VR: Is Virtual Reality Viable in Our Reality?

  

As games continue to develop, programmers and designers are doing their best to try to make the world as immersive as possible. This could be done with the graphics and sound design pulling you in, gameplay that’s realistic, or using specially designed controls to simulate what you are doing. The latter has been an interesting case since many of these have failed like the Xbox Kinect or Playstation Move, but few have remained successful like the Wii. One trending way to use our motions as our controls on the PC is that of VR Headsets. VR Stands for Virtual Reality and it's essentially using some type of device (preferably goggles) to simulate a world around us that we can interact with as if we were really there. It seems like companies have been investing them in like Facebook, Valve, Sony, and Samsung all have some type of device of their own. Today I’ll be asking you some questions and I’ll provide some feedback on why virtual reality may or may not be viable in our reality.

 

Question 1: How can Virtual Reality improve gameplay?

It seems like this question’s answer is yes. After all, is there really any way to further improve gameplay if we simply just put ourselves in the game? We’ll have so much viability in the world around us and there new ways to interact with elements. First-person games will be able to improve ten-fold as putting the character right there will be the best way to simulate actual gunplay in a shooter or slashing a dragon in the latest elder-scrolls game.

Notice How I brought up first-person games as one way they can truly benefit from this system. However, it seems like it’s the only reasonable option for games to work in VR. I don’t know about you but I feel like it may be unnecessary to wear VR goggles to play a simple game of Tetris or an RTS. There are plenty of genres of games where Virtual Reality won’t make sense since the idea of them wasn’t to immerse you into a world but rather just provide a good game to play.  Not to mention that in some games where you perform daredevil stunts will be mostly unviable for the average consumer. I know for one thing that if a game is having me perform a backflip to dodge a projectile I’ll most likely break my face from falling than actually beat the level.

Question 2: How well can people adjust to virtual reality controls?

Virtual Reality has made some recent developments in the way you are able to control the game. There have been plenty of controllers that have similar functions to the Wii Remotes where they’re motion-based but also have standard buttons and joysticks to provide inputs into the game. Also, some developments have provided a mostly motion-based system in which you’re able to get a good workout. Goggles have been made lighter and much easier on the eyes so they could be worn for hours at a time.

There are some things to go against this though as despite their improvements nothing beats gaming more than a simple screen and a controller (including a keyboard in mouse in my definition of the controller in this post). The design has shifted around for the game controller but regardless they’ve all maintained a certain uniform design throughout their lifetime and the keyboard and mouse are universally appliable to most genres of games (Probably don’t want to play a fighting game though). Not to mention we would also have to consider people who are hardcore when it comes to gaming; people who spend easily more than 6 hours on a session will most likely face worse conditions. Rather than staring at a screen for hours, they’ll be staring at a screen attached to their eyes for hours. Not to mention our current VR systems, we usually have to give up a room in order to set up the equipment necessary.

Question 3: what is our current standing on this technology?

Our current technology of VR has shown improvement over the years. Systems have been easier to access whether it’s the controls themselves or the price of acquiring them. Some have been simply just attaching your phone to this headband and boom, you’re in the world. Even though gameplay has been the main focus for VR for some time right now, Facebook is trying to expand VR into a way where we could truly live in a simulated reality and connect with others around the world.

On the contrary, we aren’t too sure what the reality of VR is going to look like in the future. While we can hope that these systems can be easier to implement and control, we can’t be surprised if they keep on piling on experimental stuff with it. It definitely still requires cleaning a large area around a room to still play the majority of the games. As for Facebook’s ideas with VR, I’m a bit skeptical that a company that has been in the news for the past few years regarding their violations of consumer privacy wants to somewhat control a world where they have control over the information we have through our own eyes. Not to mention I’ve seen the Matrix a couple times and I wouldn’t be surprised if they advertise the best way to experience the Meta-verse is to connect yourself into one of these pods that WON’T harvest your organs while you’re in there.