Why virtual reality makes a lot of us sick, and what we can do about it.
People get very stuck on this part, and I genuinely don’t think it’s the issue.
Look, l have very decent “VR legs” at this point, but I’m still not a likely spender and I don’t play long games in VR or crack out my headsets very often at all.
The issue is not motion sickness or space or tracking stations. The issue is having to put something on my face and not being comfortably on my couch, free to go pee or get a snack without removing a thing from my face.
And yeah, it’s uncomfortable. That’s part of it. A version of it that looks and feels like glasses would be less of a problem. But the thing is, those aren’t a thing that exists, they are not even an incremental step that we can get to at any point, and also TVs and monitors look just fine.
VR is a neat trick, and I gladly keep my headsets around for any time when something actually interesting pops up. But it was never going to be the next big thing.
VR continues to make more sense as an arcade-like attraction than as a consumer product.
Except for the part where I would have to wear a headset that 5000 other people have also worn. (And except for the VR sickness that, it turns out, I’m very sensitive to).
Having gone to a VR gaming business (the kind where you book a time slot, not an open arcade) I wasn’t impressed. The hardware isn’t really rugged enough for that kind of commercial use, so it was clear they were struggling to keep the gear in decent condition.
But besides that, the limited time nature of the setup meant that the game options needed to be significantly dumbed down so that anyone could pick it up in a few minutes. And there isn’t enough of a demand to create any interesting experiences, most of what was on offer was neutered VR games I’d already tried on my personal VR setup.
COVID killed The Void, that was the one company that was building high end VR-arcades. Everything else so far looks quite lackluster, just using just regular consumer VR headsets and uninteresting mini-games. VR arcades are also expensive and with $300 headsets around, you might as well just buy one yourself instead of wasting money at the arcade.
It makes a bit of sense for that, and there are HMDs built for that purpose that are… eh… less gross? I guess?
But mostly it’s a secondary device. A toy you keep on the side and pop out for parties or when something reignites the novelty.
VR is Guitar Hero. Does that make sense? I think that makes sense.
I’m in a similar boat. The use case where I really would use it regularly, simming, is hamstrung by two things. One, it’s so damn fiddly and laborious doing settings non stop to make it playable, and two, even if I get the settings right—I start noticing weird crap with my eyes after a couple sessions. Like you end up basically crossing your eyes all the time inside the visor, and I’ll notice fatigue/trouble focusing after using it a lot, what I would imagine it feels like to have a bad prescription or something (don’t personally have glasses).
And as you say, it’s bloody uncomfortable. Something like big screen beyond with good AR/passthrough would go a long way to fixing that I guess.
free to go pee
That’s solvable with good pass through, I am speaking from experience. It’s kind of surprising how little focus that aspect got, even most modern headsets still lack proper stereo-correct passthrough and instead just fudge something together via tracking cameras (e.g. Pico4 looks like a butchered photogrammetry scan due to having only a single RGB camera).
With Apple VisionPro that will hopefully change and motivate the rest of the industry to catch up.
A version of it that looks and feels like glasses would be less of a problem.
BigScreenBeyond gets pretty close (but no passthrough at all). Some AR headsets like Xreal Air get even closer, though those come with tiny FOV.
Bigscreen Beyond is a new vr headset that is a little bigger than pool goggles. It’s manufactured based off of a lidar scan of your face, and is supposed to be very comfortable.
Additionally full color passthrough is becoming more of a common feature so you can see the real world in good definition while wearing the headset. Also some models hinge the display upwards off of your face.
We are getting there. Personally I play for hours a day. Sometimes multiple 4 hour sessions if it’s a free weekend for me. I agree we need more experiences. But it will come.
See? No, this is what I mean. It’s not this. It’s not even Apples insane thing.
It’s not an incremental progression that will take us there. I will not pop out a headset of any kind and put it on my face as my default mode of engagement. Won’t happen. Not a thing.
It could be shaped like pool goggles, it could have color passthrough, it could have perfect resolution and field of view, it could solve the nausea problem, it won’t matter. Because the reality is that anything that straps to my face and substitutes my normal free field of view is by definition and by design a secondary device.
It’s cool that you like what they offer, and hey, unlike the weird people out there mourning Stadia you can still use all of these things.
But a replacement for PCs, TVs or consoles they are not.
Oh. It’s just that you listed these reasons as detractors. I don’t really know what you mean by default engagement. I’m not understanding your use case. Do you expect to be wearing VR goggles while you walk down the street to the convenience store? They are for play right now… not so much work.
Yeah I’ve been interested in replacing my index eventually, this headset looks pretty promising:
https://store.bigscreenvr.com/products/bigscreen-beyond
Each one is custom to your face, and it’s extremely light. I’m sure the future will bring more headsets like this
Summed up my feelings 100%. I love VR and almost every experience I’ve had with it have been great, but I’ve touched my Index probably 5 times in the past two years (and probably 3 of them were to watch VR porn). There’s just a big setup and time commitment required to VR game that a lot of people don’t have time for.
