Valve cares mostly about VR right now, they've been working closely on it for years now. Half-Life Alyx is basically the most important VR game so far. VR getting more popular = VR getting cheaper.
Affordable VR becoming a mainstream staple of media
The venture-capital bubble bursting, causing a cascading failure of finance accross the globe, made infinitely worse by an increasingly destabilizing climate and ecosystems.
Even now, playing VR is just as affordable as playing console games. $400 for the headset (Quest 2) plus the cost of the games. That excludes games like HL:A, but Oculus has its own line of exclusives.
Team Fortress on source 2
"Please give us a rehashing of an old experience instead of something totally new". Do you want another Star Wars movie to go with that?
I was kinda being hyperbolic for the sake of the joke. The potential of VR as an avenue for art is exciting. It's cool to see it becoming more and more accessible with time. Though, I think one of VR's big hurdles isn't just the (admittedly shrinking) consumer cost, but the developer cost. This is a system that takes exponentially more inputs than a traditional button & screen setup. That's a lot more dev work. Game engines require more work before you can get to actually alpha testing mechanics; that testing now takes far more time because you need to consider things like the player's orientation, playspace, height (and doubtless dozens more little wrinkles in the process). On top of that, you need a beefy rig run it on and, ideally, several different headsets for compatibility's sake.
These aren't insurmountable by any means, but prohibitive. However, if you pair that with the Greater Depression looming on the horizon... I'm not optimistic. I'm not pleased, either. It would be very cool to live in the timeline where we (maybe eventually) get third-rate Holodecks.
“Please give us a rehashing of an old experience instead of something totally new”
I just want my dumb cartoon game to run without 14 years of source jank :angry-hex:
This is something that has always been increasing as technology gets more advanced, even in games. But I understand what you're getting at, it's a big jump.
I just want my dumb cartoon game
lol, it's alright. I love a good remake too. I kinda fell out of TF2 but if they remade HL2 or something I'd be all over it.
In many ways, yeah. I find the sheer man-hours that go into a $60 game just... staggering. But in others, it's become much "cheaper" for developers. The absolute explosion in indy games over the last decade was amazing. A lot of that wouldn't be possible without easy to access tools like Unity.
Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but I can't see VR ever reaching a very broad market. It demands so much hardware to deliver an experience that can't be shared with others in meat space
On top of being incredibly prohibitive to disabled users. Like, games are just now starting to tackling accessibility, and now one of the largest monopolies, ahem, platforms is going all in on this tech.
So we can't create new experiences because disabled people can't use them? VR isn't a replacement for traditional games, disabled users will still have those to play.
it won't get more popular, simply because it's still practically speaking, a peripheral. And to be blunt about this, a peripheral that feels like it's going to be stuck in the enthusiast (e.g. the guy who spends upwards of $1,000 on computer/gaming equipment every couple years) realm forever.
Valve cares mostly about VR right now, they've been working closely on it for years now. Half-Life Alyx is basically the most important VR game so far. VR getting more popular = VR getting cheaper.
Starting a betting pool over which comes first:
Affordable VR becoming a mainstream staple of media
The venture-capital bubble bursting, causing a cascading failure of finance accross the globe, made infinitely worse by an increasingly destabilizing climate and ecosystems.
spoiler
VR is hauntology, put Team Fortress on source 2
Mainstream? No.
Affordable? Yes.
Even now, playing VR is just as affordable as playing console games. $400 for the headset (Quest 2) plus the cost of the games. That excludes games like HL:A, but Oculus has its own line of exclusives.
"Please give us a rehashing of an old experience instead of something totally new". Do you want another Star Wars movie to go with that?
I was kinda being hyperbolic for the sake of the joke. The potential of VR as an avenue for art is exciting. It's cool to see it becoming more and more accessible with time. Though, I think one of VR's big hurdles isn't just the (admittedly shrinking) consumer cost, but the developer cost. This is a system that takes exponentially more inputs than a traditional button & screen setup. That's a lot more dev work. Game engines require more work before you can get to actually alpha testing mechanics; that testing now takes far more time because you need to consider things like the player's orientation, playspace, height (and doubtless dozens more little wrinkles in the process). On top of that, you need a beefy rig run it on and, ideally, several different headsets for compatibility's sake.
These aren't insurmountable by any means, but prohibitive. However, if you pair that with the Greater Depression looming on the horizon... I'm not optimistic. I'm not pleased, either. It would be very cool to live in the timeline where we (maybe eventually) get third-rate Holodecks.
I just want my dumb cartoon game to run without 14 years of source jank :angry-hex:
This is something that has always been increasing as technology gets more advanced, even in games. But I understand what you're getting at, it's a big jump.
lol, it's alright. I love a good remake too. I kinda fell out of TF2 but if they remade HL2 or something I'd be all over it.
In many ways, yeah. I find the sheer man-hours that go into a $60 game just... staggering. But in others, it's become much "cheaper" for developers. The absolute explosion in indy games over the last decade was amazing. A lot of that wouldn't be possible without easy to access tools like Unity.
Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but I can't see VR ever reaching a very broad market. It demands so much hardware to deliver an experience that can't be shared with others in meat space
On top of being incredibly prohibitive to disabled users. Like, games are just now starting to tackling accessibility, and now one of the largest
monopolies, ahem, platforms is going all in on this tech.Great point
So we can't create new experiences because disabled people can't use them? VR isn't a replacement for traditional games, disabled users will still have those to play.
No, but it does further reduce the install base.
The quest 2 is $400 and requires no other hardware. That's the same as buying a console.
Of course Facebook sucks, but the broader market doesn't care about that.
$400 is a whole damn video game console. That's money a lot of people won't be willing to pay for what it is.
It basically is a whole damn video game console though, that's my point.
it won't get more popular, simply because it's still practically speaking, a peripheral. And to be blunt about this, a peripheral that feels like it's going to be stuck in the enthusiast (e.g. the guy who spends upwards of $1,000 on computer/gaming equipment every couple years) realm forever.