How far are we from BCI VR ??

Sadly it is not mentioned in Wikipedia but a BCI already existed in 2002!


It all depends on how reliant and fast such an operation can be executed for the masses.
I hope Kevin Warwick does this experiment one time again and this time for VR and with neurophotonic interfaces. :D
There are millions of amputees in the western world that will get perhaps those super neurophotonic bidirectional prosthesis in the next 5-10 years. You can bet your house that a few of those people will be the first entering VR via BCI at least with one or two limbs.
Once humanity recognizes the potential of a BCIed VR and VR will be the pure awesomeness people are going to yearn being in touch with this world and controlling an avatar with their mind.
Its not that crazy. Like Warwick said, it all depends on the acceptance of society. The earlier society starts to get to like this idea the earlier it will happen. Technology is almost here.

my two cents on this as a cognitive scientist:

current BCIs used with human subjects have an incredibly low information throughput. they are built (and only reasonable to use) for people tha have no other choice of interacting with the world in any other way like locked in patients. this has a number of reasons, but the main line of argumentation goes as follows: non invasive imaging techniques (EEG, NIRS or fMRI) are used for recording and those have some severe limitations. they have either low spatial or temporal resolution, greatly limiting their efficiency. this will not change soon, since those problems are inherent within those technologies. thus to work, they rely on decoding quite distinct and low level brain activities. here's an example: it's not you imagining moving a cursor to move a cursor but you imaging moving your left arm to move the cursor left and moving your right arm to move the cursor right. all of the interaction paradigms require either a lot of concentration or the use your visual field (or both). so it is highly impractical (aka impossible) to use bcis to control a game than in itself is demanding.

currently, a lot of specialists are convinced that for sophisticated bci there will be no way arround invasive techniques, that is putting electrodes in your brain. http://cs.rochester.edu/~kautz/Courses/290Bspring2008/NeuroRobots/TiNS_2006.pdf
this in turn causes problem like reactions of your immune system rejecting artificial probes within your brain tissue, etc

there is some cool technology out there, no doubt, but my feeling is that especially consumer targeted eeg devices like the emotiv and alike will be mainly used for simpler biofeedback applications like e.g. app-aided meditation. there, it is sufficient to decode global brainstates, not requiring high resolution signals.
If you are interested in bci technology and it's basics, I recommend reading this review paper, especially the intial sections about bci types (3), control singals (4) and bci applications (8). http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/12/2/1211/pdf

I am sure that technology will advance and to be frank I wouldn't be surprised if putting wires in your head will be a pretty normal thing sometime in the future, but don't expect that to happen within the next few years. with the current bci paradigms it is impossible to perform dexterious movements. I think this insight is important since it leaves us with the challenge of coming up with innovative ways to engage with the virtual worlds we will be builiding today without breaking immersion and without them feeling awkward. we will have to come up with something in the meantime until bci technology is ready ;)

@leftbigtoe

I'm glad to hear this from a neuroscientist. If every neuroscientist thinks like you it may have a good outcome. :D
You are mentioning sth very important here i think. To get in touch with a virtual world isn't so ridiculous anymore at all.
It becomes then sth very serious. I mean we are literally talking about a parallel universe. That has nothing to do with a game anymore.
Hopefully we are going to see a big NCI/VR rush.

Therefore ... the way into the brain is the eyes. Prewired and proven. Get a couple more senses involved and it becomes a matter of the user being able to allow immersion or be fooled into it.
The best we can do now is fill the visual field with no edges to be seen and high resolution.

The latest BMI I saw was used to let a paralyzed woman control a robot are. Enabling her to feed herself, sort of. It took months of training after the operation.

You can do better, faster with a device called brain fingers. A simple headband with sensors. That could be added to rift. I've watched video of a guy who could play a FPS quite well with it after a week of practice.