Science fiction author Neal Stephenson, who coined the term “metaverse” in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, has argued he and others who believed immersive environments would require head-mounted hardware got it wrong.
In a post penned to mark Meta’s recent decision to end its work on the Metaverse after blowing through $80 billion, Stephenson said that twenty years ago, when he worked at virtual reality hardware company Magic Leap, he would ask “Do you really think that twenty years from now everyone is still going to be going around all day staring at little rectangles in their hands?”
“At the time it seemed obvious to me that the answer was no,” he wrote. Now he thinks that another 20 years into the future, devices like smartphones will still dominate. “Or at least that is the case if the only alternative is wearing things on their faces.”
VR still lives for gaming! Steam VR offers some great experiences, with mods taking that further, and the upcoming Steam Frame headset (if AI doesn’t steal every component in existence). Don’t expect growth for daily digital tasks (Apple VR and the like tried and failed), but the niche has been carved out for gamers!
I got Virtual Home Theater on Steam to watch 3D movies, it’ s a great experience.
Half-Life: Alyx and the Psychonauts VR game are also great. Pro Tip: The HP Reverb G2 is really cheap and it’s got 2160p per eye. It’s not officially supported anymore since Microsoft canceled their VR platform, but Oasis drivers make them work better than ever.
Can’t go wrong with an affordable headset with solid resolution :) and agreed, Alyx was an absolute banger!
Might have to try that home theater offering 🎭
Lots of multiplayer VR FPS’s too, pretty fun! Forefront’s been my Battlefield fix, way more fun than BF6 wound up being at a lower price, and I do love VR tank-time lol
TBH though, the best VR experiences I’ve had have been survival crafting games :) loads of fun and super immersive, especially as you build up your base and get to actually be inside of it, then run out for some fighting and looting lol but it really shines in multiplayer, and for whatever godforsaken reason all the devs that do wind up making survival crafting VR games leave ‘em as single-player :/ at the moment best multiplayer survival crafting games for VR are mods for Valheim and 7 Days To Die - wish we could get some similar experiences that are actually built for VR! Feels like that’s been a drought since The Forest did their VR mode