[aVReality]

Perhaps counterintuitively, I see/hear more interest in VR for business/productivity than for gaming, right now. I think it comes down to stimulation: we're used to gaming and other entertainment being high-octane, exciting experiences. But work/productivity is boring. VR, by virtue of its immersion and fantastical interactions, can bring more excitement to productivity uses (which are typically boring), while adding legitimate value (e.g., building better relationships with remote employees through business collaboration in VR).

[munchbunny]

I'm working on a VR game at the moment (solo side project for now), and one thing I notice is that you very quickly hit immersion limits for even simple interactions when you use the Touch or Vive controllers. The UX is actually a really hard problem!

I can see why that leads to an enterprise approach where UX is a bit less important.

More specifically, I'm building a juggling simulator. Other apps and games have simulated throwing and it looks and feels convincing, but once you have to throw multiple things per second, the immersion totally breaks with trigger based grabbing. I've been experimenting trying to find a better approach.

Originally I thought it could be a nice fun little project, not really trying to make money. But it took all of maybe five hours of Unity programming to hit untrodden territory! Now I'm starting to nerd out on the immersion and design problem.

[aVReality]

Juggling simulator sounds awesome...I've always wanted to learn how to juggle!

I'd definitely agree that design challenges are worth nerding-out over...and probably the most difficult aspect on VR development. You don't even want to know how much time we've spent tossing around interface ideas...

That being said, I disagree that UX is less important for enterprise. UX is maybe even more important for enterprise. As a gamer, trying VR is an obvious next step. For enterprise, not so much; the bar is much higher for getting someone to start using 3D software whose functionality currently works on a 5" diagonal screen, a la mobile phones.

[munchbunny]

"UX is less important" is probably the wrong way to describe it. "UX can be more trained" is closer to what I meant. In business applications (Photoshop, for example), some degree of tools training is assumed, so there's some allowance for unnatural feeling ways of doing input that can be learned, so you have a bit more room to fudge the design. Games and consumer software are somewhat less tolerant of the UX acclimatization issues.

[Namrog84]

I think VR is still so early and there is still no 'viral winning app' that 100% justifies VR. There is a lot of searching and scrambling for it. Perhaps it is in business and productivity. There is limitless potential for VR, but the tech isn't quite there for many use cases. And worse yet, is there is still no single app or game that is like, this is the single reason you buy into VR.

With rising property costs in many major areas and pushes towards open offices. Think of how VR would solve the proximity problem, if you could plug into VR into a virtual office and still have 'proximity benefits' while working remotely but still have privacy/separation and cheap rent and commute.

[munchbunny]

I've been tossing around the adoption issue as well, and I think the "viral winning app" issue is maybe the wrong way to think about it.

The viral winning app sells a device, but not an ecosystem. I don't think the iPhone for example had a single viral winning app. It was more a confluence of enough capabilities merged into your phone that it became really helpful to own a smartphone. I suspect that's how VR will go if it succeeds. It eventually hits a price point and there are enough individual reasons to own and use a VR headset that it begins to make sense for everyone to own one.