Is VR going to die because of no software?

[manux]

I'm happy the foo show got funded via kickstarter. The free episode in steam/oculus store is interesting and it is much more immersive than regular podcasts.

To make The FOO Show, we've built tools and infrastructure for VR that mimics a live television studio. Our tools let creators front-load the hard work of making 3D-rendered VR so that they can record and release shows quickly, without the need for much post-production, just like a TV studio.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/willsmith/go-inside-your-favorite-video-games-with-the-foo-s

 

[orangpelupa]

A good software launch? Most of the titles on PSVR (Vive and Rift as well) are glorified tech demos with very little game play.

Psvr is weird. In one extreme good case, they have resident evil 7 vr demo that feels like a full game.

In other extreme bad case, they have summer lesson that sold "touching" as DLC because that main game doesn't have any hand interactions at all. They do add some new gameplay elements to the games as free updates tho.

 

[eastmen]

For both vive and rift users with touch I can't recommend rec room enough. The mini game esp paintball are so much fun. I just lost 3 hours to the game. I said i'm going to bed after a quick round and nope 3 hours later and I just took the helmet off

 

[eastmen]

For those who like pinball in vr this could be a wortwhile building project... Seems like good fun

Oculus medium. pretty cool

http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/569647-how-build-pinsim-virtual-reality-pinball-machine/

Its really awesome how he built it. I might give it a whirl this summer

 

[hughJ]

For both vive and rift users with touch I can't recommend rec room enough. The mini game esp paintball are so much fun. I just lost 3 hours to the game. I said i'm going to bed after a quick round and nope 3 hours later and I just took the helmet off

Yeah, I just played something like 5 rounds of frisbee golf. Makes me wish I had a 12 foot ceiling as playing catch with other people or yourself makes you want to leap and pluck flying things out of the air.

 

[manux]

Accounting is ridiculously funny or highly offensive... I laughed my ass off and it's free

http://store.steampowered.com/app/518580

 

[manux]

Daily news, doesn't look to me like vr will die any time soon

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally put some numbers onto these ongoing efforts when he revealed that his company had spent $250 million on VR content with a plan to spend at least that much over again in the coming years

“In 2006, a world class Triple A game cost 10-20 million to produce now they’ll cost up to 100 million. It’s become so expensive and so risky that only massive publishers can really afford to put these kinds of games out,” Sweeney said. “Oculus has been willing to fund third party software that’s exclusive to their hardware. That’s a perfectly acceptable way to jump start an industry…For example, Oculus is funding Robo Recall which has a budget that’s close to the budget of the entire first Gears of War game.”

http://uploadvr.com/robo-recall-gears-of-war-oculus/

Kojima thinks current vr titles are doing it wrong. Says he would like to do it right

http://uploadvr.com/hideo-kojima-thinks-people-vr-wrong-wont-say-right/

We’ve seen a lot of experimentation in the realm of VR storytelling, from 360-degree videos, to interactive stories, to games, and everything else. But the real special sauce is when storytellers can tap into what truly makes VR so unique and expound upon that, rather than adapting existing mediums to a new format.

"I have learned that with all my 20+ years of experience in games, movies, and comics, I am still not anywhere near close to having the answer to what VR will be like in the next 3-4 years,” says Cantamessa. “The conversation is just starting. For me, its like looking at all the different experiences people have made and learning from those. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants to look ahead to see what’s coming in the future.”

http://uploadvr.com/red-dead-designer-vr/

Market researcher SuperData scaled back its virtual reality forecast for 2016, particularly after a disappointing launch of the PlayStation VR headsets. But it still believes that consumer VR software could grow from $407 million in revenue in 2016 to $14 billion by 2020.

"[Game makers] won’t make a profit for now,” Llamas said. “To break even is already incredibly difficult. This is to prepare you for a couple of years and make sacrifices at the start. But there are so many great returns later on. You have to learn what is the value proposition. How much are you willing to put into it? There’s so much excitement around VR. But we need to be careful. We need to tread lightly. A lot of money is being invested. It’s still a ways off from mass consumption. But this is the time when you can become the key holders of the consumer. You have to experiment and do research and become the best VR stakeholder.”

http://uploadvr.com/analyst-vr-forecast-2020/

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Still unconvinced. Robo Recall is getting the investment of a AAA title from 2006, not 2016. That is, 1/5 - 1/10th the money that a modern AAA title requires (from the above figures). $250million spent by Facebook over the coming years. How much is that per year? $50 million? So the experiences are going to be smaller scale. How many new titles from Occulus per year can we expect? 1 a month?

Investment will be minimal. Content will be minimal, probably reducing to 'experiences' like the newly announced Perfect. The excitement still reminds me of the likes of Kinect. People are enthsuiastic, but the reasons to spend and keep spending seem questionable. And importantly, as devs are told "to break even is already incredibly difficult", who's going to target VR?! You'll have experiments from the major publishers who can afford to dabble. The indie scene will likely dry up. The reasons to buy into VR won't be games.

I think the situation is barely different from any other new platform launch. It takes a while before the install base is large enough for especially smaller titles and studios to be profitable.

How many new console platforms would survive on ~$100 million software investment over a year?

All the advocates here are arguing 'future' and 'experience' - none of you are particular arguing 'business' which is what determines whether a product/concept lives or dies. And with this first data, we learn that the investment from the big VR companies probably isn't all that much, and software won't be profitable. How does one then argue that the VR scene will grow over the coming years as software drives adoption? Where's that software going to come from? Billionaires just wanting to have fun with VR who don't care about making money back?

 

[Sigfried1977]

When were people ever really excited for Kinect? It was within days of release that people began to see it for what it really was: a solution to a non-existent problem. Sure, it sold well. But unless it was for some fitness or dancing game, people abandoned it right away. The VR crowd on the other hand seems to remain utterly enthused. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect VR mass market penetration anytime soon either, but as early as spring 2017 we're already getting big name titles such Resident Evil and Ace Combat. Sure, these aren't entirely built for VR, but who the hell cares. Besides, in terms of quality, PSVR had the entire Kinect library beat on day1.

I actually rather enjoyed the fact that many of the VR games were a bit smaller in scope so far. It has resulted in awesome stuff like Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, Windlands, Rez and Thumper.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

When were people ever really excited for Kinect?

Kinect 'fastest selling device on record'. You don't get massive, quick sales without excitement!

It was within days of release that people began to see it for what it really was: a solution to a non-existent problem. Sure, it sold well. But unless it was for some fitness or dancing game, people abandoned it right away.

Untrue.

After three years with releases between 141 and 146 titles, the Xbox 360 saw its release slate jump by 40 titles to 186 titles in 2011. That's the first full calendar year in which Kinect was on the market.

Were those 40 additional titles truly related to Kinect? You bet they were. In 2011 alone, there were 53 new retail titles that required Kinect, up from 14 launch titles that required Kinect in 2010. On top of those 53 you can add nine more titles in 2011 that included Kinect support.

Perhaps this is one fact makes the point best: One out of every three Xbox 360 games released in 2011 were Kinect-enabled.

Explosive growth followed by solid, constant growth for two years. It was not abandoned within days. People saw friend's Kinects, enjoyed them, and bought their own, much like Wii.

The VR crowd on the other hand seems to remain utterly enthused.

I haven't said they're not! I repeat -

"All the advocates here are arguing 'future' and 'experience' - none of you are particular arguing 'business' which is what determines whether a product/concept lives or dies."

You're also not arguing the business side of VR. VR enthusiasts love VR. Great! They'll love VR forever. Awesome! Who's going to pay for VR? Who's going to fund the software that these enthusiasts want to play? The present market cannot support the software needed for it financially. The investment needed for software has to come from big investors willing to lose big. Those investors apparently aren't investing all that much. Again, this isn't about whether people like VR more than Wii and Kinect and anything else. It's about whether the platform can be self sustaining, or will be sustained long enough to become self sustaining.

But I'll question your argument about VR owners/using being more attached to the devices than Kinect and Move and Wii owners. London-boy isn't playing anything on his PSVR. There are dozens of titles, but he's not enthused. He's not alone. We'd need decent stats to prove VR owners are notably more invested in VR or not.

 

[manux]

Grumpy old men and their not understanding what young are up to. Not even wanting try out.

VR is awesome, fun and solved for thing like tracking. It's not like kinect where one goes oh, this could be awesome but the limited resolution, tracking, lag,... makes the experience shallow and not very immersive.

The thing about vr is that it's near impossible to understand without trying. And I mean trying oculus/vive in roomscale not some gearvr/daydream shadow of the greatness solution.

It's smart to finance many smaller things as vr is largely new media that is not well understood. It allows for new experiences and mechanics that have not yet been implemented in large scale.

 

[idsn6]

Still unconvinced. Robo Recall is getting the investment of a AAA title from 2006, not 2016. That is, 1/5 - 1/10th the money that a modern AAA title requires (from the above figures). $250million spent by Facebook over the coming years. How much is that per year? $50 million? So the experiences are going to be smaller scale. How many new titles from Occulus per year can we expect? 1 a month?

Investment will be minimal. Content will be minimal, probably reducing to 'experiences' like the newly announced Perfect. The excitement still reminds me of the likes of Kinect. People are enthsuiastic, but the reasons to spend and keep spending seem questionable. And importantly, as devs are told "to break even is already incredibly difficult", who's going to target VR?! You'll have experiments from the major publishers who can afford to dabble. The indie scene will likely dry up. The reasons to buy into VR won't be games.

How many new console platforms would survive on ~$100 million software investment over a year?

All the advocates here are arguing 'future' and 'experience' - none of you are particular arguing 'business' which is what determines whether a product/concept lives or dies. And with this first data, we learn that the investment from the big VR companies probably isn't all that much, and software won't be profitable. How does one then argue that the VR scene will grow over the coming years as software drives adoption? Where's that software going to come from? Billionaires just wanting to have fun with VR who don't care about making money back?

I argued business. To draw a comparison, the App Store was introduced in 2008 with just a $100 million VC "iFund" from Kleiner Perkins. In the nearly nine years since then, there has not been a single original game or application in the Store with the investment of a AAA title. It is widely known that most developers and apps will never break even. By your measures, why would anybody develop for iOS/Android?

Obviously there are beyond drastic differences as well; I would never suggest that VR will ever approach smartphone numbers. I would also not call the app store ecosystem particularly healthy. It is, however, populous and popular, and it is so without the need for outsized spending on tentpole blockbuster games.

I made a distinction earlier that VR is a medium, not a platform. Measuring its progress solely by the metrics of a traditional console launch may not be an insightful approach. The growth of VR will likely vector through uncharted territory.

 

[Arwin]

VR certainly had the potential to become like TV eventually. But it will take time. As mentioned before, the way forward is a little slower, as people have to try it themselves. Eventually though you are going to be able to meet each other in the top of the Eiffel Tower or on the edge of a volcano, or on Starship Enterprise, Mars, the Moon or wherever and talk, goof off, be in a movie or play a game, watch a concert or theater play from an angle of your choosing, a football match, etc. Just a matter of time.

In the short term, we need games like MineCraft (VR support on some PC devices) or Lego Worlds (out in Feb, no VR support announced yet), etc. sure, that will definitely drive sales. But things are happening now. And building on Kinect, Move, 3D etc.

 

[manux]

MGM, once one of the largest film studios in the world, is certainly a significant name to have in your corner for funding so it’s no surprise they pulled in such an amount. MGM CEO Gary Barber will also be joining the Survios board, so this is just the beginning of a potentially very fruitful relationship

With $50 million on the table, Survios is expanding development of the projects they’re working on including their cross-platform compatibility and also bringing in more talent. A more significant endeavor is also in the works that could ripple out further into the VR industry as a whole

http://uploadvr.com/survios-funding-publishing/

As we’ve no doubt mentioned a few times before, casual and social experiences are going to be fundamental to the growth of virtual reality. Despite whatever level of quality, people are inspired to engage with experiences they can share with their friends. First reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed via regulatory filing, social platform High Fidelity is raising $22 million in fresh investment.

http://uploadvr.com/social-vr-high-fidelity-funding-million/

It was announced recently that Netflix, HBO NOW, HBO Go and other notable applications like Next VR are available now for the View in addition to a slew of recent game releases. Netflix VR and HBO Now, as well as the others, can be obtained in the Google Play Store. These former two in particular will be available free of charge.

http://uploadvr.com/hbo-vr-debut-daydream/

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The VR crowd on the other hand seems to remain utterly enthused.

Not all of them. You're already starting to see some fallout from former VR enthusiasts now becoming less than enthused although most are still hopeful for the future. Hopeful being the key word.

The thing about vr is that it's near impossible to understand without trying. And I mean trying oculus/vive in roomscale not some gearvr/daydream shadow of the greatness solution.

I have tried it. For 2 months every weekend over at a friend's. A whole variety of titles as well as video. It's neat. It's impressive. However, even if I didn't suffer from any motion sickness, I still wouldn't invest in VR as it currently stands. I'm not the only one that feels that way after having tried all 3 headsets.

I argued business. To draw a comparison, the App Store was introduced in 2008 with just a $100 million VC "iFund" from Kleiner Perkins. In the nearly nine years since then, there has not been a single original game or application in the Store with the investment of a AAA title. It is widely known that most developers and apps will never break even. By your measures, why would anybody develop for iOS/Android?

Obviously there are beyond drastic differences as well; I would never suggest that VR will ever approach smartphone numbers. I would also not call the app store ecosystem particularly healthy. It is, however, populous and popular, and it is so without the need for outsized spending on tentpole blockbuster games.

I made a distinction earlier that VR is a medium, not a platform. Measuring its progress solely by the metrics of a traditional console launch may not be an insightful approach. The growth of VR will likely vector through uncharted territory.

I don't think VR is going to survive and become a mainstream "thing" on an app. budget and pricing models. There's a huge world of difference in investment and required rate of return between Match 3 games, clicker games, swipe games, etc. and VR content that would draw people in and see it prosper. Most of that app ecosystem can easily be sustained by development houses spending less than 50,000 USD on a title (many of them are far less than that). I fail to see any relevance between smartphone app. stores and something that could propel VR to success.

For VR to succeed it's going to need big investment. And big investment from players that are willing to lose money for what would likely to be multiple years before they realistically saw a significant return on their investment.

Even Facebook, one of the largest investors in VR is playing it very safe and very conservative with a relatively low investment in the platform. They are investing millions, not billions. And they are doing that because most developers aren't willing to take the risk as they don't see VR as a profitable platform as it currently stands.

That doesn't mean there is no future for VR, and there's always a chance it'll catch on somehow, despite the extremely high cost of entry (for your average consumer) as well as the very low number of titles that offer significant actual gameplay beyond just being shovelware or glorified tech demos.

I'm not trying to be deliberately pessimistic. I'm just relaying what I hear from people I know that have been hyped for VR for that past 2-3 years as well as some people that are relatively new to it. There's still a lot of hope and enthusiasm. But there is also a lot of disappointment. And the hope dies down a little bit every time a new wave of VR titles is released. Especially from those that look forward to the weekly new releases on Steam.

People new to VR ownership are invariably impressed and happy as can be for the first 1-2 months. That dies a little bit over time. People that were early adopters of the retail units are generally the ones that are the most jaded as they've had their fun and have been waiting for something to make them want to use their headsets. Some of the more casual early adopters that I know haven't even touched their headsets in months.

Regards,
SB

 

[manux]

There wasn't much happening around rift for months as everything was pending release of touch controller. Vr really does require something other than gamepad to be interesting. There is plenty of new content now for rift. Not so much for vive though.

I would be willing to bet sports highlights/matches/ppv in vr will be gigantic business in future.

 

[eastmen]

There wasn't much happening around rift for months as everything was pending release of touch controller. Vr really does require something other than gamepad to be interesting. There is plenty of new content now for rift. Not so much for vive though.

I would be willing to bet sports highlights/matches/ppv in vr will be gigantic business in future.

we had bi weekly releases for the rift all year. That's not bad for a new platform.

So far to me the rift launch has been no worse than the ps4 / xbox one launch

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So far to me the rift launch has been no worse than the ps4 / xbox one launch

What size of content though? From the sounds of it, it's more small piecemeal experiences versus the large 'disc' titles of consoles with many hours replayability.

However, what's needed here really is actual stats, on how much people are playing VR. Otherwise it's just anecdotes showing the existence of the two sides and not the degree of them.

Wearing my pessimist realistic analyst hat for a moment, I consider the lack of trumpeting about VR's success very revealing. When a product is doing well, companies tell us all about it. When they're silent, things aren't so great. There's no situation where a product is doing well and we don't hear about it, as that's crap business leading to lost monies!

 

[eastmen]

What size of content though? From the sounds of it, it's more small piecemeal experiences versus the large 'disc' titles of consoles with many hours replayability.

However, what's needed here really is actual stats, on how much people are playing VR. Otherwise it's just anecdotes showing the existence of the two sides and not the degree of them.

Wearing my pessimist realistic analyst hat for a moment, I consider the lack of trumpeting about VR's success very revealing. When a product is doing well, companies tell us all about it. When they're silent, things aren't so great. There's no situation where a product is doing well and we don't hear about it, as that's crap business leading to lost monies!

I dunno I have 3 games pre touch that took me over 20 hours to beat on my rift and a few games over 10 hours. With touch I have more games that are more designed for multiplayer. Rec room I'm already past 20 hours. I am sure I will put that much time into dead and buried and unspoken easily.


I don't think VR sold as well as a console launch in its first year. But of course that even at its most expensive is $300 to $600 and it only needs a tv which the majority of house holds in the world have vs a high end gaming rig. The rift was $600 + a $1k gaming rig. Now its $800 plus a $500 gaming rig. So price has gone down a bit. next year there will be more content + the price of hardware should drop and the price of hardware for it should drop again while performance goes up.

Also mobile vr is doing very well. Gear VR has to be close to 10m units so far if not more

 

[manux]

I don't see the point to continue trying to make further arguments in this thread so I will check out of this discussion after this post. To me world without vr would be like world without pizza and burgers. It would make me sad but some people manage without I'll guess we will see in next couple of years if vr will manage to take off or not.

In short so far I'm very happy with my investment to rift and I have hard time understanding why it wouldn't be even more amazing in the future. There clearly is big investment from many companies and price of entry is going down rapidly be it gpu,cpu or future cost optimized version of headsets. From now on I prefer many categories of games in vr over 2d display and it's not such a big effort to make that happen for example in car games like rfactor2 or gran turismo or space flight game like elite or star citizen. There also is games I would clearly not want to play in vr like uncharted or any fast paced fps game.

Fishing planet alone after next big patch might convince me to move to vr world permanently. it's pretty amazing even in it's current broken form.