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Ready Player One Isn't Growing Consumer Interest in VR Because VR is Depicted as a Gamer Platform

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
A few days ago I briefly glanced over an article discussing the fact that, "Sansar.com has actually been trending down since the first Ready Player One experience for Sansar was announced at the widely-covered CES in January."
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/04/sansar-social-vr-ready-player-one.html

Web traffic to Sansar wasn't growing, and can even be seen as declining, despite the popularity of the movie.

And today I ran across another article explaining how this lack of interest is extending to VR overall:
Actually this is also true across all variations of "Virtual Reality" related search terms and steam product stats for VR, so far as I can see. It's certainly not just Sansar. The movie is not causing people to want to 'try out' VR. I think this is because it only presented the idea of VR as mostly a sort of multiplayer shooter for escapists, rather than for education and many other uses, as presented in the book.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/04/ready-player-one-social-vr-philip-rosedale.html

This makes sense because going back to 2016 when the Rift was launched with only 1 sensor and an XBox controller, many discussions across the web portrayed the Oculus platform as a "dead out of the gates" platform since it was not offering the "best gaming hardware" options at launch. During that time a contrary viewpoint was offered, stating that VR needs to be about much more than just a gaming experience. I have always agreed with this point of view, citing the need for VR to continue to break through the Medical, Financial, Real-Estate, and every other non-Entertainment fields. Yet films and games remain the primary point of contention for many enthusiasts.

But it is no longer just about personal opinion, as we can now see this happening in real-time. Where this VR-centric film that continues to gain global success financially (lots and lots of people are watching it), yet the growth of the VR Industry is not directly benefiting - nor is the film's companion VR experience.

And the culprit is likely due to how closely tied to "gaming" the film depicts VR. The film isn't off-base either, since most of the mainstream VR news strictly covers either films or video games; whether PC, Mobile, or Arcade style facilities.

I find the topic interesting personally, but I don't think it is all doom n' gloom. If anything, this only stresses the need to release headsets like GO and Santa Cruz. The removal of the PC as a dependency goes a very long way in destroying the perception that VR is just another gaming platform. For example, the Real-Estate industry can thrive much more easily with Tetherless HMDs. Not to mention the wide breath of consumers that something like Facebook Spaces will cover.

In fact, if you look at the numbers in the article, VRChat.com has nearly 5-times more views than Sansar! This is strong evidence that there is a huge market for VR as a Social Platform as opposed to VR as a gaming platform.

AAA Titles and "killer apps" are really not answer; what VR needs is more people gaining access to cheaper hardware and immersing in social platforms; VR needs cross-industry investing in VR innovations that improve business operations and reshape how consumers interact with an organization's merchant infrastructure.

Or not. Who knows; I just find the topic fascinating as we all get to watch things unfold.



52 REPLIES 52

krectus
Protege
eh, you're way off on this one, the movie portrays VR as a massive social platform.  It does have some "gaming" parts to it like battles and such but it really showed off a lot of what else VR can do beside just gaming.  Sure it didn't show educational stuff (although the virtual museum in the movie gave a glimpse of that).

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

krectus said:

eh, you're way off on this one, the movie portrays VR as a massive social platform.  It does have some "gaming" parts to it like battles and such but it really showed off a lot of what else VR can do beside just gaming.  Sure it didn't show educational stuff (although the virtual museum in the movie gave a glimpse of that).



Interesting how you consider the "battles" to be more of an FYI. Regardless, the overwhelming perception of the movie is very much video game centric, which does have a social platform itself.

Another example:
Spielberg’s new blockbuster, Ready Player One, is the most significant Hollywood depiction of gamer culture to date. For the first time in mainstream cinema, it presents video games not merely as the cliched subcultural world of geeks and nerds, but as a significant force shaping the future of entertainment, communication, love, and politics.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/30/steven-spielberg-video-gamers-ready-player-one...


Are you truly saying that the movie is more about being social and less about video game culture? If so, you may be the one who is way off here. The name of the darn movie is "Ready Player One" which is literally a gaming reference! lmao

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

krectus said:

eh, you're way off on this one, the movie portrays VR as a massive social platform.  It does have some "gaming" parts to it like battles and such but it really showed off a lot of what else VR can do beside just gaming.  Sure it didn't show educational stuff (although the virtual museum in the movie gave a glimpse of that).



All valid points @krectus. Thanks for your view. 
I had expected there to be a "Lawn Mowerman" backlash from the hype cycle around RP1. Those expecting a sci-fi film based on a "ok" book to fuel a mainstream consumer upswing in adoption of current hardware were missing the point.  In promoting a view of a sci-fi utopia of hardware that is "not achievable" from the current tech, can only alienate more than it can encourage. The author of the book was as surprised as the rest of us that some in the re-emerging VR scene used RP1 as a rallying call to build their businesses. Certain individuals even going to the outlandish heights of handing out copies of the book to all new employees of their start-ups! 

We are at a point in this phase of VR development were we see great efforts at managing expectations - be it MarkZ's  "...its 10-years off..[paraphrased]" statement, too the comments from NateM regarding needing to manage the hype internally and from the media. RP1 is just more hyperbole that confuses rather than defines the available VR experience - and can be placed up there with 'Disclosure' towards educating and enthusing an audience too this tech. 
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Anonymous
Not applicable
Speaking as someone who uses Second life and has for years and someone who also uses their rift everyday so in theory should be the model user  I suspect the fact that traffic to Sansar.com isnt growing is that frankly it is a bit crap and of no interest to most people

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

Nemayn said:

Speaking as someone who uses Second life and has for years and someone who also uses their rift everyday so in theory should be the model user  I suspect the fact that traffic to Sansar.com isnt growing is that frankly it is a bit crap and of no interest to most people



Agree that using one web site as a gauge is a little short sighted. But doing a general search analysis and we are seeing a trailing trend regarding the sector:

tm2xza9aabfg.png
Obviously, I did not throw Google Daydream into the mix as it would skew the figures.  ::wink:

Oh and just to place that in perspective:
nc5hd0k1pzrx.png
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

kevinw729
Honored Visionary
Then there is the race to the bottom!

5bk96o5qdc5y.png
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Anonymous
Not applicable
I wasn't intending to comment on the general direction of vr affection more just an observation that really no one least of all the creators of it seem to have a clue about Sansar and what its for. Indeed I suspect for the next two or three years vr will remain slow growth and be limited to enthusiasts. However I think when the second generation headsets are out and been around a while and more and more things support vr we will get traction. At the moment though I think vr users are viewed as a little strange. Much like zx 80 users were back in the day. It wasnt really until the zx81/spectrum and other micro computers of that generation came out that we really saw the explosion in computer numbers in homes

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
tm2xza9aabfg.png


So... the Red Bar is for "Virtual Reality" and the Yellow Bar is for "VR." And these are two separate things?

K, looks legit.




Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Nemayn said:

I wasn't intending to comment on the general direction of vr affection more just an observation that really no one least of all the creators of it seem to have a clue about Sansar and what its for. Indeed I suspect for the next two or three years vr will remain slow growth and be limited to enthusiasts. However I think when the second generation headsets are out and been around a while and more and more things support vr we will get traction. At the moment though I think vr users are viewed as a little strange. Much like zx 80 users were back in the day. It wasnt really until the zx81/spectrum and other micro computers of that generation came out that we really saw the explosion in computer numbers in homes



I can agree with that. The second gen will help, and you're kinda right about current "vr users" being viewed as a "little strange." lol

I will just add that 2nd Gen HMD's need to be more than just about Games, Films, and Porn.

Right now everything is too Entertainment-driven. There needs to be more modern/practical use for VR; not just new ways to do fun things.