Happy Monday, everyone! Let's start off with salty and influential game reviewer Jim Sterling hilariously ranting and swearing like a sailor about all the problems inherent in VR -- or as he aptly calls them, "Privilege Goggles". He makes a really good point that virtual reality developers all too often design games and experiences for the "gimmick" of VR that aren't very entertaining in themselves -- rather than making interactive content that's inherently great and becomes even better in VR.
As I said, Sterling is one of the most popular hardcore game reviewers on YouTube, which again points to a deep skepticism coming from what's supposed to be virtual reality's primary target market. If anything, gamers have been burnt on new technology over and over again, and are an even more skeptical about hyperbole than the average consumer. They've already been convinced (as Sterling notes) that Wii-style motion controllers or the Kinect or 3D TV or whatever is The Future of Interactive Technology. But after you get excited and blow a couple thousand dollars on those promises, you tend to get cynical.
Or as Clara Seller
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on this virtual world/MMO blog:This forum, of all places, should be super excited with this new technology, but our gut instincts are telling us something else. We should trust those instincts that are telling us that something is wrong with this picture. When you see players like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Sony peddling "fake reality" it just throws down some subconscious red flags. Maybe because we're in the process of learning that we can't even trust the "real reality" being peddled from these corporations. The thought of using one of their "brain tools" just makes you want to take a shower.
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