At this point I don't really care if it's a little clunky and inconvenient in some ways. I just want an AR computing platform that isn't yet another trojan horse for some mega corp's toxic business model. I'll tolerate the "linux of AR" as long as it means I don't have to submit to surveillance, ad-tech, walled gardens, the "apple tax", etc etc

I like my lighthouse tracking, body trackers, FOV, full IPD adjustment, minimal pupil swim, edge to edge clarity, index controllers, off-ear audio, native steamvr support, ergonomics, 144hz for ballisticng, better colors, no compression artifacts, and no facebook trojan horse, so I prefer Index. Do wish it had wireless though, when I tried Quest 2 it was surprisingly good given the compression (though not as good as the Vive's dedicated solution).

In terms of the cost, as a PC gamer it's not really a big sticking point. Both were within my budget anyway, so I just chose the one that gives me the better experience. VR headsets are just barely past the threshold of being "good enough" so I want the best experience within my budget.

Mr. Tact wrote on Jun 29, 2021, 09:05:

RedEye9 wrote on Jun 28, 2021, 22:26:
Good thing Facebook's not a monopoly. /S

Even if they are, I really couldn't care less. I mean, yeah, the idiots who get all their news from FB are a problem. But without FB the idiots would just find bad information somewhere else.

Them simply being idiots isn't the crux of this problem--the majority of the population will always be idiots relative to a small percentage of the population, and as the idiots become smarter the methods to manipulate them will adjust accordingly. What's important is that the idiots receive information in a way that is democratized and that reflects the merit of the ideas rather than a system that simply reflects the interests of wealth and power (which can result from both purely market based and authoritarian systems), and that the incentives underlying that system are aligned with the interests of participants (e.g. not designed to simply maximize addictive user engagement/ad viewing, reinforce biases, etc etc).

Giving people alternatives by breaking up monopolies and the ability to seamlessly move between alternatives through competitive compatibility are part of addressing those problems.

When there are VR systems with:

* visuals that are actually comfortable, e.g. would like to be able to focus my eyes correctly (seriously, my trinitrons from the 90s can be used all day, but with VR headsets you're typically good for an hour or less before having to "push through it"--it's not surprising that the average session length is only 15 to 30 minutes)
* ergonomics that solve the "hot, sweaty, tightly-strapped brick hanging off of your face" problem
* low friction and wireless without compromise
* input advances that permit decent counterparts to key and mouse input so basic OS interaction/multitasking isn't so fucked (laser pointers for selection and text input are worse than touchscreens)
* feedback advances that make performing even the most basic of immersive interactions not such a clunky and frustrating experience
* seamless interaction with the external environment (e.g. improved passthrough)
* a solution to the physical fatigue problem (you can't expect people to stand up every night to play games, nevermind for hours on end)

then the old business model will work, as people will use it more often and not attenuate past the honeymoon phase.

We shall see. Right now it appears they're working on something called "Citadel".

Tyler Mcvicker claims that this is a hybrid VR-flat multiplayer game and it's in the "all hands on deck" stage of development that Alyx was in during the summer of 2019.

Prez wrote on Mar 5, 2021, 16:44:
Wow Valve has taken a nosedive in recent years like so many others. I'm starting to think it's always better to remain a plucky start-up barely scraping by rather than making to the big leagues and losing every shred of creativity and soul you had.

They've actually done a lot--when it comes to VR. First, they are the only reason that PC gamers' options for VR aren't limited to "Facebook VR" and ... well just Facebook. In other words, they've successfully fended off FB's multi-billion dollar attempt to control the PCVR medium with their walled garden that's forcibly linked to a toxic social media platform.

On the hardware end they designed lighthouse tracking (enabling a ton of things in VR that aren't possible with any other solution), the HTC Vive (and in doing so successfully shifted the medium away from front facing gamepad experiences to fully tracked experiences with motion controllers--really the most interesting aspect of VR), helped design the Reverb G2, gave away technology to others (tracking, lens technologies, audio solutions), and released the Valve Index themselves. And they are, if we're to believe their public statements, continuing to work on high end VR hardware because they understand the quality of the experience isn't quite there yet.

On the platform and software end, they are the only platform doing the drudgework of supporting all VR systems and are doing it in a way that allows for a ton of interesting forms of extensibility in true PC fashion. And of course they've released Half-Life: Alyx (the game that basically sets a standard baseline for good VR design--something that devs will emulate for many years), a variety of other small projects to inspire developers, and they are continuing to work on VR titles (at the very least there's something called Citadel and another project that hasn't been leaked).

Some might say "but Facebook still controls the majority of PCVR hardware". This is true, but it's not really what matters. What matters is that PCVR gamers don't buy their games on the Oculus Store and thus aren't locked into Facebook's walled garden. That Facebook is using their billions to sell PCVR hardware at a loss to gain hardware dominance is unfortunate (other PC vendors need to not just break even but make a profit), but what's ultimately important is who controls the dominant platform (and, for us gamers, how well that platform "behaves"). So long as a decent percentage of users continue to use non-FB hardware it won't be an issue (and now FB has largely shifted focus to mobile VR gaming anyway).

If I had to criticize their efforts it's that they haven't supported indie VR devs directly (only indirectly) and they haven't acquired any promising projects and given them the Valve boost (like they did with TF, Portal, L4D, etc etc).

But you should really watch Half-Life: Alyx - The Final Hours. They go into how creating HLA was not just a matter of making an amazing VR game but also "fixing Valve". COVID is slowing them down but if we're to believe the story presented in HLA: TFH we'll be seeing much more from Valve.

Hard to tell exactly what's going on here with PSVR. You can send devs developer kits without making a public announcement, and they've clearly been working on it a while if they're at the dev kit stage. They've previously stated they wouldn't launch or announce PSVR2 close to the PS5 release, so it being announced is by itself not exactly extraordinary. Really, the only thing here for the public is "we're making PSVR2 in exactly the way that you'd expect". So I'm wondering if this was to either:

(1) Preempt another big announcement from someone else that they know is coming soon
(2) Tamp down all of the negative gaming media press they've been getting as a result of the non-hypey comments the CEO made last year

These two companies are poised to clash with each other to an even greater degree in the near future, especially when the AR wars heat up. The enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily of my friend but I can't help but hope Apple and Google turn Facebook's AR efforts into another Facebook Phone failure. And normally I want more competition, but Facebook holding a dominant position in the market with the data collection nightmare that is AR is a scary thought. Eyetracking in particular reveals so much about your conscious and involuntary subconscious processes, and Facebook is also look into integrating BCI technologies into XR devices.

Facebook is an extremely effective company and if their AR efforts are anything like their VR efforts they will aggressively subsidize the hardware (initially by loss leading, but long term through their typical data collection and influence exposure) and give people an Apple-like quality/simplicity of experience. That combination could be extraordinarily powerful: cheap but stable, simple, and high quality. Apple has a less pernicious business model (that has its own problems, mind you) and Google is a bumbling tech monopoly that can hardly muster the organizational capacity to perpetuate hundreds of plainly useful services and is often ineffective (in ways that Facebook won't be).

So typically I side with Valve on these things but--regardless of whether or not this has been introduced by other competitors that are just envious of Steam's dominance--why wouldn't we want platforms to be able to compete on pricing?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see now. This isn't about Steam dictating prices but rather other companies wanting to give themselves an artificial (and anticompetitive) advantage by controlling multiple verticals.

"Research compelling new hardware technologies"

Might be something related to their BCI research. They cover some practical ways it might be applied to gaming here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhj3C1H5JWo

The hardware survey has Simplified Chinese up 12% and English down 6%. Chinese is a couple percentage points from overtaking English

Funny thing is it's starting to trick my brain less and less. The longer I use VR the more the vergence-accommodation conflict bugs the hell out of me. I really hope this problem gets solved

JohnBirshire wrote on Dec 15, 2020, 11:25:
I was curious about VR games, maybe someone can answer? I think I saw an official statistic that only 2% of Steam users have it? How are companies even profitable enough to bother making games for it? Or they all just kind of simplistic and don't take much dev time?

About 2 million PCVR users are active on Steam. Total headset sales are considerably higher but VR hardware and software are quite limited now so retention is poor. E.g. VR is very cool but it's also quite uncomfortable (visually, ergonomically, physically), limited, clunky, and high friction. Most of the stuff people are playing are indie games, e.g. Beat Saber, Pavlov, Onward, H3VR, Population One, and so on. These teams have since expanded (and Facebook nabbed Beat Saber) but you're rarely talking about teams with more than 5 to 10 people. Most VR games are made by teams of just a few devs (sometimes even just a single dev). Some of these teams even do contract VR work outside of gaming to stay afloat. It's a work of passion and as for what people are actually playing it's dominated by titles from these talented indie devs.

However, with Facebook subsidizing the Quest 2 (they sell it for $300 and it's estimated that it costs $450 to produce) and it being so easy to use (it's inherently wireless, while PCVR is waiting for 802.11ay) that is broadening the market. But their mobile/standalone focus is also becoming something separate from PCVR--think early console vs PC days. HLA may have come close to breaking even because according to steam stats nearly all PCVR users bought it, but the Facebook PCVR exclusives are huge losses and they are only accessible to half of the market (MOH:AB could've been the exception since it's on Steam but Respawn botched it). Do note that at this point Facebook is really phasing out of PCVR and this is either their last or second to last "big title" for the platform.

Basically, VR would've continued to be an enthusiast thing for another 5 to 10 years--think early days of PC gaming--but Facebook is so scared of missing out on the next big medium again that they're fine with loss leading for a decade+. This (somewhat artificially) inflates the rest of the VR market because it's like a huge money fountain for the industry. They put ~$2.6b/year into XR and you can be guaranteed they aren't making anywhere near that back for the foreseeable future. And unlike your typical corp, they are not plagued by the whims of short term investors because Zuckerberg has secured majority control over the company's shares. AR is another big focus of theirs in their R&D labs and will likely become their primary focus (when the tech is ready) because the data collection, influence potential, and mass market appeal there is extraordinary. Much of their VR work unsuprisingly applies to AR as well, e.g. camera-based hand tracking. I've heard some AR experts joke that VR is just something for their engineers to do while AR technology is perfected.

Valve OTOH has no expectations for short to mid term mass market appeal and have said as much. They've actually underestimated the appeal of the Index, as it's always out of stock. They are just a crazy company and from everything I've seen they are continuing to invest a ton into both VR hardware and software.

The roadtovr review basically nails it: https://www.roadtovr.com/medal-of-honor-above-and-beyond-review-war-never-felt-so-bland/ (5/10) . This was Facebook's most expensive VR production yet and at one point commanded a team of ~180 developers (twice as many as Alyx). It's simply astounding how badly they fucked this up. The bugs, the performance issues, and the lack of detail settings indicate they either rushed it out the door or simply couldn't be bothered to at least make it playable. Probably because they don't care about PCVR anymore.

HoSpanky wrote on Dec 14, 2020, 10:11:
I just hope they license the Source2VR engine so more games can stand a CHANCE of looking/running similarly.

The S&box (Garry's Mod 2) developers were recently given access to the full source of Source 2. Last I heard about an actual public SDK though is that they'd like to but it's a ton of work to make a public facing toolset, so they need to figure out if it's worth it. That was a while ago though so I assume they've already decided at this point and we'll hear about it eventually (or not). Word going around is that this next VR game they're making (Citadel) is being used to flesh out the VR specific multiplayer components of Source 2, and those will likely be essential for modders.

The reason I'd like to see a full public Source 2 SDK is because HLA solves a ton of VR stuff that's "basic" but *very difficult to get right*. Things like, how to implement VR specific grabbing, throwing, doors, weapons, physics-based interaction mechanics, and so on, in a way that feels good and isn't janky. It's "basic" in the sense that it's stuff we've always been pressing 'E' for in flat games to trigger simple canned animations, but making all of that stuff feel good in VR is a ton of difficult work and yet is essential to making a world feel very immersive in VR.

Giving modders and indie devs access to that baseline would be *incredible* for PCVR. Then they could focus on expanding VR mechanics to even more complex things rather than repeatedly reinventing the wheel (often poorly).

Razumen wrote on Nov 23, 2020, 19:33:
I'd pick up a screen upgrade in an instant if they upgraded it to OLED. Still a bit miffed they went back to LCD after the Vive. Wireless would be nice too, but I can live with the cord for now.

LCD is a mixed bag, true. Much worse blacks and colors. On the plus side, with LCD it's much easier to obtain displays that are much more comfortable (lower persistence) and that have much higher pixel densities (RGB subpixel layouts + better availability of higher pixel density displays). MicroLED will likely give us the best of both worlds (and more, e.g. blacks without mura or black smear) but that's still years out.

With respect to wireless, I have a feeling that 802.11ay wireless solutions aren't too far off. 802.11ay appears to be just weeks away from passing IEEE Working Group approval and this recently showed up as SteamVR DLC https://steamdb.info/app/669010/history/

Man, Index still in the top 10. I get that this means that there are at least ~17 Cyberpunk 2077 sales for every Index sale, but it's still impressive for $1000 VR hardware--that's been backordered anywhere between weeks and months.

Gabe recently talked about the possibility of an Index refresh with parts that can be more easily sourced at scale so they can meet demand. Hopefully they take that opportunity to upgrade a few other things as well, e.g. the screen, wireless, weight, joysticks, etc etc

In a recent leaked interview, Gabe talked about possibly moving the entire company there--at least temporarily. But who knows? Maybe once they get there they'll end up preferring it.

It would be a mistake to wait until late 2022 to release the PSVR IMO. The platform has been losing momentum and these users would switch to something else. Late 2021 or early 2022 would be better.

Taken literally though I completely agree with Ryan. I only play VR right now but it won't represent a substantial percentage of gaming for a long time. There is still so much that has to improve (and, no, just reducing the price by another $100 won't solve those problems). However execs rarely speak in literal terms so these statements are unnerving.

Man, the Phasmophobia dev did hardly any marketing and is now #1.