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VIRTUAL REALITY: WHY ITS INEVITABLE FAILURE IS EVOLUTIONARY

23/5/2018

15 Comments

 
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I read a thing the other day in a games magazine the name of which I shall withhold (alright, it was GamesTM - a publication I otherwise enjoy, because it has big pictures in it). There was a small piece in there about how virtual reality is only just getting off the ground, and that the only things currently holding it back are, y'know, it having too many wires, and the screens not being good enough, and it being too expensive and that.

I literally pooed myself with resignation when I read it (though to be fair, I was on the toilet at the time). I don't understand why people don't get it. Virtual Reality is amazing - yes, in a way it is - but as a technology seeking mass adoption it was always doomed to never happen. 

I went to see Ready Player One a couple of months back, and it underlined for me how we're never going to live in a world where everyone is plugged into a virtual world. It's pure fantasy, and - contrary to what the movie portrays - the grimmer the world gets, I think the less likely most people are to withdraw from it.

If your real environs are dangerous, surely the last thing you're going to do is cut off your connection to it (although, to be fair, plenty of people with drug and alcohol issues do exactly this - but I'm not sure you'd want that to be the focus of your marketing)?

The reasons why VR is doomed are simple;

1) The technology makes some people feel sick, and people don't want to feel sick.
2) Using virtual reality requires you to cut yourself off from the world, and people don't want to be cut off from the world.

Think about it; it's primal instinct. It's hewn into our evolutionary DNA. We're built to survive. That's why we have an adrenal system. Even if we're not aware of it, we're subliminally on the look out for predators, and we strive to feel safe.

On some level, our brains are telling us that using virtual reality is akin to sitting on the middle of the Stone Age savannah with a wicker basket on your head, while waving your arms around, shrieking and drawing attention to yourself.
FINE FOR WHAT IT IS
I've written before about why VR will never take off in the way that those backing it seem to think it will. You might be able to minimise the motion sickness, you might be able to bring the price down, but you'll never erase the fundamental drive of who and what we are as a species.

Thing is, we're already all plugged into a virtual world through our phones. The difference is, we can easily look up from Twitter or Pokemon Go to check whether we're about to be mauled by a sabre-tooth tiger. 

What truly baffles me is the overwhelmingly positive coverage that Virtual Reality is still getting, how some are still calling it the future.

The Oculus, Vive, and - particularly - PlayStation VR have all sold okay, but none of them have achieved the reached the sort of mass-market saturation that some people seemed to be predicting a couple of years ago (and, judging from GamesTM, some still are). VR remains a novelty rather than the norm, and surveys suggest that interest in it is declining - both from those punters who were once intrigued by it, and those making software for it.

Even cheap headsets that you use with your phone - Google Cardboard and the like - haven't exactly taken off in a ubiquitous sense. All that money invested by Samsung, and Sony, Facebook and others has failed to reap the sort of return they were hoping for.

​And - I'm saying it again - it never will. All those predictions we read in 2015 and 2016 have, inevitably, failed to come to pass.
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THE BLOOD OF THE DEVIL
It's sort of amusing and inevitable that the biggest buzz in the VR community over the past year has been through VR Chat videos, and - specifically - memes. The bit-racist-y Ugandan Knuckles phenomenon - "Do you know de way?" - was effectively a trolling of VR's potential, as swarms of users infiltrated VR Chat communities "dressed" as a stunted version of Knuckles from the Sonic games, and pestered other users en masse. That's who we are - not the utopian, sticking it to the man, ideal shown in Ready Player One.

Still, even Ugandan Knuckles has had his moment, and VR Chat looks likely to go the way of other social online experiences like Second Life and Habbo Hotel. Its popularity is more from VR Chat videos posted online than the experience itself.

Indeed, in one video you see users gathering around one individual whose avatar starts jerking around, his laboured breathing clearly audible, while his real-life counterpart appears to be having an epileptic fit. Was it triggered by his use of VR? Potentially, and thus we come full circle. The technology isn't there yet, but - more importantly - human beings will never be there.

VR has its place. It has potential. But it will come into its own in areas other than entertainment - technology, engineering - than a format for gaming and socialising that everyone buys into. 

Fundamentally, if you're going to invent something... the first thing you need to consider is whether or not it makes potential customers feel safe. You don't invent a product which cuts off a users' senses, and makes them feel vulnerable.

Or, at least, you invent it knowing this in advance, and don't bother trying to convince everyone that this doesn't matter. Marketing is about trying to appeal to our base instincts - Eat this sweet treat, caveman, and your belly will be full...! Look at this sexy fellow and have make babies with him, cavewoman! - not offer something which goes against it.

That's what everyone who has funded VR, or written optimistic puff-pieces about it, misses. The challenges facing virtual reality aren't about the technology, they're not about cost. It's eventual failure was written into our very essence millions of years ago.

"Uggo, put this bag on your head, let me block up your ears with beetles, and eat this berry that might make you feel sick."

"Why?"

"It'll be fun."

"No." 
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15 Comments
Gremmy
23/5/2018 09:37:06 am

Yes, I only play PSVR when my wife is out because I don’t feel safe knowing she’s there but not knowing where there is. She’s lovely too so this really illustrates your point.

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Virtual David
23/5/2018 10:12:12 am

People said exactly the same about TV. People don't mind cutting themselves off from the world to read a book with headphones in. I'm no VR proponent but as a reason for the inevitable failure of the medium, this seems misguided

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MENTALIST
23/5/2018 10:21:08 am

I'd say it does seem likely that AR is coming though. People are happy enough turning themselves into dogs with their selfie-cams in Snapchat, more and more 3d sensor stuff is being added to phones and other portable devices, and the time will come when it's socially acceptable to be a "glasshole".

From there, though, if we've got the ability to see things that aren't there in the real world, VR is just the ability to turn the background off. And pracically speaking, that's just having a sheet of LCD at the back of the lens turn off (a technology used today in electronically adjustable sunglasses).

At that point, hopefully it will be a single sleep-button click, or push down the nose of the spectacles to return to the real world, soone ought not to feel so strapped into a closed cell in VR.

It's not as if single screen gaming isn't very immersive, and attention-imprisoning as it is, and plenty of people are keen to do that.

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Steve
23/5/2018 10:33:53 am

Thing is... It might be the future, it might not. But it's just a toy, a fun thing to play with when you fancy. I have friends who feel sick if they use it, I have friends that like it a lot. I am one of the people who like it, and that's all that matters to me because I bought it.

No accessory is ever a mass market success in and of itself. The Kinect sold millions but no-one still plays with them now, but they did play with them at the time and surely got their £100 worth of entertainment.
I'm sure the PSVR will be a white elephant at some point. But if you're one of those people who can play Resident Evil 7 without feeling queasy (and that's most people if they ease themselves in slowly at first) then you should get a PSVR and play through Resident Evil because it is extraordinary . Then try Wipeout, Star Trek, Dirt Rally, those music videos, Rez. Watch Dial M for Murder on a virtual cinema screen in 3d. Then, put it away with the breville sandwich toaster, the George foreman grill and the Nintendo Switch. You won't regret the purchase, whatever comes next. Its a product, a purchase, an item, a toy. If you like it, then that's all that matters. It doesn't matter what happens next.

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Soapdish
23/5/2018 10:44:03 am

Nailed it Biffo. I hate the feeling of not knowing what is going on outside of the headset. My wife could be hitting me over the head with a frozen leg of lamb and consuming the evidence (once cooked of course, can't eat frozen lamb)

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Nick
23/5/2018 11:02:51 am

Lambipop!

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Paul Corr
23/5/2018 11:17:40 am

I've just finished listening to your appearance on the Cheap Show Podcast where you mention that the Star Wars arcade game was your first experience of games and that you "felt like you were in Star Wars".

Until recently, I hadn't had enough experience with VR to agree or disagree with you on VR. Sure, if had a few goes on Oculus Rifts and stuff, but never really spent long enough on it to get to grips with it. Last weekend I went and did the Star Wars: Secrets of The Empire VR experience at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford. It blew my mind and convinced me VR can and does work as a gaming experience.

The 15 mins the experience lasts was totally immersive. When I looked around, I was in Star Wars. I could see my mates dressed as Stormstroopers, I could see my hands, when I walked out onto the lava planet, I felt the heat ans wind hit me. When I looked down, I could see the lava below the gantry.... When I had a blaster, I could shoot the walls and see the damage it caused. I had adrenalin surging through my veins when I was taking down stormtroopers with head shots. It just worked. The multi-player element really helped with the immersion to be honest. Most other VR stuff is a solitary experience.

If you like Star Wars and need convincing of the power of VR, I recommend you give it a go Mr Biffo. It's only around for another few weeks.

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Mr Biffo
23/5/2018 11:29:24 am

I've been meaning to, but haven't had time. Though I have written on here about an immersive VR experience I did a few weeks back, and enjoyed. For me, this is where it will excel - as a big sort of communal theme park-y experience with friends, rather than how it has been positioned so far as something you do in your living room.

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Spiney O’Sullivan
23/5/2018 02:01:25 pm

On a similar note, Japan has some VR arcades where you get props for input and motion feedback, allowing for more immersion. I suspect that VR is the future of the dying arcade scene in the West, if it has one at all.

Nikki
23/5/2018 11:33:58 am

I love vr so ner ner ner.

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superfog
23/5/2018 11:50:39 am

The V in VR stands for vomit...

I think the end game for this stuff is a room full of cameras that track your pupils and then a bunch of lasers beam an image directly onto your retina, I would call it Las-O-room...

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Rob
23/5/2018 12:58:49 pm

"The difference is, we can easily look up from Twitter or Pokemon Go to check whether we're about to be mauled by a sabre-tooth tiger." ... But most don't, The number of Smartphone Zombies I've almost run over is impressive..

As for VR, we've got a PSVR. I've not had more than a few minutes on it due to it currently being in the living room and there being too much competition for the TV, But daughter loves playing Job Simulator. (She is more persuasive,,) This is, I feel, the major downside - there's no easy way to do multi-player.

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Keith
23/5/2018 01:19:36 pm

I dunno, I think you’re wrong here. It’ll probably never quite be exactly what people dreamed of it being (or it will, but that will be underwhelming) but even if the current generation fails, each attempt has got closer and closer.
I would argue that the main sticking point to mass adoption isn’t any of what you mention, but quite simply that by definition, VR is always going to be a couple of years behind a 2d screen based game, simply because of the processing power involved in VR taking away from power that can be used for the actual game.

I definitely think there are a couple of camps - I can honestly say that I would always choose to play in VR (even if just on a big virtual screen) rather than not, because I love full immersion, and the only thing stopping me is that right now the compromise in resolution/textures and the inconvenience of the headset.

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DEAN
23/5/2018 02:35:38 pm

I don't know that it's doomed in a 3D TV sort of way but it's certainly not alive and well with a very bright near future like AR is.

I think you're wrong about the reasons why, though.

Sickness never stopped people getting drunk or going on thrill rides and not being aware of your surroundings.... Like when they sleep on planes or walk around listening to music or lay on the beach with their eyes closed...

I think the reason it's not getting the numbers is because of porn. The porn industry is on it's arse (so to speak) and that's a massive shame for VR.

Porn drives technology and now is a very bad time for it. Sure it's available (probably) but it's not 'laid' on enough and requires a little bit of savviness (I'm guessing) or paid up membership.

VR PORN JOKE -

HAHAHAHHAHA What the fuck are you doing mate?!

Uh... don't come in!!!

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Acid_Arrow
23/5/2018 03:25:38 pm

The last time I tried VR is was in a poorly-ventilated flat in the middle of summer whilst nursing a hangover. After feeling a bit dizzy the owner was horrified to see my sweat dripping from the goggles as I removed them. Rather than apologise, I claimed the sweat was in fact water transported in from a virtual world via the unit.

Fortunately they believed me!

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