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.
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.
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.
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."
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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