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by spaceman_2020 1119 days ago
I tried Alyx and it was just not fun. Not for the game or anything, but I was really just uncomfortable being in a virtual reality environment where I was hunting/being-hunted by aliens. That's really not my idea of a good time - more like a nightmare.

VR needs some less intense and some more fun, low-stress gaming experiences to draw in the casuals like me.

3 comments

IMO this is true for all “games”, not just VR.

The industry is surprisingly conservative in terms of content/genre outside of indie studios. It’s basically Hollywood.

Bizarre that the industry keeps pumping out the same kind of games that alienate casuals like me as well as women. That’s a massive untapped market.

The only game my wife ever played was The Sims and was completely baffled when she learned there were no other games similar to it.

And yet they’ll spend $200M making yet another military FPS

It's not like other games in the broader genre don't exist. eg Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, My Time at Portia all come to mind.
Yes they exist, with laughably meager budgets compared to “mainstream” games.

I’ll concede animal crossing is a good exception to the rule, but this only serves to prove our original point that there’s room for AAA-grade games in this market segment.

Stardew Valley is the perfect example. It took an indie game developer to make a game with broad appeal.

What are these big studios even doing? Why didn't their customer research tell them that there's demand for games like Stardew Valley?

I think it's amazing. I played through about 5 times now. And a lot of the user-generated content too.

But I feel like there's a lot more for people like you. Moss, Beat Saber, Red Matter etc.

> VR needs some less intense and some more fun, low-stress gaming experiences to draw in the casuals like me.

You’re in luck because those types of titles form the majority of VR titles today. The more common complaint is the lack of AAA content like Alyx which is due to the lack of users