This thing has me concerned. Could it replace the video games played on PC, that now we have to use VR rather than our big screen TV.
While I support change and innovation, I would like the games to stay on TV. I have spent a long time working to development on the PC. And now it’s gone, no longer valid, now what, I have to start from new, like I never done it.
VR is unusable for the majority of game genres. It has a very limited and gimmicky scope, and that’s simply an unsolved hardware limitation. Even going up to 1000fps does not remove motion sickness entirely (probably caps out around 250fps), so until motion sickness is a solved thing (probably requiring more hardware to fool the senses) then it will remain limited.
That doesn’t make VR bad. It makes it limited to what suits VR.
No. I’ve played and developed with Vive + Rift/Touches for several months and VR will not replace desktop games for a long time and in some type genres/games never. I still play both type games equally. VR gameplay is kinda different from desktop, mainly 1st person oriented.
Yeah it’s very much sort of it’s own category that doesn’t cross over that well. Not a bad thing.
VR is not a good solution for most games. For VR to succeed, it needs some kind of new game to justify the need for VR hardware. So far, that has not happened.
I agree with the other posters that VR is not going to supplant traditional gaming for a long, long time, if ever. I have a Vive, Rift, and PSVR and have attended a VR meetup for a couple of years and have experienced a lot of content.
If you just look at top selling recent games, none of them would be appropriate for VR. Traditional FPS games like Battlefield, COD, Doom, Overwatch, Destiny, etc are too fast-paced and would cause instant motion sickness for too many players. Even in made for VR games like RIGS, some people can’t play for more than about 60 seconds. There are VR versions of Minecraft, and guess what, motion sickness is very common.
Sports games and RTS games pretty much need to be played from an overhead perspective. Which honestly might be better suited for VR in terms of comfort (looking down at a playfield from a birds eye perspective), but then it becomes a little pointless as a VR experience.
I don’t think VR is very suited to long game sessions just yet. You can get eye strain and the comfort level of the headsets isn’t quite there yet. I imagine that aspect of VR will change though.
VR is better for short experiences where your character doesn’t move around that much. 10 minute sessions where you shoot stuff or interact with things using one-to-one motion work better. Title like The Heist and Arkham VR are some of the better ones, as they focus more on experiencing environments and characters with minimal interaction compared to traditional games. (I will say the shooting in The Heist is fantastic though) They’re also quite short by traditional gaming standards. The Heist is 30 minutes total and Arkham VR is around 70 minutes total. Not sure I’d want them to be much longer really.
There is one genre that works quite well with VR: simulations. Not necessarily hard core simulations, but several of the first-person racing games and some flight and space games work quite well with VR. Some people do play Elite Dangerous in VR for hours at a time.
There is an RPG called Vanishing Realms that shows off what you can do when you specifically target VR. It’s really fun, but gets tiring after 30 minutes. You wouldn’t want to play all the way through The Witcher 3 like that. 
I don’t think I’ll be investing into VR when there is motion sickness involved. I get sick to my stomach from playing a 3d game for about 15 mintues. So sick that I have to lay down and sleep for hours before I am recovered enough to move around again.
VR won’t last. Consider the 3d films; who’s making 3d films nowadays? Nobody; it was just a fashion, like vr is in the video game industry.
It’s just another ‘cutting edge’ technologically-driven advancement which branches off into yet another niche area and appeals to yet another new audience. It will not replace all other games or devices or platforms. But it will influence the landscape a bit.
No. We don’t use VR instead of TV right now, movement controls are currently inferior (to those provided by WSAD/gamepad), and VR requires PC anyway. I think that majority of games will stay in traditional format. VR is more of a gimmic with few edge case uses.
According to Michael Abrash it sounds like you should still have about 5 years before VR technology matures enough to solve most of it’s current limitations:
I got the PS4 VR and got the batman arhkam vr game. While it was neat, it seemed more like a cool tech demo then a real game, its going to be like the mobile phones where only some type of games work for it and everything else will be crap.
VR will always be only a niche. There was VFX-1 VR helmet around 1995. It’s nothing new. There are countless problems with this tech.
A quick check of IMAX shows a number of movies available and coming soon.
Then there are thrill rides at the various theme parks. They’re still making 3D movies for them too.
No, we’re simply at the point where a new technology won’t completely replace an existing one. Just as an example do a search for “death of desktops”. You’ll find tons of articles trying to explain how desktops are disappearing despite the fact that they’re still selling well. Virtual reality doesn’t need to replace existing technology to be successful any more than desktops need to dominate the market.
Funny thing about fashion by the way… it never completely disappears and occasionally becomes very trendy again.
Theme parks documentaries, that’s not films, you know, like 3gravity".
I disagree. I think the current, first generation of “real” VR has already proved itself several times better than all of the others past 30 years times ten. I am of course talking about VR with positional tracking and motion controllers and not those $9.99 mobile VR things.
One goal of films is to provide entertainment. A theme park 3D movie is meant to be entertaining. Thus it’s a film.
Keep in mind that Michael Abrash works for Oculus, so all of his comments are based on the assumption that VR is the next big thing. Even if all of those technical things are solved, there is still the issue of people simply not wanting VR and games not being made better because of VR.
For VR to really take off, it needs that one amazing game that justifies the immediate purchase of VR hardware. For 3D hardware, Quake II was that game. That was the first game to require a 3D video card to play the game. Some games prior to that had the option to use with or without a 3D card with varying results, but Quake II required a 3D card to play at all. What VR only game is so amazing that it justifies the purchase of VR hardware?
I don’t think there will be just a single game that would make someone to spend so much. However there are already lots of good stuff for VR that made at least 3 of my friends buy Vive today because of the big discounts (Black Friday). They have seen various games and apps past 6 months I’ve showed or seen elsewhere and finally wanted their own setup.
Google Earth VR has been one of the most recent ones that has made some cry and many ask how much do these cost. Enabling/allowing human scale mode and flying on top of Eiffel tower, Hollywood signs, etc. and watching the scenery which looks like you are there and in scale is just something you need to experience before saying it’s the same crap that we already saw years ago. Then try Destinations, theBlu, Tilt Brush, Recroom, Dirt Rally, Elite, etc. etc.
When the displays will improve in future to match at least like a TV at normal distance, wireless editions will appear, more comfort, etc. I’m pretty sure I will probably play most desktop games inside a VR theater mode than on a small monitor. We have also already watched a couple of movies inside Bigscreen with everyone being at their own home. These things will also probably increase social “activity” in future compared to normal where everyone has to schedule stuff to meet somewhere, get ready (dress up,make up, etc.) and then people cancel or bother less. Instead you can hang out in few minutes and look like shit under the headset and/or not wait for the wife setup, find the car keys, etc. 
The main problem with VR is not related to technical limitations. The problem is that A LOT of types of content are not usable with VR headsets. Basically only SOME first person experiences are suitable for VR and that means that most games are not.
There are some subtle issues there. For ex. in VR looking left requires 90 degree head rotation. The same look using mouse may require only one inch palm shift.