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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

Anonymous
Not applicable
And that is the question we need to answer right now though - what else can VR do or replace within the next 2-3 years. It has to be something that it can do better than what we have today or could to do better anyways. It also has do something that doesn't take much time to do either. Meaning, I should just be able to put it on quickly - do my one thing and log out.

One thing is being a on the go monitor if they allow access to make a 2d image work with a 3rd headset (taking the 2d input and displaying it in a 3d environment).

Video phone or communication chat (full body tracking + face movements + lip tracking) would be something out of this world as well when you want to talk with friend or family member in a more personal light instead of over the phone.

After that I ran out of ideas xD Maybe someone else has any?

LZoltowski
Champion
Are these Google results? The movie is doing far better in Asia than the US. I wonder what the search engines that are dominant over the have to say.
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bigmike20vt
Visionary

Zenbane said:


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



actually historically i am not sure that is true.  generally speaking if the porn industry adopt a new standard, it usually sticks as far as i have read..... (not that i would know or anything <cough> )
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

bigmike20vt
Visionary

Mradr said:


After that I ran out of ideas xD Maybe someone else has any?


for me VR is is all about the games..... and if i was in my uni room of 25 years ago (wow!) i would use it for watching tv as well.....
but for other uses.....

I would imagine history / geology or a whole bunch of school classes could be a lot more exciting if you could look at stuff in VR.
piloting drones etc may become easier
elderly / ill / or just poor people could experience the joys of sitting on a beach in the Maldives to relax
i can see definite uses for surgery training or experimentation (mental note i still need to pick up surgeon simulator vr)

hopefully the next mars mission will have a whole bunch of VR cameras etc so we can actually experience standing on the martian surface.

but all that aside, i still imagine the vast majority will use it to shoot pixels in the face, fly space ships and race expensive pretend cars.
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

kojack
MVP
MVP

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


I just tried it. Yep, bit crap seems to sum it up well.
The login screen was in VR. But once logged in, I sat there with a blank screen waiting for something. I glanced out of the nose gap and saw that the desktop app was waiting for me to pick an avatar. Yep, it dropped out of VR without telling me.

Same thing as when you click the "Create Account" button in the VR UI, it opens a web browser window on your desktop but doesn't tell you (I had 5 open when I eventually looked, I had kept pressing the Create button).

The VR UI rotates in the opposite direction of your head. Turn 20 degrees to the left and the UI rotates -20 degrees, so your aim point has moved 40 degrees relative to the UI. That's odd, but I guess not too odd for people with TrackIR experience (where your head rotations are magnified).

I eventually got in. The movement controls are very laggy. Walking feels horrible. The run button is the thumbstick button, which feels even worse to press while pushing in a direction. I went to third person. My avatar's hands lagged behind the first person hands. It does at least have both teleport and smooth movement available at once.

Not a good first impression.
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kevinw729
Honored Visionary


Are these Google results? The movie is doing far better in Asia than the US. I wonder what the search engines that are dominant over the have to say.


Bing.com is one of the dominate Asian equivalents, though their search stats go through a different service - I am trying to update their 2017 data for the same period to reflect the differences, but it is laborious.
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

LZoltowski
Champion

kevinw729 said:



Are these Google results? The movie is doing far better in Asia than the US. I wonder what the search engines that are dominant over the have to say.


Bing.com is one of the dominate Asian equivalents, though their search stats go through a different service - I am trying to update their 2017 data for the same period to reflect the differences, but it is laborious.


 Bing? I thought it's Baidu in China and Yahoo in Japan ... who knew!!
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂

Anonymous
Not applicable
VR in my opinion will take off when the following conditions are met

The average consumer pc like device is capable of running it well
The hmd is lighter less obtrusive and the image more like monitor quality of right now

until then it will grow slowly but surely as more and more enthusiasts get up to speed. I think games like Skyrim will help the organic growth if Bethseda and other companies see vr is worth supporting and release more games in the future with vr support which will in turn draw more people into making the switch.

In addition as the install base grows more and more people will be exposed to vr as who can resist sticking their friends and family inside our shiny new toy. VR is easy to dismiss as a gimmick like 3D tv until you have actually experienced it.

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



Fair points, but your solution seems to be that "more games" is the answer. While the premise of the article is that "something other than just games" is the answer.

kevinw729
Honored Visionary



kevinw729 said:



Are these Google results? The movie is doing far better in Asia than the US. I wonder what the search engines that are dominant over the have to say.


Bing.com is one of the dominate Asian equivalents, though their search stats go through a different service - I am trying to update their 2017 data for the same period to reflect the differences, but it is laborious.


 Bing? I thought it's Baidu in China and Yahoo in Japan ... who knew!!


Your obviously right, I meant with a strong English component that I can follow.
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