VR, business and dreams
It’s amazing how VR has become a trend in less than two years. As a VR enthusiast since high school, I can see a deep contrast between before and after the Oculus Rift and since the acquisition of Oculus VR by Facebook for $2 billion.
There is a wide variety of applications for VR : medicine, architecture, video games etc. A lot of companies are currently working on new kind of products using VR. The big question everybody in the industry has in mind is: « Is there a market for VR ? » Actually, that’s not the exact question, because, obviously, there has been a market for VR for years now. Car manufacturers, and other heavy industries are already using it and buying VR services tailored for their needs. The real question today is: « Will the general public adopt Head Mounted Displays (HMD’s)?» It’s a fair question, but I think, with the level of maturity the technology currently has, that extraordinary things can be done, even without the mass market buying HMD’s.
The mistake here is to consider that VR equals HMD’s. It’s completely wrong. HMD’s are tools that serve the main purpose of VR: presence. To use the distinction made by Daniel Mestre between « immersion » and « presence », HMD’s are devices that increase immersion, in order to maximize the feeling of presence. HMD’s alone are not VR. Do not misunderstand me: the progresses made by HMD’s these last two years are a big step forward and have pushed the VR industry as a whole. Since the development of Oculus and Playstation VR, many devices have appeared on Kickstarter and elsewhere on the Internet and in the world: PrioVR, Cyberith Virtualizer, HTC Vive, Virtuix Omni etc. Motion capture, walk-in-place… All these new technologies are new ways to increase the feeling of presence, new ways to increase immersion. Even if there is no mass market for it, the technology is — nearly — here! And it changes everything.
Not so long ago, when you tried to talk about VR to people stranger to the field, you could be sure that even if they found the concept interesting, they did not believe it to be here before a long time, if ever. It was the « Minority Report » syndrome. Yeah, VR will be here…when we will have clones who can predict the future!
But what was perceived as a dream before, is no longer one. Today, we can imagine, and make, new kind of experiences that can drive people’s imagination to lands never reached before ! Something often forgotten when we talk about VR — because of the HMDs trend — is that interaction is a pillar as important as immersion. In VR, you interact with the virtual world. VR could be a simple equation: I² = Presence. Imagine all the new ways to tell stories. And not just tell stories, but live stories. Like with a book or a movie, you can feel totally immersed in another world. Unlike a movie, you have a way to change the course of the history. Unlike a book, it can be a social experience. Actually, neither books nor movies give you the possibility to decide the course of the adventure, and doing it with your friends. Yes, you can go the cinema together, but try to chat during the projection and see what happens.
« After all, you’re just talking about video games » I hear you say.
No.
Sure there are solo games which can be very immersive. But as immersive as they can be, you can feel the distance between you and the virtual universe, symbolized by a gamepad, or a keyboard and a mouse, without mentioning the distance between you and the screen, leading to a bunch of real world stuff between you and your digital fantasy (« Yeay, I just died because my cat jumped on the keyboard »). If you had the chance to try a VR experience, you would know the difference. And I won’t talk about massively multiplayer games. When I was a teenager, I dreamed about those virtual worlds where you could immerse yourself in a persistent universe, interacting with other people. I think everyone playing a MMORPG will agree that it was a very naive conception of the genre. These games are, well, games. It really is more about gameplay than immersion. They are not virtual worlds, but virtual games. That’s great, but from a narrative and immersive point of view, not satisfying.
Today, thanks to the great progresses made in VR and other fields like interactive story-telling, we can change that. And even if HMD’s and other devices do not make it to the consumers home, that’s not a big deal. The real power of VR can be unleashed in other places. Actually, I honestly think that the real power of VR cannot be unleashed at home. VR in controlled spaces with dedicated experiences has a lot to offer. That’s only in this configuration that you can truly immerse yourself into an epic, dreamlike journey.
At Incarna, that’s what we believe.
