The tech works extremely well at making me feel sick.
I enjoyed subnautica sans VR.
ED is less interesting than Euro truck simulator. :-)
I get the physical games like table tenis and beat saber, but how is this not a fad? The wii was cool at the time too. Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware.
VR chat is about as interesting as second life, and any metaverse that follows will follow the same path.
Well, in that case you've got to make adjustments to your setup (wrong IPD maybe?), or you could just be unlucky and get sick far too easily.
Consumer VR of course involves a disconnect between what you feel and what you see, and that makes people sick when it gets bad enough, but most people can enjoy at least some VR experiences.
By my account, I've managed to spend days of real time within Subnautica exclusively in VR.
If you get sick, what I'd recommend is something like Beat Saber, where you're never moved without physically moving in reality. If that doesn't work something is definitely wrong. The next easiest experience is cockpit simulations. I'd say Subnautica comes somewhere after that, being in the intermediate range.
The worst I've personally tried is Half Life 2 in VR (as in, HL2 just rendering to VR without further changes), and that is indeed not a nice experience because the FPS mechanics just don't work in VR. The acceleration, the need to constantly rotate your view without moving in reality, the need to make very quick and frequent changes in direction are all very hard to tolerate.
> I get the physical games like table tenis and beat saber, but how is this not a fad?
Who cares? What matters if it's fun or not. I enjoy the exercise, I don't do it to fit in. And it's surprisingly good exercise. I lift weights, and Racket NX still is capable of making my arms sore. Then I suppose I have a rather violent play style.
I wish there was some database where users can report comfort level of each game. Oculus rate comfort levels but I find many games rated "comfortable" still make me sick.
Also I love VR and have no major issues with games like Beat Saber, Thrill of Fight, The Climb, Eleven, The Plank Experience, etc.
Whenever there is something that might cause nausea like falling, I just close my eyes.
One small tip I'd offer is... try chewing gum next time you're in VR.
I have almost 3,000 hours clocked in VR according to Steam and there are still a few games that can make me nauseous (mostly those with poor locomotion and/or bad frame drops). Weirdly enough, chewing gum seems to help a ton; in some games, I feel like I'm less nauseous next time I play, too. Not sure how scientific this is, but friends say the trick generally works for them too.
Perhaps could be phrased as “more easily than other users”? Dropping in as a quest 2 user to add anecdata of not feeling sick in most games or for extended periods of time. I’m not used to moving around smoothly using controllers though, flying a racing drone is kind of similar in being vaguely disturbing to begin with.
Quest 2 sales over the last few weeks would hint this might not be a fad, though.
Sales… to know if it is a fad or not — we don’t know, at least not yet. Actual numbers of people that use it more than once and put it in a closet? Let’s see.
Steam stats are based on active users iirc - at the moment about 1.93% of all Steam users use VR Headsets, and Half Life Alyx recorded 42k concurrent users. This is keeping in mind Q2 (the current sales winner) is a standalone headset by default. You could argue most of those concurrent users used the headset once and put it away, but that line is getting harder to argue as time goes on and the numbers keep increasing.
If this was 2016-2019 I'd agree it was very touch and go in terms of where it was going. But the investment and interest building around VR now has that here-to-stay feel to it - at least on my sometimes accurate vibe-ometer.
Well, I apologize if it came off as rude, wasn't the intention.
I was just trying to say that different people have different amounts of tolerance for VR, and it could just be that your isn't that high for whatever reason. Nothing wrong with that, but that it doesn't work for you specifically doesn't really mean much for VR as a technology.
There are pills you can take against motion sickness, it is a known problem that some people get motion sick easier and throw up from situations normal people handle just fine.
I disagree with your categorization that 20-80% of users who experience motion sickness are not normal. In fact, it would appear that people that actually like VR are in the abnormal category.
Now we gotta take anti nausea drugs just to play games? Is that reasonable? I don’t think so.
20%-80%? I wasn't aware the proportion was so high. Of the 12-or-so folks I've put in VR over the past few years for more than 1 hour, only one reported experiencing motion sickness, and that was after about 15 minutes. It's certainly a thing that exists. I'm more on the "iron stomach" end of the spectrum, but I hear that ginger candy can help, and as another commenter suggested, chewing gum. Some folks have reported that having a fan blowing air at them can help as well. Those sorts of measures might not be very attractive if a person hates VR anyway, but if they really enjoy it and want to work around the motion sickness, it might be worth it.
For what it's worth, I don't think this is unique to VR...I used to be a big FPS player back in the day (Quake 1-3 mostly), and I had a friend that got motion sick playing Quake 3, so he couldn't play in our matches. It's certainly the case that I've heard more reports of motion sickness in VR, though.
I like VR and get nausea easily in it. I won’t take any drugs just to play a video game though. I just stick with less than 30 minutes session and Beat Saber, Thrill of Fight, Eleven - type of games.
>Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware
bruh, have you ever played a Nintendo Switch? It's essentially the culmination of Wii-era motion controls + the WiiU's console/handheld split.
Every fucking shooting game on the Switch is nowadays released with motion controls (for gyro aiming). The joycons are basically sleeker Wiimotes with better motion sensors. Saying that the Wii's revolution was just a passing fad for Nintendo is hella disingenuous.
It’s not the same as the wiimotes or the physical game gimmick ala wii sports. The physical movement was a big part, similar to what VR is trying to do now.
I think in generally the switch is awesome but it’s closer to a traditional console GBA or DS. Nintendo threw away what was a gimmick and what parts were making good gaming experiences.
Ring Fit Adventure or Just Dance is a very Wii-like experience.
Other games use Switch controllers in a very similar way to wiimotes.
I think what has happened is the platform has opened up to more non-Nintendo games and diluted the focus on movement that was in a lot of games for Wii/WiiU. Motion control has gone mainstream too, all controllers have tilt sensitivity, so that doesn't seem as big a thing. Maybe your right that people choose to use stick controls in preference to macro-movements of controllers.
That's because the motion controls largely didn't work for that kind of thing outside of a few gimmicky titles. Their use in the Switch is far more natural and integrated, so of course it doesn't feel like a gimmick.
The hard thing with VRChat is finding "your" people and particularly people that aren't screaming/younger teens. But it is funny, I still feel anxious talking to a stranger in VR. It's wild though... I mostly spend my time alone (moved to a random state) and I can just dive in somewhere and talk to random people. I do feel old in general though on VRChat ha.
I suffered with motion sickness too it gets better over time.
I will say I'm not a generally all-around likeable cool guy either so you do have to vibe/give something (be interesting). Ultimately as far as making friends or something... that's hard. I'll get invited to discord servers and then it dies off in a few days.
Come join the other introvert techies on Helios[0][1]
Fair warning, it's still under development and the meetups generally operate on a schedule but that also means it isn't overrun with annoying first time Quest owners. The founders are very active and responsive on Discord.
That looks interesting I'd be curious to see how it's doing now at least 4 months + later from most recent reviews. I can understand how hard it is to start something from nothing regarding userbase.
I will give it a shot, the game seems too cheap (cost to own) just my opinion.
I guess every "you sit in a cockpit" game works very well with HMDs ... there was an early demo of a Mechwarrior style game that worked very well (for me) in VR.
For me the problem is that the resolution was always lacking. With my glasses I have "better than 20/20"-vision (visus of 1.2-1.6, 120-160 visual acuity). I have not tried the newer HMDs, but with the older Oculus Rift and HTC Vive I could clearly see the individual pixels distracting me from the experience.
The so called "screendoor effect" is not there anymore with the Quest 2 high res HMD's. My HTC vive had it and it was annoying but a good game could rule it out, with video it was visible. But on the Quest2 you can't see it.
For people not into sims in general, I would recommend Project Wingman as a fun gateway to this. It's arcade to the point of your typical space sim, so it's easy to get going.
The physical games are barely VR games imo. Everything is in front of you. You don't physically move where you're standing too much. Beat Saber is great fun but it can be done pretty much the same without VR, and is done, at arcades.
There's literal beat saber cabinets. In retrospect they may have had a helmet, but it's all rendered in front of you on a screen anyway. Aside from the wall dodging which is pretty minor, you don't need VR to play beat saber at all. All of the action happens a meter in front of you in a constant direction.
What are these cabinets called? I've never seen them anywhere. Do they have a VR helmet or not? If so, they are probably just clones trying to ride on the success of Beat Saber which continues to rank very high in charts of best VR games.
I personally find the best Beat Saber levels are 90 degree and 360 degree, where you have to spin your body around and which wouldn't be possible in such cabinets.
Also the immersion of VR is where it's at - the fact that you feel like a Jedi with your light sabers and you're cutting blocks in time with the music, while the controllers vibrate as well giving you feedback that makes your brain believe you are a Jedi.
Oh, oops, sorry, I somehow misunderstood you. -1 for reading comprehension. Thanks!
I googled them and yeah they have an official arcade version, which are basically a HTC Vive headset with the Vive controllers. Apparently according to several reviews, the tracking is horrible, the headset can't be tightened properly, the choice of songs is lacking, and they don't seem to support 90 or 360 degree songs. And yes of course you are right, you could just render it on a screen, in fact, if you are playing PC VR, it always renders to your monitor anyways. When I have friends over, I always have the view mirrored to a projector for "party mode" - just like in the arcade - which allows spectators to enjoy the show as well.
The real question is, have you played it in VR? You don't "need" VR to play but it's absolutely a different experience than just looking at a screen, for the reasons I stated in my previous comment. It's not even comparable when your brain _believes_ (to some degree) that you are actually inside the Beat Saber world.
> The tech works extremely well at making me feel sick.
But you realize this is a you problem, right? Outside the handful of people who get motion sick with VR, the tech is rock solid. Everyone who tries an Index is blown away by how immersive the experience is.
> VR chat is about as interesting as second life, and any metaverse that follows will follow the same path.
You couldn't be more wrong. There's a reason Facebook rebranded to Meta, and Microsoft just purchased Activision with designs on their own metaverse. Big players are putting serious money behind this, and I like those odds.
"Sick" is definitely a relative term. I've given literally thousands of demos to people--some of which were pretty janky, back in the early days--and I've yet to see anyone throw up from VR.
There is a very small minority of people who put on the headset and immediately can't stand it. I've seen maybe 2 or 3 people in the last 6 years, so it's definitely less than 1%.
Depending on content, I've seen about 50% of women and 25% of men experience mild discomfort after using the headset for about 30 minutes. Studies on simulator sickness include that in "feeling sick".
My current project is not able to use every single sim-sickness mitigating strategy available, due to the sort of source data we're using (a lot of flat, 360 imagery in a multi-user tour-like scenario), but even there, we've only had 1 out of 100 people express actual feelings of nausea after using the headset. If people report any discomfort at all, it's on their first time, after they've not heeded our warning to limit their first interaction to 30 minutes, and then they only mention feeling a little light headed.
People report feelings of nausea after playing 1st-person shooter video games on large screen monitors or watching shaky action movies at movie theaters. This is not a problem unique to VR.
The study was designed to find factors that correlate with VR sickness, and as such, only studied 83 people, all "highly stressed", and showed shaking videos as their methodology. I think it would be a statistical mistake to generalize from this study.
Anecdotal, but a lot of people seem to be able to get over their VR motion sickness. I personally did by just playing the janky Rocket Mode in Richie's Plank Experience a lot. Same goes for heights in VR, at first it's terrifying but if you repeatedly expose yourself to it it loses its effect. There's also a story of a VR dev who built a demo to get rid of his motion sickness, it involved just repeatedly dropping his POV from a height and then looping back to the top. Granted, some people will probably never get rid of their motion sickness for whatever reason but I think those will be in the small minority.
To me it sounds similar to all the reports of motion sickness (or worse effects) from playing Doom back in the day. I also suspect most people who do suffer from it can get used to it over time.
OTOH, considering how many people keep having motion sickness in cars (especially when not driving and reading and whatnot), perhaps for some people the issues remain.
Zuck rebranded because Facebook has a bad rep.
Microsoft bought AB for their IP and lib, I don’t believe they do any VR stuff. They do online gaming well and will be very successful with Xbox.
I don’t think we will be seeing competitive esports in VR, as we don’t see competitive Wii Bowling as an esport.
I get the physical games like table tenis and beat saber, but how is this not a fad? The wii was cool at the time too. Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware.
VR chat is about as interesting as second life, and any metaverse that follows will follow the same path.