The virtual reality dream is dying
Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of the studio CCP Games (responsible for the massive Eve: Online), says the company doesn't see much of a future for virtual reality gaming. “We expected VR to be two to three times as big as it was, period,” Pétursson told gaming site Destructoid just a few days ago, adding, “You can't build a business on that.” There's a chance the company could jump back in, but their own data showed adoption was slow, even among enthusiasts. “The important thing is we need to see the metrics for active users of VR. A lot of people bought headsets just to try it out. How many of those people are active? We found that in terms of our data, a lot of users weren't,” Pétursson said.
So what happened here? VR was supposed to be a revolution, with companies like Oculus pioneering a whole new way for gamers and non-gamers alike to be immersed in digital environments — but that excitement has markedly cooled. The media (yes, me included, at least early on) has gone through several cycles of fawning, optimistic prognostication, and... wishful thinking? — but for all the hype we have very little consumer interest to show for it. Oculus sold off to Facebook and has become little more than a parlor trick Mark Zuckerberg shows off at every F8 event.\]
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