John Carmack: VR Devs are 'Coasting on Novelty' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 13 October 2016 / 8,145 Views
Developers for virtual reality games will "need to be harder on ourselves" according to Oculus CTO John Carmack who spoke at the close of Oculus Connect.
Carmack says that VR developers will need to push beyond the "novelty" factor with current software on VR platforms.
"We are coasting on novelty, and the initial wonder of being something people have never seen before," said Carmack. "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?"
Carmack discussed that the current long load times for VR games and apps is currently an issue that developers need to improve.
"That's acceptable if you're going to sit down and play for an hour....but [in VR] initial startup time really is poisonous," he said. "An analogy I like to say is, imagine if your phone took 30 seconds to unlock every time you wanted to use it. You'd use it a lot less.
"There are apps that I wanted to play, that I thought looked great, that I stopped playing because they had too long of a load time. I would say 20 seconds should be an absolute limit on load times, and even then I'm pushing people to get it much, much lower."
Thanks GamesIndustry.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
while only 3 VR sets are talked about here there are at least 10+ others that are in production many of which will use your smart phone which cuts the cost of production significantly, now unlike before you can see the real benefit of having a UHD screen on a phone especially when used in a VR headset, id hardly call 10+ manufacturers or VR headsets a fad as soon both the PC and consoles will have VR, if your as old as i am and you remember watching game master on TV where they used what would be considered primitive VR today and dreamed of the day you could play VR games at home then you too would not think of VR being just a fad but more of an evolution of where gaming should be going.
Well that's hardly surprising. Look at Wii shovel ware and even early big budget releases. Look a 90% of the Move's library and darn near the entire Kinnect's library. And look at movies that were made when 3D was the new hotness. Gimmicky techniques and styles always rise sharply when some new tech is tossed in. Especially something that brings in whole new elements or eliminates old ones.
Well, the banking on novelty is an obvious point right now. It'll take some time before someone comes up with a killer app which others can use as a template, like Nintendo did with 2D side scrollers with Mario Bros, or with the transition to 3D with Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. As for loading, I honestly don't see at as much of an issue. Having said that, I'm really enjoying PSVR, so they still have a bit of time to come up with that killer VR use in gaming before the novelty wears off.
If this is the "Atari 2600" of the VR Entertainment, then we can only dream of what it is to come. But, of course, it can be just another fad, an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a craze.
None of these sets are good enough that I am interested.
The reason VR sales haven't been great is because of price and consumers have become smarter about novelty crap.
