alt Hacker NewsI never understood why they were trying to recreate real life social interactions in VR, because it's worse by default, and the majority of the nerds who buy this tech are probably trying to escape that on some level. I know that any time I went into Meta Horizon Worlds, I didn't want to hear 95% of the people I heard talking.
What I do use VR for is Bigscreen VR nearly every night to watch stuff with my friends. Scrolling through reels in a movie theater is pretty fun and even though I never do it solo on my phone, I will sit there for like 3-4 hours in VR enjoying communal brain rot.
Perhaps they should focus on things like that instead of gimmicks that nobody cares about. For example, I have never once played a game in VR that didn't force me to sit or stand in a specific position, meaning to play it, I have to go out of my way to do so.
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There's a lot of nerds around the world. Plenty for a decent market.
Also it isn't this weird an idea. Could you imagine explaining to someone in 1995 that everyone would be chatting on a small touchscreen instead of calling each other on the phone? You'd be laughed out of the door "typing is not real communication".
Yet these days it's the main mode of communication. I do think AR/VR has a chance. Just not until the hardware is truly hassle-free.
They just wanted a platform they control instead of apple or Google
The last 10 years of the VR industry has been about trying to find users beyond the hardcore nerds who want to virtually meet up with friends every night or try out experiences/demos for more than a few days. The moment that hope goes away so do the tens of billions of investment as it was never really about finding out what that group of users wanted.