide to run full speed into a wall or something. That and “hoverboards” have kept America’s Funniest Home Videos on the air.
I remember setting up a VR og Skyrim with an old android and some infrared LEDs. It was pretty cool at first, but I couldn’t play more than an hour without some kinda discomfort. I’ve tried some of the newer guys, and aside from being much higher def, it’s largely the same thing. I don’t want or need it in my life.
Games designed specifically for VR are pretty cool. Conversions less so.
Yeah, I played super hot VR and it was a pretty cool experience, but that isn’t a sit and play for hours type game.
Edit: grammar
I really like VR gaming. If only they would develop better FOV to get rid of some “porthole effect” and drop in some screens that don’t have the screen-door resolution. I played Elite:Dangerous for years on VR and it’s totally worth it. If only there were a way to get first-person shooters working better it might take off.
because it doesn’t offer anyone any really value.
it’s massively inconvenient and expensive compared to non-vr versions.
i worked on a VR program 20 years ago. the same issues persist today as they did back then. it’s still bulky, uncomfortable, annoying, and way too many people get sick from using it for any prolonged period of time. if 50% of your users throw up after 5 minutes, you don’t have a viable product.
it’s only really good for short term novelty experiences. and that’s where it overwhelmingly gets used, always has, and always will.