[bayarearefugee]

As a gamer, in my experience people don't want to play VR games either.

Beat Saber as a social party experience with friends in the same room, sure, that's fun... but for day to day gaming the amount of people who want to play VR games on the regular is nearly zero.

If they really want to lean into the VR use case that people want, its porn, but I suspect they won't put that front and center.

[swalsh]

I LOVED VR gaming, but after playing the same 2 games for 10 years, it never really evolved. They stopped innovating and went all in on AR.

[SchemaLoad]

I had a HTC Vive and I really loved playing VR games, particularly a shooter called Pavlov. Felt pretty social with a ton of absurd custom maps where the actual game was almost secondary to experiencing the immersive and strange maps.

But since I moved I didn't want to screw the base stations in to the walls again and haven't played in a long time. I feel like I probably still would like VR gaming but haven't been tempted enough to buy any of the newer systems since it seems like Meta has fully captured the market and it all seems pretty distasteful now.

[tsimionescu]

I think you're very much in the minority. Also, VR games didn't really evolve because it can't really evolve - the fundamental thing that makes it attractive (immersion in a digital space) can't work well because of motion sickness. So, the only way to make an immersive VR game is to have an extremely tiny game world or an on-rails experience, and that drastically reduces the appeal.

Of course, you could make all sorts of traditional top-down or isometric games work well without motion sickness - but no one is going to pay for VR to play Civilization or Star Craft or Baldur's Gate 3, since these would be fundamentally the exact same experience as playing on PC or console, but with a display strapped to your head.

[swalsh]

> can't work well because of motion sickness.

This is an overated problem. You play VR for a small amount of time then you adapt to it. You get your "VR Legs" as they say.

[xdfgh1112]

This is such nonsense. The new Batman game on VR has full motion and smooth turning. It's not on rails at all. Games have got better at reducing motion sickness, and players also adapt over time.

[dontlaugh]

The many of us who get motion sickness have simply stopped bothering with VR. Since the market has shrunk anyway after the initial excitement, the few VR games left can afford to be less accessible.

[isoprophlex]

Indeed. I put on any kind of VR helmet for more than 2 minutes and I'll be queasy and/or throw up outright. My level of motion sickness is maybe extreme... but i guess that definitely messes with the total addressable market.

[xdfgh1112]

Yeah I appreciate that. There are things like vignetting that can help and newer games do them. But some people will never be able to play them.

[DonHopkins]

They adapt to the taste of their own vomit? Or mitigate it by drinking lots of chocolate milk before playing?

[swalsh]

Your brain just learns to understand it's in VR, and then it feels normal.

[DonHopkins]

It's the part about getting my brain to learn to enjoy the taste of puke that I'm having trouble with.