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[jamesprimate]

Considering how huge a push its getting recently from Oculus, PlayStation VR, HTC VIVE, etc etc., plus its fairly strong early adoption among weirdo indie developers, Im a little surprised there isnt more discussion around here about VR Games. Im probably an odd person to even bring this up, since i cant really say ive been impressed by any of the VR experiences Ive had so far. (my reactions have ranged from "wow these textures are really low rez up close, huh?" to "i just feel like im playing a game with 2 iphones strapped to my face")

But there's two interrelated points that really interest me about the whole situation:

1. As evidenced by the dueling football-field sized Oculus, PSVR, VIVE booths/ziggurats at GDC, the industry is going to push for this super hard. Need for consumer PC / Console game hardware and tech has seriously stagnated in the past decade, to the point where you can run pretty much any game out there reasonably well with a 2 year old $500 laptop. VR represents a gleaming cyberpunk-flavored consumerist orgy in hardware and peripherals for decades to come, and justifies pretty much everything the industry is interested in pushing on us: 4K resolution, super powerful GPUs, huge storage, etc etc. So as I see it, they're going to make this happen. And over time, its going to get much much better.

2. Amusingly then, is that fact that VR completely breaks the current videogame design paradigm.

Seriously, playing FPSs or the open-world style 3D games were accustomed to is pretty awful in VR and everybody knows it. Sure there will be some that are successful early on simply because its a familiar way to adopt a new tech, but nobody is going to buy a $700 VR rig just so they can turn the camera with their head. Completely new control schemes are going to have to come up, creating innovative new experiences that work to the strengths of the platform (not just what we want it to be from 80s cyberpunk movies), and it will be an entire new game design paradigm.

Interesting too that this also is happening at a time when traditional AAA games have reached a kind of ultra homogenous stasis point WRT design and control schemes, and everybody is bored of it. So we have this odd set of circumstances where huge money burgeoning VR hardware industry is pushing for weird new innovation that completely throws to the curb the status quo of the AAA games industry. Seems like huge opportunities for indies, for a million different reasons (and not just financial!)

Also interesting is that from my experience the VR games that do work well for the format seem to be... toys, basically! Contemplative puzzle games, fantasia-like musical worlds, job simulators or "experiences". Hardly the macho shooty stabby were used to. If we extrapolate from the early influence titles had on previous design paradigms (Mario for 2d games, DOOM/Wolfenstein for 3d games) it seems like VR has the potential to be something completely different, totally changing the culture of gaming... even if right now I dont think its that great.

Anyway, wot u think?

[ProgramGamer]

Imagine papers please but in vr.

[s0]

Interesting too that this also is happening at a time when traditional AAA games have reached a kind of ultra homogenous stasis point WRT design and control schemes, and everybody is bored of it. So we have this odd set of circumstances where huge money burgeoning VR hardware industry is pushing for weird new innovation that completely throws to the curb the status quo of the AAA games industry. Seems like huge opportunities for indies, for a million different reasons (and not just financial!)

That remains to be seen. The Wii was around for idk how many years and only a small handful of devs tapped into its potential. The experimentation actually seemed to taper off over time, with most devs either using waggle to replace button presses or not using motion controls at all. Not even Nintendo themselves did that much with the Wiimote. Mario Galaxy, one of the system's "flagship titles", barely uses it at all. Tbh I don't think the Wii has any really great games that couldn't be played another way. The Kinect was even more of a failure.

So yeah, everyone is buzzing about VR and claiming it's The Future(tm) but its not a certain thing at all that it will catch on in the mainstream imo.

I should say that I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to "new control schemes" and new tech in general (content matters more than delivery), but I'm open to being wrong about this.

Inb4 gimmy post disagreeing with me lol

[Superb Joe]

vr is going to have a wii/kinect period that lasts a very long time

[Superb Joe]

prediction: the sitting in a virtual swivel chair formula becomes popular and many moving characters will be drones controlled via a virtual monitor and virtual reality is primarily used as a way of ignoring your actual, real messy desk

[Schoq]

[ProgramGamer]

Further prediction: the setup described above by Superb Joe will allow you to play retro games on an emulator, adding yet another layer of emulation to the whole experience. Scanline shaders will rise dramatically in popularity due to this, and the indiepocalypse will finally truly happen.

That screenshot has an "onion-NN" watermark btw

[Schoq]

Further prediction: the setup described above by Superb Joe will allow you to play retro games on an emulator, adding yet another layer of emulation to the whole experience. Scanline shaders will rise dramatically in popularity due to this, and the indiepocalypse will finally truly happen.

That screenshot has an "onion-NN" watermark btw

well actually

[ProgramGamer]

 

[jamesprimate]

Further prediction: the setup described above by Superb Joe will allow you to play retro games on an emulator, adding yet another layer of emulation to the whole experience. Scanline shaders will rise dramatically in popularity due to this, and the indiepocalypse will finally truly happen.

That screenshot has an "onion-NN" watermark btw

well actually

LMFAO

[jamesprimate]

That remains to be seen. The Wii was around for idk how many years and only a small handful of devs tapped into its potential.

this is def a strong possibility of course. It certainly feels a little different now though, because at the time Wii was considered "nintendo being cute" by the Serious Videogame People, whereas the new VR is a concerted effort from pretty much every major player and considered Very Serious.

[Piranha]

I skipped through Giant Bomb playing the release titles of the Oculus Rift and got the waggle waggle/Kinect vibe that has been previously mentioned in this thread. I thought given the amount of time I've been hearing about this shit it would have some killer app, but mostly it was bad versions of other games with Track IR.

[Mark Mayers]

We're in this weird stage similar to the 90's when 3D video games arrived on consoles, and developers were struggling to come up with control standards.
As soon as you introduce VR into the equation design becomes exponentially more difficult.

We still haven't even figured out an effective way to move the player since traditional methods potentially cause motion sickness.

'How does the player move in VR Space?' is a critical question we need to answer as developers.
For example, first gen VR games for Vive will likely be only single-room experiences because of this problem.

From a technical standpoint you have the issues of a 90FPS framerate target, which is difficult to achieve even on super high end systems.
Cheap art methods are questionable as well; ex. billboarding sprites, low res textures- all of this can cause the player to disengage mentally.
And UI? Forget about it. Try drawing a crosshair in VR and see what I mean. 

Performance matters again. Controls matter again. Aesthetic design matters again.
We can't regurgitate the same content we've been pushing out and expect that to succeed in VR.

It's almost like we have a clean slate for the industry to do better.
I think there is a massive amount of potential for the medium.

However, there needs to be 'killer apps' that define VR as a platform before we see great commercial or industry adoption.
AAA studios aren't going to throw down a several million dollar investment on an unproven platform.

I think the medium defining VR games will come from the indie scene because we're more willing to take risks and experiment.

[surt]

Seriously, playing FPSs or the open-world style 3D games were accustomed to is pretty awful in VR and everybody knows it. Sure there will be some that are successful early on simply because its a familiar way to adopt a new tech, but nobody is going to buy a $700 VR rig just so they can turn the camera with their head.

That's exactly why I'm getting mine.
Immersive FPSs like Stalker/Arma with mostly tradition FPS control.
Peering around corners and maybe hunker down in seat to switch to crouch.

[Alevice]

you know, i kind of liked the just dance games on the kinect. its sad that they will probably fade. however now you can properly make an actual virtual tour for your rock  band. vr will benefit from more gizmos

[s0]

IMPORTANT:

[Mark Mayers]

IMPORTANT:

THE FUTURE IS NOW

[Tumetsu]

I think VR has better chance than motion controls since there seems to be interest in it outside of games also. From obvious porn applications (lol) to different real life applications varying from training to remote working. There seems to be a lot of interest in VR in my local area's software development companies which are not game developers. I see there being potential in VR and advances which games make in other fields when technology becomes better and cheaper and people figure out new uses for it.

[Türbo Bröther]

Virtuality really need to get back in business, port all of their games and make a killing. It just ain't VR without Dactyl Nightmare to make you wonder why you blew four bucks suffering this shit instead of having fun playing Sega Rally.

[Mark Mayers]

Also interesting is that from my experience the VR games that do work well for the format seem to be... toys, basically!

*Prepare yourselves ladies and gentlemen, the VR shovelware is coming*

I mean Epic showed this demo almost 6 years ago, showing the potential of high fidelity experiences on mobile:






Instead we wound up with this: