Nice to see. And at the same time sad to see such little action in the VR space. I really thought things were going to take off after Alyx. I'm just hoping Valve will keep Steam VR and keep improving it, so that is even better when the next XR wave happens.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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Virtual Reality
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I really just don't think the consumer desire is there at this point, and I don't think there's much to be done to counter that. Valve released a new Half Life game and still couldn't achieve critical mass. Look at all the billions Meta has poured into Quest and it's still mostly a Christmas present given by confused grandparents that gets used a few times a year.
In scripted demos and edited YouTube clips, they look like a blast, but the reality is just way too much work for too little reward for most people.
Anecdotally, I've owned a couple headsets over the past decade, buying all of them were impulse decisions that I regretted; I currently have my complete Index for sale for $400 on FBMP just hoping someone takes it off my hands at this point
I think there's enough desire, but the threshold is still too high. I have an Index, that I love, and I haven't used the thing in almost 2 years now because it's such a drag to set it up. Also, pretty much all games are standing up and most of the time when I want to play I want to sit down (racing/rally sims ftw) and I know I'm not alone. And taking the headset on and off can be a drag. You need to be able to quickly and effortlessly jump in and out, both physically and digitally. But things are moving in the right direction when it comes to all those things.
But then there's still also the catch 22 of content. AAA games is what could sell the platform, but very few devs want to spend an absolute shitload of money on something with such great uncertainty, financially. And the uncertainty has only gotten bigger the past couple of years.
I got an Index set last year and still use it several times a week.
Check out the Luke Ross VR mod - you can play a lot of current AAA games in VR with it. I'm enjoying the hell out of Elden Ring's DLC in VR.
Alyx is just a spin-off, no? I think a HL3 would've likely had a different impact. But even then, VR was and still is extremely expensive. Both for the devices themselves as well as the needed hardware to run it (at least without eye tracking, which afaik is not a thing in SteamVR yet?).
The backlash of people being annoyed by a new Half-life title being VR only was bad enough for Alyx. Yet making a VR FPS work equally well for non-VR is impossible.
Yeah, but to be fair, Steam itself also caused a huge amount of backlash at the time. And internet was also pricey back then. Not on the same level as VR currently but still. But yes, we need a proper consumer friendly priced VR (that isn't tied to Facebook). We're in a bit of an egg vs hen limbo right now since no one wants to make VR games with it being such a small niche market, and no one wants to buy headsets for those prices, especially if there's no games for it either.
What I don't get is why 3rd party studios don't use the Source engine more. Alyx ~~and Boneworks~~ etc show that it is by far the best engine for VR fps.
But we rather get janky Unity3D games that mostly suck.
The only real reason that I can think of is studios wanting to make cross platform games that work natively on the Quest as well, but there is literally no good VR fps that pulled off that feat. without compromising so much that the result didn't suck on both platforms.
Alyx and Boneworks etc show that it is by far the best engine for VR fps.
Boneworks uses Unity.
Hmm, interesting. So Unity can be made to be non janky in VR. Thanks for the correction.
I'm not convinced that the engine is going to solve that problem. Janky programmers will make janky games no matter the engine. And how many VR Games have been made on Source? 1? Not exactly a good set of examples for them to work from there.
They can just use the code from Alyx and replace the assets: Instant good VR fps. This constant reinventing the wheel for stuff that's available and well proven is the problem.
I don't know. Could it be a licencing issue? Cost? Or just that they would have to learn a new engine just for a VR game that isn't as versatile as Unity? I don't know.
As a programmer (though not in the games industry) I can inform you that the vast majority of sw companies operate by the "the fastest solution is the best solution" principle. If they have developers who already know Unity it's a pretty big expense to have everybody learn a new game engine, and the management would need to be convinced that using Source is going to lead to a corresponding increase in sold copies of their games.
That’s one of the whole issues with VR adoption. Valve didn’t release a VR engine! I wish they released a VR engine and Alyx was only a simple tech demo. They inverted what was needed and adoption of VR has suffered.
I currently have a quest pro but I am so ready to upgrade to a steam only oled headset. The beyond sucked and everything else is just too damn expensive. Someone please bring out an affordable pancake lens oled headset that has great lenses and small form.
VR seems a bit weird right now. There's been a lot of tech development of things like the lenses but I think only small scaled production headsets with accordingly high prices use all the new stuff. And the Deckard will likely be something very enthusiast level / expensive too.
Also, do we know by now if the lacking features of the PSVR 2 adapter come down to the device itself or Steam VR simply not supporting them yet? I doubt we'll see a lot of sales with the lack of those features on the PC.
And the Deckard will likely be something very enthusiast level / expensive too.
Let's see. There are some indications that at least one possible idea of the Deckard is modular, i.e. using an older Quest2 level Qualcomm chipset to do all the inside out tracking, eye-tracking and optics etc., and having a SteamDeck like x86 companion cube (possibly belt mounted, but likely wireless) for running the actual games. Such a setup would also allow for a cheaper display only option that would connect to a normal PC, but still allow basic use as a VR movie player or such in full standalone mode.
And they could also sell the companion cube as a standalone Steam-machine like home console for connecting to a regular TV.
P.S.: yes I would love for the official name to be "Companion Cube" in reference to Portal 😊
Is the Deckard confirmed to still be in development?
It never was confirmed to be in development.
Ah ok, I figured since you said it "will be" that I had just missed the confirmation.
I'm not linking my Facebook account to my gaming.
Fuck that noise.
Quest is an economy headset and Index is a premium one. Different markets. The ancient rift s still has a huge number of owners because there is no economy headset as good as it, including all the Quests. If Meta made a headset with a display port instead of streaming blurry video to each eye over wifi, they'd get a lot bigger market share. But they only care about their standalone users, PC is secondary at best.
It’s not like I’m going to trade my depreciated yet top-tier headset for som ZB economy headset.
Index was fantastic so I'm not hugely surprised.
Honestly the Quest 2 was a great piece of kit when paired with a gaming PC. It would take a lot to make me upgrade.
Sucks I got my quest 1 before meta bought them up. Now it collects dust with barely 100hrs of use. Could use that $500 right about now.