We stand at the precipice of a new age: The age of the VR headset. Or at least that’s what the people making VR would love for you to believe.
From exciting previews to Facebook acquisitions, dramatic lawsuits and heartwarming stories, there’s no denying that virtual reality has become one of the main topics du jour. But are you guys true believers or are you sceptical? Whether or not you’ve tried VR for yourself, the people making it have had plenty of time by now to convince you (or fail to convince you) that it’s cool.
Only one way to decide: Reader poll. For this poll, “faith” means: Do you think VR will be a long-lasting, real thing? Will it be the sort of thing that everyone buys one day? Are we heading for Ready Player One, or is this all just so much hype and hogwash?
Vote away:
Comments
25 responses to “Do You Have Faith In VR?”
10 – it’s just a matter of time.
ugh… it’s not that i don’t have faith in it. It’s inevitable i guess. i just dont want to strap something to my face and switch off from the real world. I love gaming, I truly do. But i like being able to sit next to my brother while we play wow and throw jokes and insults at each other the whole time. Or crowd around the TV with an old console. I love the human interaction and i don’t ever want to lose that.
Picture yourself and your brother inside the game – talking and interacting in there, whilst GTA’ing it up…
It’s happening.
I have faith in Keanu.
If only he came with the headset. Woah.
That would be most excellent.
I have the rift dev kit and the first time i used it i just couldnt help but squeal with exitement. Sooo epic.
Me too.
But after the first month how often do you use it, and for how long at a time?
I still use daily. Im a tf2 junkie and having it in -vr mode makes play just as good.
The first thing I tried on my dev kit was the Marbles tech demo. Play that with Porcelain by Moby and you get one of the most incredible tech experiences of my life.
From what I have been lead to believe there are two types of people.
The one’s that know that Oculus (VR in general) will change the world, And those that haven’t tried it.
Personally I haven’t had the pleasure of a hands (or should that be head?) on yet, But from all the videos I have seen and the fact that this is still early days in the tech, How can it not be a game changer?
Lol, Johnny Mnemonic….
Was actually a pretty good movie with some interesting ideas – albeit B-Grade of course 😉
Do I have faith in VR? Sure, why not? There are plenty of sci-fi books, movies and shows that make a case for it.
Do I have faith in corporations not to completely screw it up with advertising and shovelling out cheap and pointless experiences that do nothing to demonstrate the usefulness of VR, thus running it into the ground and diminishing everyone’s opinion of it? Heck no.
i’d vote 11 if i could.. VR is going to open our to world to things we currently can’t even comprehend..
now if only we had a kick ass fibre optic based internet to help push this amazing virtual reality forward..
I don’t know what to think. History suggests it will fail but there is some argument to the inevitability of VR. More important I think is to ask other questions.
Why do so many people want to escape the real world? What’s wrong with reality? If VR becomes the new reality will the same real world problems manifest within it?
On a less philosophical note I have the occulus rift and have used it a few times. As a gamer and game developer I eventually decided I wasn’t much interested in it even if they improved it. In game studies there is a fallacy called the immersive fallacy. This idea many people hold that immersion is all about realistic visuals when in actual fact people can be just as if not more immersed in simple games like bejeweled and starcraft.
Many of the games I play and develop have a focus on mechanics and strategy. The rift doesn’t really enhance these kind of games and often makes them worse. The whole focus of the VR is about experience in a star trek holodeck type way more than it has to do with “gaming”.
Bring on the VR H/eroge ~
I believe in HarVR Dent.
I have no faith in VR whatsoever. It should have been left in the 90’s with the hypercolour shirts and Pogs.
I think this poll is ruined by its lack of definition. I bet the people picking 10 are thinking long term “it’s gonna happen” while the people choosing low numbers are thinking about it RIGHT NOW, which is completely different.
At this point in time? Not a single ounce.
I heard that VR already exists and you’re inside it right now. Yes, you. But you need to wake up now!
I think the development costs are going to be too high to deliver the sorts of experiences people are going to want long term.
Sure, in the first few months, the VR experience itself will be enough to keep people excited, like the way Wii Sports was enough to make motion gaming immense fun for a while. But once the novelty wears off, people will want the big immersive worlds that the tech effectively promises. The holo deck style experience. But that is going to be incredibly costly to deliver. People will want GTA sized games but with more interaction and richer worlds. Who is going to put the probably $100,000,000+ budgets into that?
On another note “johnny” was the first film I worked on. Using 3D Studio for DOS for gawds sake. MS-DOS!!!
Shows how long the promise of VR has been coming.
I have no doubt that VR will hit the mainstream eventually in some form. What I don’t think it will do is outright replace any of the current viewing options.