[imagesource: Unsplash / Stella Jacob]

Virtual reality is being talked about everywhere right now. Pilots train with it, tourists travel with it, gamers game with it. But do they? It seems like all the talk with virtual reality is in fact talk. Do you know anyone visiting the Metaverse regularly, or playing VR games that aren’t obligated to stream it for YouTube?

We’re looking at gaming and virtual reality to see if the concept is really all talk, or if it can really walk the walk.

The argument for

Gaming has always pushed the limit of technology. If it isn’t being developed for the use of the army, you can bet it’ll find a place amongst gamers. And (arguably) gaming is always striving for the next big thing. What combat can we add? What stealth? Health? What makes for a better game? What new mechanic is the next big thing? That might have stalled in the big triple A games today, which doesn’t surprise anyone, but they have accepted VR as the next gaming gadget?

More than anything, gaming has always strived for immersion. The first thing a reviewer will mention of the game is its beautiful graphics, whether photorealistic or not, and how much of a beautiful world it was to be in. But when they go deeper, they point out things like NPCs that don’t talk, clunky actions and other mechanics that remind you that you’re playing a game. Virtual reality is the next step in immersion.

Multiplayer video games are the hottest trend in console gaming right now. Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox, etc. are the staples, while the rest of the industry scrambles together their own alternative …Fallout. It only makes sense that the genre is pushed even further with the use of virtual reality. A world where you can actually walk up to a fellow player and team up, chat as you would in the real world, or fight like you would in a fantasy world.

The argument against

Virtual reality is having a problem right now, in that it has officially been around since the 1990s, but, being generous, Sony released its PlayStation headset in 2016 and Xbox is interestingly not going near the concept. Six years might not seem like a lot but it’s ancient in gaming time. Virtual reality really should have found its footing by now. It should be in every home the way the Wii was before we all realised that wasn’t any fun either.

And while we’re on the subject of gaming gadgets that came and went, it’s very likely that we will see the VR headset go the same way as the plastic Guitar Hero guitar, the PlayStation Eye camera, the many controllers shaped like guns or steering wheels for the arcade experience, dance mats and just about anything else the industry spits out as an add on: it’ll be fun for some amount of time before pulling it out and putting it away becomes more hassle than it’s worth.

Now, it must be said that all of those “accessories” I mentioned have one massive flaw: they usually were made for the purpose of one game. If you weren’t into Dance Dance Revolution, for example, then you weren’t going to pull out the dance mat. And even if you were into it, you’d get tired of it eventually.

However, VR has a similar issue of not necessarily being attached to one good game, but a lot of mediocre ones. When the Nintendo Switch came out, it coincided with the release of the very much anticipated new Legend of Zelda game, Breath of the Wild. This is a tried-and-true tactic, which resulted in the desperation of fans to play the new Zelda game having to buy the new console. There is no desperation for a new console. That’s a practical decision. The emotion comes with the game.

VR hasn’t yet had that moment of desperation. Its marketers think it’s good enough to evoke that desperation in gamers, but we’re now 6 years in without that desperation manifesting. If the VR manufacturers can release a game, an exclusive game, that has as much hype and advancements as Breath of the Wild did, they might see that desperation to play manifest.