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Fabian Giesen is a programmer and he worked at Valve as a contractor through nine months in 2012 and a further three this year, helping it develop virtual reality technology. With a gig like that, you'd expect him to be champing at the bit to see VR hardware like the Oculus Rift hit the mainstream and for developers to really push the boundaries of what gaming can be. On the contrary though, he's really not impressed with the VR future we've envisioned and thinks it could actually be really bad for everyone involved.
He's not just bad mouthing the technology for the sake of it mind you, or because he doesn't know what he's talking about. Giesen has tried many VR prototypes and is excited about the programming aspects of working with such hardware, making demos that feel real and for the potential applications of being able to do things in a virtual world that then effect the real world. VR has huge possibilities, but it's the gaming side of it that Gieson believes is far too solitary.
This image, created by Eran Folio, has become somewhat synonymous with the idea of VR making us hide from the real world
“The endpoint of VR […] seems to be fundamentally anti-social, completing the sad trajectory of entertainment moving further and further away from shared social experiences. (As I have mentioned multiple times, I find the limited, formalized, abstracted and ultimately alienated social interactions in most forms of online gaming to be immensely off-putting),” he said.
On top of that, he sees the future aas one dominated by adverts.
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KitGuru Says: What do you think of Giesen's depressing take on the future of virtual reality? As much fun as I've had with the Rift, my favourite time with it has been holding parties to show lots of people one after the other and to see their reactions. I've yet to sit down and play it alone for more than an hour. Perhaps that says something about the longevity of enjoyment with such a thing, or simply that the games aren't there yet.
[Thanks Eurogamer]
He has some genuine concerns to be fair.
Adverts really do worry me, and i don’t really want my gaming habbits monitored more than they already are.
I disagree with the anti social side of his argument. look at EVE’s FanFest and Blizzards Blizzcon.
But then again, he also admits that he finds ” the limited, formalized, abstracted and
ultimately alienated social interactions in most forms of online gaming
to be immensely off-putting “.
Gaming will move with the tech available. always has, always will.
Gamers cutting themselves off from the real world will happen regardless of the tech available. VR won’t change any of it. The gamers that are already anti-social will remain so, and those of us that game in a healthy way and still hang out with friend or even socialise even more online will continue to do so.
That being said I do personally see VR as a bit of a fad. Kind of like 3D gaming. It never really took off and instead people just kept the 3D capable monitors for massive refresh rates.
Log Horizon, Sword Art Online, Accel World, all animes with VR worlds of mmos type. You wont stop that from happening. And its more than proved that people like isolation playing, and interacting at a safe distance with others, VR will bring it and the world of games will change sooner or later.
VR will never never be on the mainstream market.
I can imagine it hurts your eye’s just like 3D does, I can also see it causing headaches for pro-longed exposure..a gaming session could be 1 hour to 24hours….or even longer..
They tried bringing in peripherals and extra devices into the WII, Wii U etc and we all saw how that went…having to purchase an extra device which will most likely be $500 just to play a game is a pretty horrid idea.
Now all VR has to do really is make it work with most games, racing, FPS, RPG….and make it work well and smooth enough to feel immersed in the game..give gamers and hardcore players a new Experience for $500…but right now for me its sounding to much like a forced piece of hardware that everyone must buy to do this and do that…its hard to explain so i will just leave it at that.
Fifa pro season = epic with VR, Imagine looking through the eye’s of your pro player?
RPG games like Witcher 3 with VR support…man that would be fantastic..
BUT as always I bet money that you get tired/bored of it after a few hours because of it not working properly on all
games they have Facebooks resources so they must do it properly.
Also Cheers KitGuru for swapping out that horrible chat for this one…this is a ton better =)
if its a VR MMO there are plenty of shared social aspects of the game. The best part of online gaming is when you can play with friends you know irl. Meeting people online is the beginning of just as much fun Just don’t suddenly disappear without saying anything in such online communities, every disappearance has an impact one way or another. And that impact is probably what Glesen is so fearful about.
If you have seen Sword Art Online , a game about VR MMORPG , you could see why he is right in some ways 1:They could kill you from a shortcircuit , 2: they pull you away from the real world and make u eat less and less and spend more and more time farming things , becoming malnourished , 3: No social interaction with your phisical body means no exercise , thus your body becoming more rigid , and pains start to appear in the places you don’t exercise anymore , i higly recommend watching Sword Art Online.
Well, with the exception of nr. 1., all those things already hold true for some gamers. It totally depends on wether you game in a healthy or unhealthy way.
I bet that’s only a few years away. Google glass is now programmed to take pictures using your brain – if that’s possible then SAO isn’t far from becoming true…The question is, how powerful PC do you need to drive a massive VR game which is also very graphically intensive. Hope no1 ends up spending $2000+ to get a powerful PC and a VR gear.