With the GearVR released, Oculus Rift a week away from release, the HTC Vive coming coming the following week and PlayStation VR coming in October, I thought I’d post a general VR thread.
LWJGL currently supports Oculus’ LibOVR, and jMonkeyEngine supports SteamVR.
Phr00t has led the charge with VR, having the first VR java games on Steam that support both the Rift and the Vive with Spermination, 4089 and 5089.
Who has, or is expecting to get a VR HMD in the near future?
Who is excited?
I have a Rift on the way (28th woot!), I have some ideas I’ve been tossing around for a hybrid “2D game in VR”, but I’m not sure how it’ll all pan out. But of course, I have a flagship product to focus on, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to really dev with VR though.
Sucks too, because with VR being really new there’s a lot of weird untapped (and easy to get into) markets to jump into, like hybrid “2.5d platformers” and other fun stuff that VR could make really interesting.
May does not come fast enough for my HTC Vive shipment 
With Ray’s post, one reason why I got it now, hopefully I may be able to jump into being a game developer with it being new.
I also saw Spasi on github saying he would support SteamVR in LWJGL if there is enough demand for it.
I know I hope for SteamVR support. I hope to do my graphics course next semester with the vive, would be nice to be able to use LWJGL for the assignment, otherwise I will probably go to C++.
Allow me to piss on everyone’s chips but VR is going to be a massive flop - at least, in the gaming industry.
Let’s guess some numbers.
Number of people willing to pay $x00 for a VR system (I’m assuming they get them to that sort of price)
Number of people who have a physical playing area around their PC actually big enough for VR experience
Number of people willing to don ridiculous headgear just to fire up some game or other
Number of game designs that would be good in VR… that’s basically, er, FPSes, plus a few niche interests like “surgeon simulator” and so on*
Amount of money that needs to be spent on an FPS to compete with the latest AAA titles
Amount of extra money needed to make that title support VR adequately and meaningfully (remembering stringent performance requirements to avoid motion sickness and achieve suspension of disbelief)
Discuss the numbers and then tell me how VR is going to be in any way a success. Compare and contrast with 3D cinema. Or maybe even 3D TV for laughs. Pay special attention to previous stabs at 3D goggle tech such as Nvidia’s shutter goggles.
Cas 
this :point:
Although I’m still kinda interested to try it out, but I won’t buy one because of:
On the long run it will end up like 3D movies (I wasn’t that surprised when I heard that large companies, e.g. Philips, completely stop to integrate 3D in their TVs at all): I think this will end up in some niche markets, like arcades in cinemas and stuff like that - with all the VR gear combined (glasses, walking-pods, controllers) to get the best experience.
I recently found out that a small company that develops those walking-pods (even with sit-down mode for games like GTA if you switch to driving) is right next to where I live, which surprised me because I live in a kinda rural location in Austria ;D
All major engines (Unreal Engine, Cryengine V (just released today I believe), Unity) already have support for both Rift and the Vive.
With those support, I guess at minimum, basic sit down VR will be more likely to be supported.
I don’t think that we’re going to see a large adaption of VR from AAA, at least in gen 1, but I don’t think it’s dead on arrival either. HTC, Oculus and Sony have all hinted that demand for VR is much higher than they anticipated (Sony delaying the PSVR due to needing to manufacture more units, Vive selling 15k units in first 10 minutes of preorders, Oculus’ Palmer Luckey saying flat out that demand was much higher than they expected at launch).
They’ve pushed a lot units already, so the only thing that would kill VR would be it going the way of MS’ Kinect, not having enough software. However, looking at steam, there are already 60+ games that support VR that are released or scheduled for release.
I’m sorry, but this is really not true. The idea that VR is limited to FPSes is rubbish. For example, one of the bundled Oculus launch titles is Lucky’s Tale, a third person platformer. And by all accounts, has utilized VR very well.
The major factor of VR is that it opens up a new world of game design options, when you’re not just limited to such basic key inputs. Indie games will form new genres, and eventually, yes AAA devs will adopt the genres that indies create and milk the shit out of them, but regardless, new genres will form, which for me is the most exciting thing to happen in the gaming industry during my lifetime.
EDIT: To build upon this.
In a matter of weeks, there will be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people with high end VR HMDs. These people shelled out at least 600USD for their item, meaning they have a substantial amount of disposable income. People who have invested so much into their HMD will want to continue to invest more money to make their investment more worthwhile. In a space that has a high barrier to development such as VR, the number of titles in this formative time will be relatively few. So:
Market filled with people with high amounts of disposable income to spend on the small number of titles = substantially more VR titles owned by each average consumer than most Steam users = higher income for VR devs
I believe this is the best market for indie devs to be working in at the moment.
Eww, given the total money pit that 3D is for most indies, would it really be prudent to attempt both 3D and target a market barely 0.01% of the size?
Cas
I’m really looking forward to this, but I agree that it will be a niche market at best, at least until hardware prices drop to more reasonable levels.
I’d compare it with all the fancy peripherals like steering wheels or advanced flightsticks, they work wonders for the games they are desinged for, but not so many games come out for them, seeing how they are horribly expensive.
I’m thinking that, for 3rd person games, VR tech could finally solve most camera issues. You could control the player character with a standard peripheral (keyboard/gamepad) and point the camera with your head.
For games based on precision jumping and the like it would be natural, I mean, who hasn’t reflexively tried to look beyond the screen borders when jumping around under bad camera angles?
Same with driving/piloting games, where turning the camera is usually a hassle.
I really hope lots of cool stuff will pop up!
One avenue that I should hope will be rapidly discarded is 3rd person. VR is about one thing and one thing only: the central position of yourself as the avatar. No other perspective makes the remotest sense, unless you’re trying to actually achieve an out-of-body experience. Which will be fun. Once.
Where VR will be much more successful is in controlled commercial settings. AR is likely to do better than VR in both home ent. and commercial settings too.
Cas
Have you tried and tested this yourself?
VR is a very expectation defying thing. I’ve used the DK2 and GearVR myself. Before those I was skeptical of VR, but now I really want it to do well.
I’m not sceptical of the various ways in which it can be used, but I am pretty sceptical about its mainstream adoption in gaming. I can see first person being the 99% of normal use in VR and there might indeed be some peculiar scenes in which a 3rd person perspective would be interesting, but I don’t think that will be a normal use and designs will most likely gravitate away from 3rd person positions in fairly short order. Well, that’s my prediction anyway ;D We’ll have to wait and see. But I won’t be buying any VR tech any time soon, if ever.
Cas
I think a strategy top-down kind of game could also work really well for VR. All these little fellas running about at your command while you gaze at them from the sky like the god you are.
Has the added benefit that it’s probably less nausea-inducing than 1st person and might be more suitable for most people. But yeah, 1st person has the bigger market for sure.
I think the cool thing about VR is that you’re really just applying first person to camera models that we traditionally considered to not be, and this is a great example, where you are literally a godlike figure.
That is, technically, still a first-person perspective, with you as God. Where I see it failing is for example where you are expected to directly control an avatar in the 3rd person as if it were an extension of your own body, eg. a platform jumping game, or an arena shooter - I can’t think of a worse use for VR.
Cas
EDIT: what I’m trying to say is, don’t write something off because you think it sounds like a bad idea on paper, having not tried it.
Haha, thwarted by an ad-blocker-blocker Sod that!
At the end of the day though I’m sure that it’s all pretty amazing after a while but I think it’s going to go exactly the same way as 3D TV and cinema, and even the Wii. The novelty will rapidly wear off and then the inconvenience, pomp and ceremony will become a chore and the whole thing will be put into a cupboard and gather dust, and in the meantime the number of people creating content for VR will shrink drastically when it turns out there’s better ways to spend money on development.
For myself, I’m just going to play on Cliffski’s VR kit when he finally gets something interesting to play on it in his giant living room, and otherwise continue to fritter my own hard-earned money on motorcycles, sunshine and actual reality 
Cas
So you might aswell jump the bandwagon now and get all the new and shiny things while the “golden age” of VR still lasts
Goldman sachs (high profile market analysts) predict VR to be an $80 billion dollar industry by 2025, and although they may be dicks, they have a lot of experience about this sort of thing.