I work in the entertainment industry for a very large company that also produces games. We've had the money, time, and interest to pursue VR. The truth is you're correct. Storytellers are having a really hard time figuring it out. One of the biggest challenges is headset fatigue, which limits the length of story. In conversations with one of the VR manufacturers, they admitted it's one of their biggest problems behind motion sickness.

About 14 million VR headsets have been sold worldwide. That puts it about on par with the NES in the late 80s. I choose to forgive the VR market for not immediately being as successful as the mature gaming market. A lot of things were being done in the early 90s that showed just how little we really understood digital entertainment. It'll take tech improvement and product experimentation combined to really get VR to come into its own. That'll take continued investment on every front. We won't get there by magic.

Just to humor my curiosity: According to the Wikipedia article, the NES sold 62 million units worldwide in total.

Yeah, you have to dig a little, because the NES wasn't discontinued until 1995. If you dig into wikipedia you can see quotes that put units sold in the range I quoted in the late 80s.

In 80s vs 90s?

I'm unsure how comparing sales of hardware vs a few years sales of a console 30 years ago is of any use whatsoever!

Because VR headsets have been selling for ~5 years.

Comparing them with the full lifecycle of the NES sales instead of its first 5 years is not a proper comparison.

I'd go further than that - VR headsets have only been properly selling for about two years at this point. The Oculus Rift didn't officially launch a consumer version until mid-2016, as did the HTC Vive, which launched around the same time. While Oculus headsets have been available in some form for five years, everything before the 2016 launch were prototype development-kit versions that came with a big asterisk on the order page saying they weren't meant for general consumer use.

Lots of enthusiasts did buy the Oculus DK1 and DK2 Rifts, but CV1 was the first time it was actually available in stores and marketed as being ready for consumer use.

If headset fatigue & motion sickness were non-issues, what would you make?

I could answer, but I don't know how important it is. At the pitch level, this question isn't really the issue. People have been dreaming of VR pitches for decades...partly why the possibility of real VR has captured the imagination of so many people.

At a more tactical level, such as beats, storyboarding, and even UX research...there's still a lot of experimentation when it comes to what works and what doesn't for storytellers. If you tell an experienced director to make an action movie, there's a lot of well understood techniques they can lean on to tell good story. So far, our experiences show that a lot of that flies out the window with VR unless you spend all your energy trying to encourage your user to frame the shot the same way a director wants you to. However, if you do that, you aren't really using VR anymore.

The problems that constrain story length are really a problem because you can only give story so much depth in 15 minutes...and if you don't have the opportunity to figure out how to tell a story with nuance, you won't learn how to get nuance right. VR has no nuance at the moment.

You're last sentence where you mention 'magic' made me laugh. Nice one, I agree, there will be no 'magic leap' forward so-to-speak, however things are progressing nicely.

The indie game scene on Steam VR is thriving and these experiments in vr experiences will yield future content and entertainment breakthroughs. The groundwork, at least, has finally begun.

Maybe for the average consumer market, but there are lots of industries who currently use simulation software and are slowly moving to VR and away from expensive multi screen (very permanent) setups.

Take "Verification of Competence" activities used to on-board and train people who use specific plant/machinery. If you want to work on a mine driving a large truck, you'll usually have to do a virtual test to show your prospective employer that you can efficiently pilot $500,000 worth of machinery.

Health and safety training in complex plants. Run simulations on an immersive virtual model, rather than sitting at a computer screen.

Train driver training. Drivers need to do a particular number of trips to learn the route (accelerating and braking for turns, stations etc) this can be in field or virtual but required to ensure safety.

I agree it's very unclear whether it'll ever mass consumer appeal but it definitely has current viability in more niche environments. If you call "business" a niche ;).

B2B++ B2C--

> Game developers are pulling back from VR

Some are, others are going all in and it's just getting good. Compare Lone Echo to launch experiences, it's a completely different experience. Not to mention Fallout VR and Skyrim VR launched this year.

> The VR virtual worlds are a disaster

Go on YouTube and search for VR Chat, check out the number of videos and view counts. VR Might not be mainstream yet and I don't believe it will be until stand alone headsets drop but it's naive to write it off just yet.

Oculus Go is here for 200$. I’ve been telling all my friends to get it. Got one for my parents.

Their marketing is failing, how come I didn't hear of it...

I want something like that, I bought the old Xiaomi headset (basically a Google Cardboard) and I can't run Netflix on it (which was what I wanted them for :( )

The Standalone Xiaomi one does seem to run Netflix though :)

> ...check out the number of videos and view counts...

Why do you think that is an indicator of success? VR has plenty of hype; marketing is not the issue. There are plenty of people who are interested in watching a video on YouTube that won't buy a headset.

>Why do you think that is an indicator of success?

Because this is what people in the video game industry are literally looking at as a gauge of success.

Just look how much they court youtubers and streamers. Games are literally built around them in 2018.

(Note, I don’t like that this is true but the sad fact is that it is true)

You can keep believing that, sure. I'll just be over here, continuing to earn my living delivering interactive 360 video and VR demonstrations for our clients :-)

You making a living off this doesn't invalidate the fact that VR is having a hard time catching on.

I'm a biased observer, sure. But I feel very confident in saying that VR is never ever going away, let alone already dead like OP was saying, or even remotely comparable to 3D TV.

It's not (as it stands) going to be adopted as the media-platform of choice for consuming mass amounts of netflix and marvel movies, but there's way more niches to make it a viable go-to solution for many problems.

Is the video still produced as ordinary 2d/planar video? It's just projected as 360? Or is there some kind of depth information? What makes it so compelling?

Most of our video is rendered down to ordinary video that gets reprojected, driven mostly by a requirement to be able to be played back on lowest-common-denominator hardware and platforms; nothing near as cool as what Carmack's article details. But there's other problems that require fun solutions to, too.

I’m curious: what company/industry are you with and what tech are you using specifically?

I work alongside civil/acoustic/hydraulic engineers. We use a whole bunch of tools for various productions, but I spend most of my time in 3DSMAX, Unreal Engine and Visual Studio.

Selling 3d TV to stores was briefly popular too but that dried up once the stores discovered that they were having a hard time selling them.

That doesn't validate it for users though, only that other businesses believe it has traction and value.

One of my investment principles is to "always bet on laziness"

VR goggles are the opposite of laziness for me.

Too much effort required to set everything up. Why do that much work for little reward if I can just sit back in my couch with a remote and play a game?

> VR goggles are the opposite of laziness for me.

> Too much effort required to set everything up.

Which is why Oculus Go is being a (moderate) success. It's quick and easy to grab and use. It has its problems, sure, lack of 6dof in headset and controller, and lack of content, but we'll get there soon I think.

It’s still very close and amazing imo. I've been non stop on my oculus go since I bought one.

I think you're right overall. That said, VR seems to be a great fit for certain types of games, especially if they've been designed from the ground-up for VR.

As an example, I'm not sure if playing Civilization 6 in VR would be so earth shattering that I'd go through the effort (though who knows?). On the other hand, for a game like Elite: Dangerous, where essentially it's all about immersion in the experience of flying a spaceship, VR could / can be awesome. Even a simple head-tracking device can transform the setting from "hey, I'm playing a game here" to "hey, I'm sitting in a space ship here".

Oculus Go has zero setup.

I don't think Carmack was speaking to any kind of content in particular (canned or otherwise). This was more of an update on the current state of of the technology.

In any case, I think it's early to say what's a dead end. As you say, there are no killer apps yet. Even VR porn is still at a demo stage. It all might be a dead end, if you want to go on existence proof alone.

Honestly, I was expecting one of the VR platforms to attract simple applications/games. Resolution doesn't matter much if you're looking at stick figures.

If big, epic content is what it will take to get VR to that "real product" stage then I think the platforms will have to produce it. I could imagine "canned" content similar to old Imax movies working well, but that is not a 2 guys and a camera type of job. Who would put up that kind of money, for such a small audience, when all the first mover benefits go to the platforms.

VRChat for Steam currently has 6k concurrent users, with peaks of 20k during holiday periods: http://steamcharts.com/app/438100

I wouldn't rush to call VR market failure, VR sales are steadily increasing.

What a lot of people don't see are the iconoclastic milestones that are coming up, that will transform the entire domain in terms of market acceptance and saturation.

Foveated rendering is the first of those. Hand-finger tracking (e.g. a glove interface) is the second.

These technologies are not science fiction, we know they are coming out since lab prototypes already exist. Moreover, impact-wise, these technologies are not really incremental improvements but complete game changers (thus iconoclastic). The VR landscape in 5 years will look completely different to today.

I just got the new Oculus Go and it is a game changer. Cheap, made for mass consumption and impressive as hell. I thought it would be another cardboard but no, it’s the revolution we were all waiting for. I’m writing a blogpost about my first game of Catan online, playing a board game with two strangers from different place in the world. It was insane, an experience I’ve never had before.

VR didn't fail. . Virtual reality itself is software. VR hardware is merely an interface. The headset display is going to be replaced by something better. There are many ways to provide virtual reality, without the flaws of headsets. We're going to look back at headsets the same way we see CRT monitors.

We already look at them that way - heavy and obsolete.

The problem is all the great stuff is on Vive and Rift which is inconvenient to jump into. Then you have Oculus Go which is convenient to jump into, but there's not much great stuff due to lack of hands (crippled interactivity), and will get shelved with little re-engagement.

The Second Life continuations aren't the best examples to measure VR's traction. I'd look at user re-engagement of apps on the level of Bigscreen, Rec Room, Beat Saber, Google Earth. Those apps get people back into the headset and capable of logging 1000+ hour playtimes. Once high-end capabilities (6DoF head / hands) meets convenient form factor (standalone, wireless), I expect to see VR gain wider traction.

You do have a controller for oculus go and it works quite well if you're not moving.

It's only one controller that can only wiggle.

you'd be surprised how much you can do with it. Try Virtual Virtual Reality, it just feels like you can freely movie it. The illusion is strong.

I've tried it all. VVR was okay for like a few minutes. I didn't feel any illusion, flipping a pancake and such still felt like a wiggler. It's not just "feeling" like being able to move it, 6DoF enables an entire class of interactions that is impossible on 3DoF (e.g., having your hand doing something even if you're not looking at it).

I bought the devkit, the poor support on Linux was enough for me to pretty much abandon it. I'm not developing on Windows, I've made it this far and will instead target other platforms.

Hardly anything ever had good support on Linux. Linux has its strengths, but Windows is a far better platform for graphics-related development.

Thats just not true anymore. Even AMD has great open source drivers on Linux that you can just dream about on Windows.

Unreal Engine, including all the dev tools, runs fine on Linux.

I got a ps4 vr for christmas. Had to return it. I wanted sooo much to like it but the stomach nauseous and fogged lenses just happened to quick and often. I returned it.

I just don't want to wear VR stuff I'd rather get something like from lawnmower man or something without all this stuff strapped to me. Is anyone doing anything like that?

Look at the bright side. At least if Oculus fails (or rather when Facebook will finally get the clue that is has already failed), Carmack will be right there making Facebook's shadow trackers extremely efficient, and if that's not a worthy mission for the end of one's career, I don't know what is.

Agree, but any hope for AR? Apple's been plugging away, and Magic Leap keeps getting investors...

The same I heard about smartwatches, and it was true until they went for that niche of fitness tracker. Its an overhyped niche, that we agree on