The Impact Factor: VR

Showing posts with label VR. Show all posts

Friday, February 3, 2017

The Impact Factor Ep. 91: End Transmission a.k.a. Groundhog Boys
Podcast
Welcome to the 91st episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about about the ZeniMax vs. Oculus lawsuit, Deus Ex going on hiatus, Resident Evil 7 sales, Namco, Nintendo, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, Shadowverse, The Last Guardian, and we flex our gamedev muscles to think up a PERFECT game.

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For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
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Intro song:

You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License)
Transitions:
News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License)
Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License)

Friday, December 2, 2016

The Impact Factor Ep. 83: AAA Games Are Dying?
Podcast
Welcome to the 83rd episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about about Marvel vs. Capcom 4, Steam Spy, 2016’s weak sales numbers, Ubisoft VR crossplay, No Man’s Sky, Stardew Valley, Battlefield, Black Friday shopping, SMITE, and what “AAA+” games mean for the future of the industry.

“Weak AAA launches are a precursor to an industry transition” by Rob Fahey

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For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
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Intro song:

Friday, October 21, 2016

News & Views

10/15/16-10/21/16

News & Views collects the week’s best writing about video games and compiles them into one convenient place. Check out the links below for stories about a level that took 300 hours to make, how consoles are compromising their ‘play now’ identity, a core failure of military shooter video games, and why is it is difficult to make a video game.

And of course please check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods, check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!

Spotlight

Why It's So Hard to Make a Video Game

Tina Amini, Waypoint

Worth Reading

The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker's dungeon design

Mark Brown, Boss Keys

Why 'Skyrim' Forever Remains in the Shadow of 'Morrowind'

Jim Trinca, Waypoint

Doom 2 modder spends 300 hours making a three-hour level

Jeffrey Matulef, Eurogamer

Why VR Is the Next Step for Walking Simulator Games

Matthew Walden, Rolling Stone

How Consoles Broke The 'Play Now' Promise

Jim Sterling, The Jimquisition

Skyrim modder creates mysterious potion and has no clue what it even does

Steven Messner, PC Gamer

Virtual war zones and the failure of the military shooter

Dan Hill, Kill Screen

The Art of Escape: What do we gain from giving inmates access to video games?

Ryan Bradley, Longreads

Friday, October 7, 2016

News & Views

10/1/16-10/7/16

Welcome to another week of News & Views! News & Views collects the best writing about video games I can find and compiles it all into one convenient place. Do your part to support great writers and thinkers by checking our their pieces! Check out the links below for stories about the necessity to play a game as piecemeal, how a bad ending can ruin an otherwise good game, and why it’s ok to make a game that isn’t revolutionary.

Spotlight

Street Fighter Has Become the World's Smallest Premier eSport, and That's OK

Gareth Dutton, VICE

Worth Reading

Play Kentucky Route Zero Now, Before It's Too Late

Dan Solberg, Kill Screen

The day jobs of eSports' biggest stars

Imad Khan, VICE Sports

Breaking Down my Favorite Boss Fights of all Time

Josh Bycer, Gamasutra

The cycles of violence in Bioshock: The Collection

Brent Ables, Kill Screen

PlayStation VR and the Confused State of Virtual Reality

Garrett Martin, Paste

When Good Games Make Bad Decisions About How to End

Patrick Klepek, VICE

Your idea may not be new, and that's OK

Stanislav Costiuc, Gamasutra

Life after console generations has one big upside

Oli Welsh, Eurogamer

The Impact Factor Ep. 75: Prime Time for PSVR?
Podcast
Welcome to the 75th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about Twitch Prime, PlayStation VR, Skyrim Remastered, Gravity Rush 2, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Nidhogg 2, For Honor, Overwatch, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, trying to separate art from its artist, and much more!

Join The Impact Factor’s Discord Channel: discord.gg/ptH8t6a
Add Alex on Discord: MegalodonPhD#3166
Add Fliss on Discord: FlissoftheNorthStar#9940

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For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter.

Intro song:

Friday, July 15, 2016

News & Views

7/9/16-7/15/16

As a surprise to absolutely no one, it turns out a full Ph.D. student lab workweek after a tropical vacation feels absolutely awful. But I made it through. I guess? Anyway, onto the goods.

News & Views collects the week’s best video game writing and puts it all into one convenient place. Check out the links below for tons of Pokemon GO think pieces, what creators need to think about when designing narrative in VR, and a spotlight on one of the world’s earliest MMOs.

Spotlight

Studio 360

Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker

Worth Reading

Videogames and the art of deception

Matt Sayer, Kill Screen

The perverse beauty of streaming the Democratic National Convention on Twitch

Justin Groot, Kill Screen

I hate Wizard Quest - finishing a simple game in 4 years

Andrzej Mazur, Gamsutra

Lucasfilm Games' forgotten 1986 online game is making a surprising return

Colin Lecher, The Verge

Gotta Catch 'Em All, Or At Least A Few: A Pokemon Neophyte Tries 'Pokemon GO'

Glen Weldon, NPR

With Comments

Pokemon Go Isn't Very Good but It Will Be Huge Anyway

Austin Walker, VICE

Walker puts into words a lot of what I’ve been thinking. Pokemon GO isn’t very good. That’s not to say it is a bad game, but it certainly isn’t a good one. Nor the game I think it could have been. But that’s all irrelevant. Pokemon GO has taken the world by storm in a way I never thought possible. As a game, Pokemon GO falls flat. As a cultural phenomenon, it’s deeply fascinating.

Pokemon Go shows that Nintendo's franchises are way bigger than its hardware

Andrew Webster, The Verge

A “no duh” article, but one that was worth writing. If you listen to the podcast, you’ll already know how I feel about Nintendo – they should stop making hardware and just release their games on other platforms. Pokemon GO shows that this would be more than financially viable for the company. People clearly don’t care about Nintendo hardware anymore (see the New 3DS or the Wii U), but people are absolutely crazy about their IP. It’s time to move on, Nintendo.

Friday, May 27, 2016

The Impact Factor Ep. 56: Xbox Teraflopped
Podcast
Welcome to the 56th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about E3 2016, Xbox Scorpio, No Man’s Sky delay, Supercell, Uncharted 4, Oculus VR, Prey 2, F2P whales, Overwatch, and much more!

“New insights into the spending patterns of whales” by Mark Robinson, Gamasutra

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For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:

www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:

Friday, April 8, 2016

The Impact Factor Ep. 49: The Burning Beard
Podcast
Welcome to the 49th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about Kingdom Hearts Unchained, EvE Online, Oculus, Vive, VR, DOOM, eSports, DOTA2, Baldur’s Gate, No Man’s Sky, Miitomo, Zootopia and much more!

“What do you do in No Man’s Sky and Other Questions”

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For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:

www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:

You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License)
freemusicarchive.org/music/Indonesi…s_Compilation/
Transitions:
News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License)
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148785/
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148784/
Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License)
freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/

Friday, March 25, 2016

The Impact Factor Ep. 47: Lightning Angel Is Bae
Podcast
Welcome to the 47th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about PlayStation 4.5 rumors, PSVR, eSports, Telltale, Batman, Hyper Light Drifter, Firewatch, Mass Effect, Clash Royale, Salt and Sanctuary and much more!

“Branching dialogue trees poorly serve narrative games, says GDC panel” by Colin Campbell

Subscribe to us on iTunes

YouTube page

For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:

www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Impact Factor Ep. 46: Half Bunny, Half Blob
Podcast
Welcome to the 46th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about GDC, PlayStation VR, Hearthstone, Xbox cross play, The Division, The Witcher 3, No Man’s Sky, Orbital, Broforce and much more!

Subscribe to us on iTunes

YouTube page

For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:

www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:

Friday, March 11, 2016

News & Views

3/5/16-3/11/16

News & Views is your weekly dose of great articles, opinions, editorials & more all about video games! Check out the links below for stories about the long journey to making PlayStation VR a reality, the four years of ‘crunch’ that was built into Stardew Valley’s development, and dealing with digital arachnophobia.

Spotlight

The Making of PlayStation VR

Matt Leone, Polygon

Worth Reading

Digging a Little Deeper: Dwarf Fortress, Fantasy Tropes, and World Building

Gita Jackson, Giantbomb

The 4 years of self-imposed crunch that went into Stardew Valley

Chris Baker, Gamasutra

What can player profiling tell us about games?

Keith Stuart, Eurogamer

The Women That Make Japan's Games Industry Great

Andy Lee Chaisiri, Art-Eater

So what about the men?: A deeper look at Firewatch and Catherine

Katherine Cross, Gamasutra

With Comments

The Ugly New Front In The Neverending Video Game Culture War

Patrick Klepek, Kotaku

Disgusting. The article is a must read. The effort that goes into digging up obscure things from a person’s past to use against them is horrible. Starting campaigns to get people fired is terrifying. Seriously, read this and be aware of what’s happening in some of the darker corners of the games space.

Why 'The Last of Us' Was the Greatest Game of the Last Console Generation

Gavin McHendry, Vice

BEWARE SPOILERS. I can’t say I disagree. McHendry does a good job at explaining why exactly The Last of Us is so resonant, and so amazing. Above all, the author notes that TLoU is unparalleled in its understanding of what it means to be human. I’d argue the game is unparalleled among games, and less so other forms of media, but still it is quite the accomplishment.

Digital Arachnophobia

David Shimomura, Unwinnable

Dealing with a representation of your phobia in a video game is something I’ve always been curious about. How would someone with acrophobia handle playing a game like Mirror’s Edge? Or, as the author of this article writes about, how would someone with crippling arachnophobia deal with the hundreds of spiders in Skyrim? A couple ways, it turns out. Who would have thought squinting could be used in such an advantageous way?

Friday, March 4, 2016

News & Views

2/27/16-3/4/16

A gloomy, rainy day marks the end of a week that felt far too long. It’s finally the weekend! There’s no better way to slip into the comfort of the weekend than with a compilation of the week’s best video game writing!

News & Views has the week’s most interesting gaming stories, all in one convenient place. Check out the links below for stories about how parents should handle VR violence, the monotony of video game romance, how to get procedural generation right, and a look into the mind of a devious Nintendo hacker.

Spotlight

The Ruin Of Minecraft's Most Obscene Server

Brendan Caldwell, Rock Paper Shotgun

Worth Reading

The Cell Phone Problem

Chris Pruett, Dream Dawn

Heritage In Subtitles: Answering the Question of Arab-American Identity

Amr Al-Aaser, Harlot

How should parents treat violence in virtual reality?

Ben Kuchera, Polygon

Firewatch: how games are getting inside the heads of their characters

Keith Stuart, The Guardian

Procedural Snake Eyes

Michael Cook, Rogue Process

With Comments

How Firewatch Illustrates The Tragedy Of Inconvenient Love

Holly Green, Paste

A few days following Firewatch’s release the internet flooded with an overwhelming disappointment in the game’s ending. That disappointment, in my interpretation, stemmed largely from the unfulfilled romance between the Firewatch’s central characters. I found the ‘resolution’ to their courtship inherently satisfying, largely because the game made the bold decision to have no real closure. Holly Green’s piece about Firewatch’s inconvenient love is a good one, echoing many of my own thoughts.

'Morality Holds Progress Back': Inside The World of Nintendo Hackers

Patrick Klepek, Kotaku

What a strange story. Not strange in that people would want to hack Nintendo game, but the way in which the hacker approaches his craft. To focus predominantly on ‘ruining’ the online experience for others comes across as pretty jerky, but the ways in which he is tweaking and modifying Nintendo’s online experiences is fascinating. Nintendo is notoriously protective of their properties, so if nothing else, the fact that the hacker seems relatively unfettered in his endeavors is worth writing about.

Virtual Pick-Up Artists: The Monotonous Sex Life of Videogames

Imran Khan, Paste

Yeah, sex life and romance in games is pretty bad. Ok, that was probably not harsh enough. It’s really bad. Especially in BioWare games, I feel like my romance is all just trying to say the right things to the right people (usually utilizing as cheesy and blatantly ‘have sex with me’ lines as possible). It would be great to see AAA games do more with this relatively unexplored design space.

Behind the scenes at the Indies Workshop, the $250-a-month office for indie developers

Ben Kuchera, Polygon

As the indie scene continues to expand at a rapid rate, services need to spring up to accommodate new demands. Kuchera profiles one such service: a cheap, rentable office space for burgeoning independent game developers. Very cool. Let’s hope other entrepreneurs in other cities take note.

Friday, February 26, 2016

The Impact Factor Ep. 43: Tatsumaking Me Angry
Podcast
Welcome to the 43rd episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about The Division, Destiny, HTC Vive, VR, Twitch chat, Battleborn, Bethesda, Uncharted 4, Crypt of the NecroDancer, Street Fighter V, Survivor & much more!

Subscribe to us on iTunes

YouTube page

For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:

www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:

Friday, February 19, 2016

The Impact Factor Ep. 42: Twitter Beef Wellington
Podcast

Welcome to the 42nd episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!

Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about Street Fighter V, Ubisoft, Watch Dogs 2, Knights and Bikes, Hideo Kojima, Fallout 4, PS VR, Kanye West, Twitch, Tomb of the Mask, Firewatch & much more!

“What not to do when promoting your game on Twitch” by Ryan Sligh

TIF’s Firewatch Review

Subscribe to us on iTunes

YouTube page

For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:

www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Virtual Reality and the Steep Cost of an Over-Promised Future

Article

Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) may not be the future it has promised to be. Not on a technical level, but on an availability and accessibility one. Despite my newfound enthusiasm for VR, I remain skeptical for the future of the technology. An unhealthy hype cycle and misinformation about pricing created an unfounded hope for VR as consumer-friendly product. 2016 VR devices look to only for a hyper small niche of people, which makes me fear for VR and game developers alike. VR will make its mark in 2016. Let’s just hope it is a good one.

2016 is the year of virtual reality according to, well, everyone. I want to start this article the only way I know how. And that’s by telling you that, despite what the article below might sound like, I’m excited for virtual reality (VR). Really excited. My skepticism was converted to enthusiasm at the PlayStation Experience (PSX) in December of last year. My fiancée and I were able to book two appointments to PSX’s PlayStation (PS) VR demo area, one for each of the days we were at the event. Though Rez Infinite left me hesitant, the exceptional Job Simulator opened my eyes to how wholly different VR is from any gaming experience I’ve had before. After we took off our headsets from the Job Simulator demo we looked at each other and nodded—PS VR would be something that, price permitting, the two of us wanted in our household. VR is exciting. VR is really unlike anything you’ve seen before. And yet, I’m still here writing this.

All of the promise of VR, in one neat little gif.

If you have been following the gaming industry for any time at all, you’ll know just how much VR is discussed. It’s quite a bit. For years now we’ve heard promises of our simulated futures. A future in which you are transported to new worlds, so compelling a facsimile of reality that your brain is deceived into filling in the missing pieces, further selling the illusion of presence. The hype cycle surrounding VR has been loud, and strong, for half a decade. VR manufacturers, VR software makers, and games pundits alike rushed to their pulpits to decry the virtues of this new, most world changing, technology to date. It’s easy to see why the product was so easy to hype, too. VR has been a mainstay in science fiction for decades. VR seemingly delivers on a promise our collective imagination has had since we had cognition. At this point in the technology’s life, it’s hard to say how well it will live up to its lofty promises. I was certainly taken somewhere while playing Job Simulator, but I was also keenly aware I had a clunky headset on, was holding a PS4 controller, and was looking at simulated images. This article isn’t here to speculate on how well modern VR technology will actually work, though. This article is about how VR was hyped; how it was ‘sold’ to consumers. And how we were deceived.

The technology is still clunky, but it has me excited. What I can't get
behind is how VR has been talked about.

What is the deception at the heart of VR’s over-promised future? That VR will be for anyone. Far from it. This introduction to new VR will be only for the hardest of core, the spendthriftiest of spendthrifts. Nothing any VR developer, manufacturer, or mouthpiece has said to the contrary can be taken seriously. This started back in August 2012 when the ‘Oculus Rift’ announced its first Kickstarter. For a mere $300 pledge, you could get your hands on a functional dev kit version of the headset. The PC requirements to run the headset were always on the high end, but this pricing structure had my interest piqued. $300 is something I happily spend on new consoles. For a VR headset the price seemed more than fair. Facebook’s purchase of Oculus in March 2014 threw gas on the growing VR-excitement fire (and by association, VR-as-widespread-consumer-product fire). Facebook is a company that appeals to essentially everyone. It’s a site, and a service, is transcends age, socio-economic status, interests, etc. The way it was discussed, Facebook’s purchase of Oculus meant that one of the biggest companies in the world not only thought VR worked, but was also worth funding. A company as large as Facebook wouldn’t invest this kind of money and energy into a product that at best will be in the hands of a few thousand of gaming’s most devoted enthusiasts, right? This buyout meant that Oculus could have the support it needed to make the best VR headset possible, and have the resources to get a VR headset into the hands of everyone who wanted it.

I had remained skeptical, up to that point. No way is this high-powered VR headset that requires an even higher-powered PC making it into the hands of Joe Nebraska or Jane Oregon. No way. Yet no one was trying to put out the aforementioned VR-excitement fires. Then in September 2015 Oculus head Palmer Luckey was asked if his VR headset would be priced around $350, a number that had been tossed around by the company in the years prior. Luckey responded, “We’re roughly in that ballpark.” Luckey would go onto say that the headset would likely cost more than that ($350), but his “ballpark” quote still stood. I felt confident after this that VR would cost around $400. A price that, while high, was not totally unreasonable. A price I suspected would be ‘justifiable’ to most of those interested in experiencing VR. As we found out a couple months later in January 2016, though, Luckey has a pretty large ballpark. The Oculus would launch at $600.

Maybe not.

I’m sure $600 may not seem like a lot to some people. To me, however, this was the final nail in the VR as general consumer product coffin. From its earliest embryonic stages through today, VR has faced a slew of hurdles in its attempt at mass appeal. For starters, VR is a new technology that is not only difficult to describe (‘it feels like you’re there!’) but is also impossible to demo. In the years since its announcement, there have been shockingly few VR demos on stages at press conferences and trade events. The answer to “why” is quite simple: demos cannot replicate the experience of being inside a VR headset. Looking at a 2D screen loses the depth and sense of presence you feel with the headset on. It pretty much looks like any other game. The only way to sell the technology, other than lofty promises, is to get the headsets onto consumers. That hasn’t (really) happened. As someone intrigued by VR who actively sought chances to demo, it still took me until PSX 2015 to get one on my face. I even attended Game Developer's Conference (GDC) 2015 and unless you had a reservation (press & devs only), you had little chance to try out the tech. But the challenges don’t stop there. The cost to run Oculus far exceeds the headset’s $600 price tag. Building a PC that has the power to run VR will cost you $1200--$1500. So now it’s roughly $2000 to get into VR. That’s more than most people pay for monthly rent.

VR's clear challenges make me scratch my head, too.

So what are we left with? At best, a highly vocal minority that advocate for the technology. People will buy the first generation of VR. I’m sure many of those will enjoy the headset. But is that enough? One of my more minor worries is that those who buy in will feel the burn of being an early adopter. Early adopters getting punished is certainly nothing new to tech, but I suspect VR could elicit a particularly strong pushback. I imagine it’s hard to temper your expectations when you invest ~$2000 for something that has been sold as THE FUTURE (of gaming? Of entertainment? Of the world?! It’s unclear). If these vocal minority fall on the side of disliking the product, it could mean very bad news.

What worries me more as a gaming enthusiast, though, is that this barrier to entry to VR is already enough to torpedo its future. VR is nothing without the experiences you have on it. If only a few thousand people own a VR headset, what is the financial incentive to develop games for the device? Are software developers going to be able to make their money back? Even if the attach rate (the number of games, on average, each owner of the device purchases) is high, and I suspect it will be, will there simply be enough VR owners to make it worth it? A recent survey of game developers by GDC indicated interest in developing for VR is at an all time high, but the survey was taken before the first VR headset announced its price. Will this change things? I suspect it might. A quick glance at any VR enthusiast forum or website around the time of Oculus’s pricing told a grim story. Even the most devoted VR fanatics were angry at the price. Many said they would be holding off on their purchase. I hope for the best for VR developers, but it is unclear to me if that hope is naïve.

I do not believe all hope is lost for a consumer-friendly VR headset, however. The HTC Vive VR headset announced a pre-order date of February 29^th, but has yet to release a price. All predictions cite that the device will cost as much or more than the Oculus, however, given the extra features the Vive offers. Bummer. You have Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear, but running VR off the comparatively small processing power of a smartphone limits the kinds of experiences you can have. And then there is Sony’s PS VR. We’ve yet to hear a pre-order or release date, or price, but its ties to console gives me some hope. Bundles excluded, a PS4 should never cost you more than $400. The same cannot be said for a PC, where the price range is huge. I find it hard to imagine (though I expect I may be proven wrong yet again), that Sony would sell an accessory for the PS4 that costs much more than the console itself. (I’m only calling it an ‘accessory’ here because PS VR cannot run without a PS4.) The PS4 is one of the best selling consoles of all time with nearly 36 million units sold through as of December 2015. If Sony can release a VR device that costs roughly the same as the PS4, we may finally see a consumer-friendly VR headset. Finally, there’s still hope for the second generation of VR headsets. Assuming the VR ecosystem hasn’t already collapsed by that point.

The last great hope for a powerful consumer-friendly VR headset? Who knows.

And that’s where we stand. Despite how it might have read, I’m a believer in VR. I’m excited to buy PS VR, for the right price. But I’m worried. I’m more than a little scared for the hundreds of VR game developers out there, too. I wonder if the first wave of this VR generation will 'hurt' the VR industry like Nintendo's Virtual Boy did back in the 90's. How precarious is VR? The technical, graphical, immersive promise of VR is more real than ever, but we still seem so far away from it being anything other than an experience for a small niche of people. Here’s to hoping 2016 is not only the “year of VR”, but also a great year for VR. It’s got its work cut out.

At least nothing is as bad as the Virtual Boy. Right?