Written by Ty 2022 Cohort
VR gaming was a massive jump in the video games industry. A new way of helping or forcing players to immerse into the world of a game.
History
VR games have been out there since the early/mid-1990s and had their real famous beginning in the 2010s with the following commercial generation of tethered headsets that were released by Oculus (Rift), HTC (Vive), and Sony (PlayStation VR). The reason it took this new method of gaming that long to get famous was mainly because of how expensive the equipment was back then. One of the best consumer-level headsets was sold for 995$ back in the 90s, which is equivalent to 1690 in 2020, which was not affordable for most of the gamers out there, including myself.
Improvement
While the price was significantly reduced since 2010, it was still an obstacle for a lot of players to get it because of its price ranging from 450$-700$ for only VR games. Nevertheless, that is still an improvement compared to older prices, and technological advance has made it easier for people to have VR experiences, whether a short movie or a game (not all games!) Products like Google Cardboard and many other commercial products allow consumers to mount their phones onto the headset and use it to have a VR/AR experience. But again, this provides minimal experience.
To play big titles, you still need to have 1000-2000$ for your PC configurations which, again, isn’t for everyone. But if VR has more accessibility than before, why is it still not as popular as the traditional methods of gaming? Given that players are addicted to immersive experiences?
Other Problems
Assuming VR equipment were as available as consoles and mobile devices (which is still not the case) this gaming industry is still facing some problems.
a) Lack of content
Despite having a lot of games released already, there aren’t really that many AAA studios that have enough popularity to attract a lot of players. Gamers appreciate a good story, which big and popular games like Beat Saber can’t provide. Yes, the game is polished and fun to play, but for how long? The VR industry needs more games like Half-Life: Alyx by Valve, however, there aren’t that many titles that provide similar experiences, and even if there were, they need a lot of money invested to be as big as, say, the GTA series.
So, the VR gaming industry needs more attention from AAA studios which sounds somewhat risky since developing VR is more costly.
b) The nature of VR gaming
Standard gaming sessions can take up to 4 hours on average and days in some cases, but VR sessions can’t go for longer than an hour without having a headache and feeling nauseous. It’s just the side effect of having virtual surroundings. This is another obstacle to game developers as they need to take this time limitation into account, which is another reason why AAA studios haven’t invested a lot in VR. This, of course, might change when this field in gaming gains more popularity.
Just to be fair
There is no denying that VR games have a long way in the last couple of years and that this industry’s progress is growing steadily. But the question is: will it come close to the popularity of standard console/pc/mobile gaming? Or even replace it? With the terrifying exponential technological advance, it sounds possible. We just have to wait to find out.