Were the critics right: Is VR just a Fad/Gimmick?

[Zenbane]

I have spent more time "lurking" instead of "contributing" to VR discussions this year, between this forum, reddit, and the Facebook groups. I have found myself wanting to do more observing and reflecting in 2019, as opposed to the active contributions I was making from 2016-2019. And a big part of that is because the overall VR landscape seems rather stale in comparison to the amazing strides made during the first 3 years of the CV1 era (speaking to both the original Rift and Vive here).

In 2018, it really felt like things were going to explode from some galactic battle of the VR Giants with everyone promising to "move VR forward" and "set a new standard." But as far as I can tell, every competitor has failed at truly moving the needle beyond the hype coming out of the 2016 CV1 releases:

• Apple still hasn't done anything meaningful in VR.
• Amazon has only dabbled in VR with some supportive Software.
• The Pimax 8K proved to be little more than an over-hyped kickstarter (this HMD is now selling in droves on E-bay).
• Valve's Index HMD proved to be "more of the same" and Valve Knuckles completely failed to meet the 2+ years of hype leading up to it. While I would agree that the Index is, overall, the best PCVR offering on the market today, this is only true because of the failures of its competitors; not because of the advances Index is making.
  
• HTC Vive Pro is all but obsolete. Rarely, if ever advertised, and now all attention is being pointed towards the next "dangling carrot," the Vive Cosmos.
• Facebook and Oculus failed to deliver a true Rift CV2, and their biggest claim to fame - the Oculus Quest - continues to offer a very limited software Library, much of which mimics what Rift users can already experience.
• After all these years, the Steam Hardware Survey still shows Oculus and Vive dominating the charts, with a minuscule number of competitors dangling at the bottom.
  
• The HP Reverb had great potential (even I considered buying one) but fell short in multiple areas compared to current offerings and general industry standards.
• Microsoft continues to dabble between Mixed Reality and HoloLens; with no flagship hardware nor a noteworthy software platform.
• PlayStationVR continues to linger, with little confirmation about a Gen 2 VR Kit; leaving communities to debate over interpretations of hidden signs of the truth.
  
• On the mobile front, GearVR and GO are slowly becoming vaporware. While Hulu drops support for Google DayDream.

These are my own personal observations based on my own sentiment and that of which I've observed across multiple VR communities. I will point out that the purpose of this thread is not to fuel a debate between VR products or competitors. I am putting every VR organization, sector, and product on the chopping block evenhandedly. In a nutshell: they are all failing to meet expectations in 2019.

There are a few other factors that has caused me to raise my concern about VR turning in to a Fad/Gimmick:

• AAA Software is still nowhere to be found. With VR, at best we get "AAA-like" experiences. Even AAA games like Skyrim and Fallout turn out to be "AAA-like" in VR. This lack of true AAA investment seems telling since we are nearly 4 years in to mainstream VR with no one feeling compelled to make the necessary investments to move out of "AAA-like" experiences. In fact, we are still getting Early Access software experiences on both Steam and the Oculus Store.
  
• Facility-based VR is becoming talked about more and more, which feels like a sign that VR is moving in to the fad/gimmick phase of modern arcades and internet cafes. I tried one of these VR "arcade rides" recently, and I can confirm that the experience is highly lackluster and does more to move VR in to a "gimmick" than a sophisticated platform. As a comparison, once upon a time we could play the Street Fighter arcade with Punching Pads instead of standard buttons. As we can clearly see... punching a pad never became a standard and was short lived. And if you see a game today that uses Punching Pads... you understand that this is a temporary fad/gimmick. Machines that move or vibrate while putting players in a VR HMD are the exact same thing.
  
• Augmented Reality is becoming a hotter topic than Virtual Reality this year. We have HoloLens 2 and Microsoft's move in to the Military Sector. Recently, 5-Nights at Freddy's released their AR trailer. On top of which, most of the predictions about the upcoming Oculus Conference revolve around Augmented Reality (i.e. people are feeling that AR will get a big push and stronger focus).

Again, these are just my observations and general sentiments to help give insight in to why I feel that asking the question about VR's fad/gimmick potential seems pertinent at this moment in time.

To give some thought as to why I am choosing the words "fad" and "gimmick," here is a quick view at outside sources:

An article from 2018
Is Virtual Reality a Fad or Is it the Future?
http://www.workspace.digital/is-virtual-reality-a-fad-or-is-it-the-future/

A blog from 2019
Virtual Reality is officially a fad. I am out
https://skarredghost.com/2019/04/01/virtual-reality-is-officially-a-fad-i-am-out/

An article from 2016
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/10/15/virtual-reality-is-just-an-over-priced-gimmick/#484...
Virtual Reality Is Just An Over-Priced Gimmick, Nothing More

A recent article from 2019
Virtual Reality: The Future of Entertainment or Gimmick of the Wealthy?
https://www.dailyamerican.com/entertainment/highschoolhighlights/virtual-reality-the-future-of-enter...

Each of these articles, both old and new, point out similar factors that I've outlined here.

So... do you think that VR is still "the future"? Or do you think that VR did in fact turn out to be a Fad/Gimmick??

[MowTin]

nalex66 said:

motorsep said:

@nalex66 What are "VR strengths" besides more physical interaction and immersion ?

For me personally VR always wins due to higher immersion factor than pancake games. Not everyone has plenty of space to move around in a room-scale setup and swing arms around. A lot of times playing games with physical interactions is quite problematic for people with small play areas. 

To me, VR shines when it makes good use of the fact that you're "there" in the virtual space. Shooting by actually holding up a gun or bow and aiming is the most common one, and I do enjoy doing this rather than just moving a mouse. Unfortunately, that is as far as many games go.

Some examples of games or apps that play to the unique strengths of VR:

• Echo Arena is a fast paced frantic game that is happening all around you, as you float in a zero gravity environment. Catching and throwing the disc, grabbing onto opponents or teammates to propel yourself around, and navigating the environment on all sides is something that just can't translate to 2D.
• Medium makes 3D modeling so much more quick and intuitive than it can ever be with a traditional 2D interface. As someone who spent years mastering the techniques of several CAD and 3D modeling programs, sculpting in VR was a transformative experience.
• Bringing natural true-to-life movements and physical coordination into a video game makes for compelling gameplay that just wouldn't hold interest on the flat screen, whether it's playing table tennis, billiards, or swinging swords at flying blocks in Beat Saber. Doing that stuff by clicking a mouse would be mind-numbingly boring, but in VR it's a lot of fun.
• Sims like flying or driving tend to benefit a good deal from VR. Being able to really look around while controlling a virtual vehicle makes for a great immersive experience above and beyond doing it on a flat screen.

A lot of the games being ported to VR (especially FPS-style games) don't benefit all that much from being in VR, because the games are designed around playing on a monitor. Those games have evolved over years to be fun within the confines of that paradigm, but they don't always translate well.

For example, flat FPS games are great for shooting enemies at a moderate distance, and generally not so great for up-close melee combat (point-and-click melee tends to feel a bit hollow). In VR, it's the opposite; the distances of FPS combat don't work well (the stereoscopic effect drops off quickly with distance, and the low resolution of VR displays don't lend themselves to longer-distance battles), while up-close combat is much more immersive, especially if it takes advantage of physical movement to swing a melee weapon at your enemy's weak points.

A lot of 2D games that are ported to VR just don't feel like they need to be in VR, because they really don't. Games that are built for VR can be much more compelling, but they're still a little too few and far between.

I think flat FPS games actually work really well in VR. Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR are some of my favorite VR experiences. 

You acknowledged that pointing with your hand rather than moving a joystick is more immersive. It's also more realistic.

I bought a game called Handguns, Hotdogs and Handgrenades. The way you interact with the guns in the game is just mindblowing. You reload each gun the way you load them in real life. You can adjust the safety and other features. You end up learning a lot about the real guns. It enables you to play with guns without the dangers. 

Now with the higher-res HMDs combat at moderate distances is much better. And games are getting better at implementing scopes in VR. 

But you're right that few games have fully taken advantage of the power of VR. But games like Vader Immortal give us a taste of what's possible in a narrative-driven VR FPS. 

[nalex66]

Yeah, H3VR (or Gun Club VR, which is very similar in how weapons are handled) exemplifies how a made-for-VR game works much better than most ports, where you typically use a simple button press to reload the gun that's glued to your hand. Good VR games actually make use of the differences that VR brings to the table--for instance, having virtual hands that you can move around in space and use to do things that you would expect to do with your hands in real life.

With more work, Fallout 4 VR could have been a much better VR game; using both hands to wield two-handed weapons, more intuitive interaction with all the physics-enabled objects, being able to pick something up and immediately use it as a melee or thrown weapon, being able to drop your own gun or pass it to the other hand, etc. These are all things that have been done well in many indie VR games, but rarely happen with ports of 2D games--it becomes too much work to change all the little things, because the game wasn't designed with VR in mind. That's why I say that if all we get are ports, VR does start to feel like a tacked-on and unnecessary gimmick.

[Anonymous]

Right now:
VR in general just needs to branch outside of gaming/entertainment. It needs solid reason to keep using it as a every day thing. Once that happens - like anything else - it should start taking off one user at a time with no look back over older technology. For example, if Windows OS was built around using a VR headset that you could access your OS/computer any time you put on your headset to play games or access excel spreed sheets would take it to the next level. No need to have extra monitors - worry about data being on one device and not the other - etc etc.

Right now - I would agree with the idea that it is a bit of a niche market. Games are great and there is a market there - but the cost of hardware still is simple out of reach for users that need something that can cover more than one area of their life. Not everyone needs a phone - but if you ask anyone - they need a phone and the government should buy it for them. Phones just cover soo much what a person can do from commutation to using it as a search tool. Even then - they can still use it as a personal entertainment device looking up cat videos when board.

Facebook, if you ask me, has the right idea - start getting into with commutation and sharing of ideas and experiences,  but I think just over all not the right approach yet. We're still a few years out for the technology to really make it breath taking and a jump over what we have to day such as:
1) Being easy in and out
2) Clear images and text
3) Easy to setup/use
4) Support from all types of software providers
5) Weight/put on (wearing an HMD vs Glasses)

Some of these I dont think VR will be able to do - and I think that is why we're starting to see a push to AR instead going forward. It just opens the door for the user to still be able to be part of the world while being useful as a muti-task tool. Most demos with AR usually have it showing how easy it is to use for communication and as a traveling tool (GPS). 

Quest is the right step forward. It brings a number of thing to the table for VR. It has a lot of room to really take off as far as a all in one VR device. They will work on weight - performance - connecting it to a PC/Its own device - and simply can add support for other devices later on such as for a keyboard/mouse taking over the need of a computer for some and being able to still work with existing technology if they go down this route. I even for see GO turning into the Quest 1 while Quest 2 pushes forward with new features and hardware. It simply has a lot of value for what it can bring to the table and is something I am sure Facebook sees as well in their sells numbers.

Headsets like the Rift S and others for the PC will always be greeted with either the PC God like race or the poor house with little or no middle ground. Even now half the community is split between price and features. I dont think you can win here unless you can really offer a product that is design for both types of people. Granted the idea was GO>Quest>Rifts/CV but I think that has fundamental issues because they truly work totally different for VR needs and it really reflects in the community voices when PCVR is brought up. I just dont think there will ever be a one headset fits all solution here and this rips up the VR community into different sections such as for people that play SIMs want the best looking display - while most games want a cheaper device they can play games on - while you have the other group wanting the ability to use VR even just still lacking super high end features.

I think going forward stuff like OpenXR will be a game changer to really open VR to the total PCVR market. No more force into a wall garden if a headset has game that the other doesnt and really opens the market to support both value products and higher end products for customer choice. Granted there will always be features one headset has over the other - but having access to software that one store has over the other really opens up the idea of general use software to come forth in that simply one store/company can't really deal with. 

In the future:
Over all - VR is more of a stop gap - because it is in the middle between what will take over - witch is AR. AR is the future that everything will move on to simply because it can do both AR/VR with simply blocking out the real world for a short period of time. AR also offers more in the long run for day to day usefulness than VR will ever offer in total. Until we can go full Sword Art Online - (witch is that really VR? Or is it AR? Or something different in total?)

It'll take a while before AR really does take over though. The technology really isn't there yet and I think it's still at least 5 or 10 years out before customers really take a hold of it. So in the mean time VR will hold its ground and improve along side AR as they both benefit from each other.  Yet, there are just something VR can do NOW that AR can't do until more into the future. While there are somethings AR can do NOW that VR will never do. More or less we need VR to explore the idea of AR in the future and to help push the early development for future technology forward.

[Zenbane]

MowTin said:

The idea that it could be a fad or gimmick is a rather absurd question.

It's far from absurd. I linked to articles that span multiple years, including this year, that raise this question with a certain degree of validity. Granted, I am not trying to advocate that VR is a fad or gimmick. However, due to its current progression, it is hard to argue against such ongoing criticism. So, if you try to dismiss the criticism outright - at face value - then you are essentially doing more to lend credibility to that criticism than to effectively argue against it.

Fads or gimmicks are innovations that don't add real value. They add superficial value.

I can agree with that, but I would also add that fads/gimmicks are not limited to that definition. But you would need to prove how VR has progressed today across multiple industries and sectors in such a way where the value is "real" or "not superficial." I don't feel that you've done that yet.

MowTin said:

Maybe you're playing too much NMS.

I actually haven't done much of anything in VR, aside from letting friends and family try it out. I don't even enter VR for 1 hour per week. So far your response to this question has been to act dismissive and make false assumptions. Not really the most constructive approach.

[Zenbane]

MowTin said:

We can start with what the word gimmick means when commonly used. 

Gimmick: : a trick or device used to attract business or attention

That is not a valid place to start. If you want to use definitions, then lets use a valid dictionary:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gimmick

• an ingenious or novel mechanical device
  
• an ingenious and usually new scheme or angle
  
• a trick or device used to attract business or attention
  

You cherry picked the definition that best suits your narrative. But the question being posed is "all encompassing." Currently, critics can have a valid claim that VR is being used as an "ingenious or novel mechanical device." You haven't presented anything to argue against that.

[bigmike20vt]

Zenbane said:

bigmike20vt said:

I said VR is the future... however i dont agree with that

Made sense to me.... given the 2 polar opposite options you gave i went with the closest one i could, but the reality is somewhere in the middle, i think VR can succede and be more than a fad, but equally wont be a must have device that everyone and their dog owns, like a mobile phone.

more of a niche item like a steering wheel or hotas.  simples 🙂

[bigmike20vt]

Zenbane said:

Just playing Devil's Advocate here,

Even if it is transformative when done right in a video game, it is still operating as a gimmick in that scenario. A gimmick can feel transformative. In order for any technology to break through the fad/gimmick barrier, it has to become transformative at multiple levels across multiple industries. Just as computing and the Internet did.

I disagree.... but that is all good 🙂

(to me a fad is short lived... doomed to failure once the next band wagon thing comes out, and a gimmick is more of an style over substance kind of thing, something that once you get under the pretty packaging is actually pretty pointless and a waste of money (bordering on snake oil).

I dont think VR is either of those things.  it does what (I think) it sets out to do and does it damn well...

Would you say back in the day 3dfx 3D accelerators were gimmicks?  I wouldnt, but that said i would say they are closer to being a gimmick than VR ever was and yet just a few years later everyone and their dog owned a 3D accelerator of some description..

[Zenbane]

bigmike20vt said:

Made sense to me.... given the 2 polar opposite options you gave i went with the closest one i could, but the reality is somewhere in the middle

This is a strange thing to argue about, Mike. There was a 3rd Option for those that are "in the middle." And that option is "Undecided." Someone is clearly undecided if they make this statement:

I said VR is the future... however i dont agree with that

But even if you feel the need to argue that, remember, there is a fourth option: Don't vote!

lol - you can still give an opinion without voting, bruh!

to me a fad is short lived... doomed to failure once the next band wagon thing comes out,

A fad doesn't have a definitive time frame. Fads can go on for years. We don't know they are fads until after they are over and replaced. In the case of VR, I think it is safe to say that it isn't a fad. However, if Augment Reality overtakes Virtual Reality across global mainstream use, then VR will appear to have been a fad.

Also, I feel that we could easily argue that VR HMD's themselves turn out to be gimmicks. Just look at all the hype that jumps from one HMD to the Next:

Vive Pro --> Pimax 8K --> Oculus Quest --> Valve Index --> Vive Comsos

No single HMD reigns supreme for long, and we are barely 3.5 years in.

a gimmick is more of an style over substance kind of thing

That's not really true either.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gimmick

• an ingenious or novel mechanical device
  
• an ingenious and usually new scheme or angle
  
• a trick or device used to attract business or attention

Would you say back in the day 3dfx 3D accelerators were gimmicks?

Based on the first 2 definitions of a gimmick, I would lean towards a Yes.

I want to point out that I personally do not believe that VR should become a fad or gimmick. However, based on its progression up to this point, I am seeing it difficult to argue against the critics who do believe VR is just a fad or gimmick.

[inovator]

Zenbane said:

I see it as a grave injustice for VR to end up as a fad/gimmick. But the industry seems so far away from proving itself as a mature platform beyond gaming and entertainment.

For example, I thought that Virtual Reality would be mainstream in the real estate industry by now, but the truth is that the traditional way of showcasing images and videos for both Homes and Commercial real estate remains the leading market strategy. And those trying to lead in VR Real Estate are the same people trying to break through since the early days (e.g. Matterport).

No matter which industry we look at where VR has been introduced, it only functions as an "extra tool" as opposed to a "leading innovation." It currently feels more like a "nice to have" as opposed to a "must have." Compared to other products or services that feel like a "must have," such as: Smart Phones, The Internet.

Although using those examples... it did take many years before the Telephone became the Smart Phone, and it took years before the Internet was a service that could be brought to your home. So perhaps VR is going to need just as much time?

Zenbane said:

I see it as a grave injustice for VR to end up as a fad/gimmick. But the industry seems so far away from proving itself as a mature platform beyond gaming and entertainment.

Wow what a depressing but necessary thread you created. It  sickened me what you said but its also the truth what you said. There's hardly a bigger fan of vr than I. I can qualify as a vr fanboy I love it so much. I really believe it's the future. I believe it will survive because vr is truly  a media in itself. It will hang on until the headsets get light enough, larger fov, HD quality res. All wireless etc. That will take a long time. One thing about a gimmick is you dont have people doing it multiple times a week without it getting boring. Us members are part of a group of people proving vr can stand on it's own. This vr fanboy will enjoy it in the meantime.

[MowTin]

Zenbane said:

MowTin said:

We can start with what the word gimmick means when commonly used. 

Gimmick: : a trick or device used to attract business or attention

That is not a valid place to start. If you want to use definitions, then lets use a valid dictionary:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gimmick

• an ingenious or novel mechanical device
  
• an ingenious and usually new scheme or angle
  
• a trick or device used to attract business or attention
  

You cherry picked the definition that best suits your narrative. But the question being posed is "all encompassing." Currently, critics can have a valid claim that VR is being used as an "ingenious or novel mechanical device." You haven't presented anything to argue against that.

I didn't cherry-pick the definition. I chose the only definition that makes sense in the context you used it.

If you mean to say, "Is VR an ingenious and novel device?" then the answer is of course it is. That's obvious. 

Is it a fad? It's not popular enough yet to be considered a fad.

Fad: an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a craze

I remember some believed video games, radio and TV were fads. But VR has applications beyond gaming. It has applications in visual design, engineering, training and architecture. It has applications in the film industry. In terms of gaming, it's already established in sim gaming.

So yes, it's an ingenious device. No, it's not and has never been a widely shared craze such as to be considered a fad.