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Is this the Poor Attitude from Developers/Publishers which hold VR back?

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
CDPR spill some inner thoughts on VR and it's quite disappointing. It's a poor attitude many developers and publishers most likely share.  Whilst it's understandable it's all about the mainstream $$$, at the same time where are the inner gamers from these people. Have they lost that spark? VR enthusiasts all know VR is more immersive than 2D gaming so why aren't these developers taking a leaf out of Valve/Oculus' book and trying to push the medium further? I mean look at the developers of Hellblade who dedicated a team to make the VR version. They were a passionate crew who had a vision for their game and made it happen. Look at how successful Resident Evil 7 was/is with the 2D/VR combo. The 2D game subsidised the VR offering so the problem of mainstream and lost $$$ wasn't an issue at all. I am saddened when I hear such things.

I will mention again my chat with developers at Gamescom this year with one game looking like a perfect candidate for VR and asking them about it. Their response was it made them all sick so they decided not to pursue it further.  So it looks like the chicken & egg scenario here. Developing for VR isn't ever going to progress at any reasonable pace when the numbers of users is so small.  Consumers aren't going to adopt VR if the software isn't there. Valve is somewhat different to most as they have a vested interest in the medium given their hardware production, the same with Oculus. Everyone else it seems sits on the fence and plays the waiting game ( the lovely Bethesda excluded). 

My takeaway from this is and bear in mind the huge PROFITS these companies make.

"WE LOVE VR BUT ONLY WHEN OTHERS TAKE THE FINANCIAL HIT."

https://twinfinite.net/2019/11/cyberpunk-2077-developer-comments-on-next-gen-consoles-multiplayer-an...

Asked about whether they’re worried that Half-Life Alyx could pull some gamers away from Cyberpunk 2077 and CD Projekt could release some of its games on virtual reality platforms, we hear that VR remains a “nichy niche” market. Alyx is probably a big effort from Valve to expand that niche, which is defined as “very, very, very, and I could add a few verys here, small.”

From a market perspective CD Projekt isn’t worried because it’s a very different niche. While Valve is trying to push the market, CD Projekt is targeting the mass market as it is now, which is major consoles and PC without the need of VR gear.   

In their conversations with other publishers, CD Projekt is unaware of hard pushes for VR, and they have not heard of anybody building an actual solid business on that niche.

That being said, this “can very well change” in the future, but it’s definitely not going to be the case in the first half of next year, and probably not even further in 2020. 
At some point VR might become mass-market entertainment that will validate the business around it, but that’s not the case for CD Projekt right now.

Speaking further of possibly releasing past games on VR, the executives mentioned that to prepare a game for VR one should design for VR. They’d “rather work on new great things than on older stuff.” That’s not always true as we can see with The Witcher 3 on Switch, but that’s the general attitude.
Incidentally, the release of  The Witcher 3 on Switch is generating additional revenue, but it isn’t comparable to the release of a new game. Sales are in-line with expectations.

Polish studio CD Projekt has just published its third-quarter earnings report for 2019, and has cited the release of Witcher 3 on Switch as one of the key reasons for a 38% revenue jump year-on-year.

In the last quarter, CD Projekt Capital Group posted 92.9 million PLN in sales revenues, scoring a net profit of 14.9 million PLN (£2,977,832.05).



System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.
32 REPLIES 32

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
I was deliberately being obstinate Kevin. Not that it will help in this instance. You are right in some ways, real numbers would validate quite a lot, but it would also highlight how fragmented the VR space is right now. Real numbers would also feed into the poor mindset not only from the consumer naysayers but the developers and publishers. I can just see CDPR et al. reinforcing their positions once the real numbers became public. 

"we absolutely love VR"

BUT...

"it's not profitable enough",
"it's nowhere near mainstream"
"way too solitary"
"not the direction we're focusing on right now".

Yadda yadda.


System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.

kevinw729
Honored Visionary


I was deliberately being obstinate Kevin. Not that it will help in this instance. You are right in some ways, real numbers would validate quite a lot, but it would also highlight how fragmented the VR space is right now. 
......Yadda yadda.



I would not call you obstinate @Shadowmask72 - you are speaking to a very obstinate guy, and your comment is measured and accurate. The problem is that when the sales targets were seriously missed (by a long way) along with the blood letting many VR manufactures went into "bunker mode" which did not help. Where once they had actively solicited the free information the VR community supplied, they now tried to build eco-systems that could help grow their business and exclude the competition. It is this that has caused the slow-down to get worse and for the exiting executives to take swipes at the reality of the market.

It may be a good thing for a quiet period before a new VR phase in 2021/22 - possibly linked to a push for MR rather than just VR or AR.

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
Just to throw this out there:
AMD recently brought down prices for CPU/GPU/Computer world market down by almost 25% making the cost of owning a computer able to run VR down from 1000 to 750 for mid to high range settings and next year is looking to be about another 15% from that while NV and Intel struggle to increase performance with pricing. Intel is cutting prices of their 10th gen CPUs by 50% making the over all value to building a Intel system about the same as an AMD one by next year.

Intel is also getting into the GPU market next year with a price to performance value that NV and AMD will have to contend with. Rumor is that it will be MCM base thus helping the yields and price over all. I am going to assume this will impact the total cost for a computer to be able to run VR by another 10-15%.

NV is rumor to be looking at 10mn and MCM designs while at the same time increasing performance for both normal and RT software/hardware level next year as well. That checks a lot of boxes if true. This should help bring the total cost down building a NV system alone another 25-35% making it one of the biggest cost savings increases in gaming history.Just to play safe though I would assume closer to 15% as they are going 10mn using Samsung as a known fact. 

MCM design seem to be the killer design change as it helps yields of working hardware while at the same time bring down cost as they can sell more of the silicon they use to bring different level of design hardware to customers. By the end of next year we could see VR system cost around 650$ that runs todays games at around high settings for a while. That would include 6-8c/12-16t - 1080-2080 performance - and 8-16GB of ram all running on a 450-600w power supply. A system slimier to like that , right now, cost around $1300 (I know because I just built one 8c/16t, 2080, 16GB of DDR4 CAS 15, 750watt) making it almost a 50% drop in total cost.