Oculus CTO: "VR is Coasting on Novelty"

VR is out, ladies and gentleman, with the PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and Vive available for public consumption. The future, as it is, is here with a resounding "meh". Most early reviews of these systems call them "interesting", but so far there doesn't seem to be any professionals deeply in love with them, calling them interesting if nonessential peripherals.

And that bugs people. Specifically, it bugs Oculus CTO and pioneer of VR technology, John Carmack, who thinks that the reason for this middling reception is that developers are still treating VR like glorified tech demos and are afraid to take full advantage of the system.

"We are coasting on novelty, and the initial wonder of being something people have never seen before. But we need to start judging ourselves. Not on a curve, but in an absolute sense. Can you do something in VR that has the same value, or more value, than what these other [non-VR] things have done?"

He continued to berate developers, urging them to get out of the mindset where they just want to 'impress' people, saying:

"This is misguided. It's not just that it hurts your performance, or the visual quality isn't as good; it's actually the wrong thing to do."

Now, I wouldn't know much about this, I don't have VR and I won't for a very long time, but the reviews seem to agree with him. It is a shame that not enough companies are able to really take advantage of what VR has to offer, but I have said it before that I'm not 100% sure what VR can offer that traditional gaming can't already do better. But, maybe I just need that one developer with a great idea to blow my perception out of the water. I'd be open to that.

Let's see if that can happen before this VR bubble bursts.