+1 Yuval Noah Harari. The guy's a damn genius.

A lot of what he says applies to regular on-screen games, not just VR. I don't see many people getting into VR games who aren't already into video games.
That mid-life unemployed insurance guy isn't going to be motivated by gaming unless he's already a gamer. I think the VR future for the masses is more likely to be more immersive passive entertainment, like surround TV.

VR blurs the line between video games and experiences. It's going to take some time for us to break free from the habit of treating VR like video games, but it's going to happen as we experiment more and more with what it means to create dynamic worlds that your subconscious responds to as real. Especially as our AI advances. For example, Vocally commanding the bridge of the Starship Enterprise is a bit different than staring at a screen while wiggling a stick and pressing the same 6 buttons.

Of course, that being said, the games are still pretty sweet. I strained my back last night jumping out of the way of a ten foot Combat Robot that caught me by surprise with a bull rush.

VR's nice and all but it's no tamale pot full of mercury or these dozens of MSNBC videos in replies to myself.

When I'm focused on a game, it doesn't matter if it's 2D or open world 3D. You get lost in the immersion after countless hours gaming.

When they start making VR games like Skyrim or Fallout level and beyond, knowing which is real takes a backseat even for a second. Heck, I had a dream this morning that I published 4 books and was planning on completing my story with 3 more books. I woke up believing I really did publish these books under an alias. Reality settled in in the shower.

Sword Art Online level of VR would be really cool.

How about Payday?
PAYDAY 2 VR Teaser Trailer (Overkill) - Full Game Playable


E3 2016: Watch Actor Brian T. Delaney Play Fallout 4 VR

Perhaps that's what happened to George RR Martin.

"What are you talking about? I distinctly remember completing'A Song of Fire and Ice'. I submitted the final book to my publisher, immediately before Betty White danced through my kitchen naked, shouting "Halibut! Halibut! Halibut!"

so i've tried a couple of the VR systems out. i find I have trouble "locking" into the perceptual field of the experience. i am all too aware that I'm looking at a screen strapped to my head, and do not feel at all immersed in my environment.

if this can be overcome, then I would be more than willing to participate in VR shit. as it stands, it's just a new version of Nintendo's Virtual Boy for me.

Which ones have you used?

playstation VR and Samsung. have yet to try oculus

Ah, I still haven't tried the PlaystationVR or the Rift yet so I can't say how it is compared to the Vive. I've got the GearVR and it's impressive for what it is, but it doesn't compare to the Vive. I put the Vive on and it's go time. The Vive is running at a higher refresh rate than the PSVR tho, supposedly, 90hz is bare minimum for presence while the PSVR uses 70hz with some resolution trickery. Let me know if you ever get the chance at the Rift or Vive and still have the issue, I'd be curious to hear what resolution/refresh rate your brain finally ticks over into presence.

Have you tried unfocusing your eyes a bit, so you're looking past the screen? I find that if I focus too much, I'm very away of the screen. But if I relax my focus, and train my eyes as if they were looking past the screen, it becomes much more immersive.

Have you tried updating Shockwave?

I find tequila to be helpful with looking past whatever's right in front of me.

interesting. so you're saying i gotta use my "magic eye" skills

It's the nose. They did experiments where they intentionally placed the corner of your nose in the middle and people stopped getting dizzy when using VR.

The nose thing is kind of obsolete at this point as far as HMDs go. The Rift and Vive should no longer need anything like that for standard use, but locomotion is still an issue that utilizing a fixed point like the interior of a vehicle can help with. At this point if someone is suffering from sim sickness from a presence capable HMD it's far more likely from shitty software design than the HMD.


Also, he's talking about something different.

VR will finally allow humanity to transcend the nose! #sinuslarity #transnasalism

That's interesting. I just played a game where you're wearing a helmet. It does absolutely nothing gameplay wise, just adds a static border around the screen. But I imagine they did that to provide a point of reference.

This sort of reminds me of this article.
Most Ordinary Americans in 2016 Are Richer Than Was John D. Rockefeller in 1916

While there is some truth to this, the billionaires of the early 1900's were much richer than we were and will most likely be in the future, but at least we will all have nicer things... one hopes...

you only hold this view because you havent heard the fantastapotomus sing.

And yet even in the US we still have people going hungry and dying of exposure. :(

I figure that once my computer image generation troubleshooting skills have become unmarketable, I'll go back to my first love, restoring 17th and 18th century furniture and clock cases. While AI/robots will be able to do that eventuallly, I'm guessing I will be close to death before it's economically worth developing systems to do so. There's also the romance of craftsmanship thing that I suspect will hold on at least until my generation is extinct.

I'm kind of reveling in the middle-aged realisation that I no longer have to be all-that-right to be alright. Once you are crowding 50 and you can see the Sun Door in the distance, you really can begin to think in terms of rigging something that is just about good enough to hold out just long enough to get me into a box.

Getting some scam happening so I can spend my time in VR rooting Buffy-bots until the brandy carries me off seems a good option these days.

It's weirdly liberating.

Absolutely. It's huge relief letting go of What am I Going to Do with My Life? There is very little I want or need. I'm hoping to spend my time puttering in my workshop and my garden instead of in VR, but I feel the same way.