[agar]

Others have said this, but I'll reiterate: your description of mass market is precisely what's happening with Quest. Your view of VR seems rooted in pre-Quest (i.e., exclusively PC-tethered) VR and not the stand-alone world.

In fact, so many people literally went to Best Buy or Walmart to purchase a Quest that it has been sold out since the beginning of the year, online and off, with eBay pricing at 50%+ premiums.

You literally open the box, run an app on your phone (for configuration), put the HMD on your face and you're in VR. People not only tell their friends, but buy multiple versions to give to friends and family.

With Quest 2 at a $299 price point, the non-nerds saying "maybe I'll try VR" will happen even more often. The OculusQuest subreddit has a constant stream of questions about this very behavior. It is currently the ~2,000th most popular subreddit, with an impressive growth curve[1]. Some are literally buying the Quest 2 instead of the PS5 (though clearly a small number).

So far, 35 games have made over $1m on Quest alone, with one clearing that figure in 4 days and another in 8 days. Top games have made over $10m, not even including revenue from Steam, PSVR, or the Oculus PC VR platform. These aren't Epic / Apple level mega-wins, but many mobile developers would be happy with $5-10m revenue figures.

Upcoming VR games are coming from top tier publishers like Respawn (Medal of Honor), Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell), and Rockstar (unnamed AAA open world game)[2], Crytek (The Climb 2), and EA (Star Wars: Squadrons).

Additional games include Sniper Elite, Warhammer 40,000, Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge, Jurassic World Aftermath, and Myst. And this is just the tip of the iceberg from brands/publishers you may know.

Point being, stand-alone VR has really addressed many of your (and the market's) concerns.

And, to be fair, in your linked video Linus was trying to use optional, expensive peripherals for full-body tracking while streaming - not exactly a mass-market use case.

[1] https://subredditstats.com/r/oculusquest

[2] https://uploadvr.com/rockstars-new-vr-game-guesses/

[dougmwne]

Great perspective! I think things are early stage, but that the next couple of years are going to be the most exciting period for VR with possibly several of the upcoming games you mention hitting very large sales numbers. There's no guarantee, but just like the Wii was the must-have console of its generation, the Quest 2 has the potential to be a runaway success with sales numbers simaler to the consoles. As technology watchers, sometimes we watch these incremental improvements over many years and its hard to recognize the moment something is about to pass into the mainstream.

[fxtentacle]

The problem is, those numbers are nowhere near close to the price of making triple-A games. I heard Assassins Creed Origins cost 80 mio and Odyssey was 100 mio. With that in mind, "Top games have made over $10m" sounds like we won't be seeing high quality VR games anytime soon.

[agar]

A few points to consider:

1. Facebook funds many of these games; think of it like a first-party game made to drive sales of a new console. The developer gets paid up front, Facebook recoups the revenue via incremental sales of HMDs and software on their store.

2. Note that many games are VR offshoots of existing IPs. This means the opportunity for asset re-use and consequently lower costs.

3. "High quality" and "big budget" are not equivalent. There is a huge spectrum between a tech demo and a flagship title with 400-500 people working on it (as is the case of AC). AAA-caliber, lengthy games can be made by teams of 50-75.

4. Again, those revenue numbers are on Quest only. PSVR is an even larger market, and PC VR (Vive, Index, WMR, Rift) is probably about the same size.

The most important point though is that if your entry point requires Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, or The Last of Us, then it is indeed too early.

However, the two hottest non-VR games right now are Fall Guys and Among Us - great, high quality games come in all sizes.

[andybak]

So now it's "AAA or it's a flop"?

It does feel like the goalposts are being placed wherever VR isn't.