VR can’t blame its modest adoption rate squarely on
the coronavirus pandemic, though. Manufacturers were
failing to meet consumer demand consistently since the
Oculus Rift first released on March 28, 2016. Oculus
apologised to customers on April 4, a week later, that due
to a component shortage it would be delaying shipments.
Users reported having their preorders cancelled, or not
being able to place an order at all. For its part, HTC followed
suit with a very similar preorder experience, temporarily
suspending its site in a bid, many believed, to keep the
waiting list manageable.
That had a knock-on effect on
developers, who have remained
suspicious about developing for a
platform with such specific
requirements, a minuscule userbase,
and a massive financial buy-in. Six
years since Oculus Rift launched, what
are VR’s killer apps? Half-Life Alyx is a
stupendous experience that speaks to
all the platform’s unique and transformative properties, but
it exists in a field of one. Only Valve is rich enough, and by
virtue of also being a platform holder, committed enough to
make such a game. Even Sony hasn’t gone as big – Dreams
is the biggest first-party title under PSVR’s banner. With all
the respect in the world to that title, Valve released a
Half-Life game for VR.
A FISTFUL OF HEADSETS
Is it as simple as a standoff between developers and
consumers, each waiting for the other to incentivise their
investment? Well, picture yourself as a studio head in 2022.
There are three billion gamers on Earth. 1.8 billion of them play
on PCs of some description. Just under 700 million play on
consoles. Develop a game for one, and you can reasonably
easily port it to the other. And then there’s VR. Statista has the
total number of VR headsets at 16.4 million. In order to
produce a game for them, you’d need to work in a totally new
way, on a platform hardly any developers have experience of.
Which platforms do you pick for your next game?
And yet it has given us wonderful experiences. Euro
Tr u c k S i m is a zen garden of autobahn bliss. The
aforementioned Alyx gives us Half-Life 3 by another name.
Indies like Keep Talking and Nobody
Explodes show its vast potential, and
even passable ports like Skyrim VR
show us what our familiar franchises
could be like, if VR really took hold.
And Mark Zuckerberg still believes it
will. Even though Reality Labs (nee
Oculus) operates at a yearly loss of
over $10 billion, Meta’s vision of the
future places VR at the absolute
epicentre. It’s where we’ll live our entire lives, socialise,
buy stuff, play, and work, Zuckerberg reckons.
Even after six years, the hurdles VR faces, as both a
gaming platform and a dehumanising and alienating
dystopia, are the same as they ever were. Scarcity of
product. High pricing. Few enticing titles. The necessity for a
decent-sized area of your house cordoned off specifically for
use as a VR space. The closest anyone has come to
addressing those massive issues is ditching the cables on
the Oculus Quest. While Meta plots our ensnarement in its
’verse forever, as gamers we’re still waiting for developers
and platform holders to blink first.
Phil IwaniukGOGGLE BOX The big players in PC VR in 2022
HP REVERB G2 £550
The huge 4320x2160 resolution rivals
the Vive, but HP’s offering doesn’t quite
have the FOV.OCULUS QUEST 2 £300
Popular on the grounds of its
affordability and convenience, it’s also
one of the quickest to set up.VALVE INDEX £920
The big boy. It’s the priciest, but it does
feel the most premium of the lot of them
to make up for it.HTC VIVE PRO 2 £720
Massive FOV, massive resolution, 120Hz
refresh rate. It runs a bit hot during
longer sessions, though.FAR LEFT: (^) Half-Life
Alyx brings us closer
to a treasured virtual
space than traditional
games ever have.
LEFT: (^) Well they’d
already put Skyrim on
everything else, VR
only made sense.
VR CAN’T BLAME ITS
MODEST ADOPTION
RATE SQUARELY ON
THE PANDEMIC
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