Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Valve's "Room Scale VR Survey" Finds a Lot of People Play In Their Bedrooms (itworld.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the never-leave-the-bed dept.

itwbennett writes: Earlier this week Valve published the results of a "Room Scale VR Survey" completed by 2008 members of its VR Community. The findings: 860 (~43%) of respondents said their gaming PC was in their bedroom and 1,393 (~69%) said they were not willing to move their PC to accommodate a VR experience. The average space respondents feel they can devote to VR is about 8.5'x 9'. Why does this matter? Well, last March, Valve and HTC debuted the HTV Vive virtual reality system consisting of a VR visor, a couple of custom controllers and a tracking system the allows the user to wander around a 15'x15' area. 'While the Vive system certainly sounds impressive I've had questions about how practical it'll be,' writes Peter Smith. 'How many people have a 15'x15' clear area in front of their PC? Turns out, not many.' 'According to this survey at least, using all of the 15'x15' space the system can track is going to leave most users frustrated,' adds Smith.

7 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Well, obviously by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Informative

    When you live in your parents' basement, your gaming room is also your bedroom. And it's hard to get enough space for VR with that damn washer and dryer in the way.

    1. Re:Well, obviously by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 5, Funny

      When you live in your parents' basement, your gaming room is also your bedroom. And it's hard to get enough space for VR with that damn washer and dryer in the way.

      I live in my own house with my family and my gaming machine is still in our bedroom because it's a big ugly box that doesn't look good in the living room. That and I don't want people to see I'm running windows.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    2. Re:Well, obviously by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Funny

      might be preferable to admitting you are married and have your desktop computer in your bedroom.

      I hadn't considered there might be shame associated with being married and having a gaming machine in the bedroom. What other not-actually-shameful things should I be ashamed about? Is my TV is too small? Is my brand of skillet not elite enough?

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  2. moving about like kinect by gl4ss · · Score: 3

    vr is not going to smash into hardcore gaming.

    why? you're going to fail around like an idiot for 8 hours+? you might just as well go out and play some real football or enlist in the army.

    keyboard + mouse is a FINE control combo for vr headset gaming - you only change your monitor to be the display and you need LESS SPACE to play while enjoying the benefits of having a (potentially)360 degree display.

    basically, I gave up giving Valve credit as the premier company in 'getting it' when it comes to vr headset gameplay when they released the vr patch for TF2 and it had WORSE control scheme than the unofficial half life 2 patch. basically the unofficial hl2(and other games) hack just tied the head controls to mouselook and added stereoscopic 3d and that was much much better to play with than any of the tf2 modes, which all separated aiming from the view for some reason and that makes you less effective fps player and frankly sucks, because in fps games you quite often need to look up and down and if you always need to do that by tilting your head up and down you will get bored and get a sore neck - and if in order to shoot UP you need to both move the aim to UP and look physically UP then that sucks big time!

    so in essence, just use the display for display and KEEP THE FRIGGING MOUSELOOK on mouse!

    or a ps4/xbox controller.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  3. Please.... someone.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...Tell me this isn't an afterthought. How can you get this deep into product development and suddenly realize so few people will be able to use it? It's been of my assumption that for the physical VR experience, you'd have to go to a wealthy friends' house.

    1. Re:Please.... someone.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the very start, Valve has been drilling into developers to develop with the constraints of two yoga mats pushed together. I remember this from a talk at the beginning of the year. As it turns out, this /is/ the amount of space commonly available in consumers homes.

      The Vive's lighthouse tech scales from a single base station sitting on a desk to being able to fit out an entire warehouse/building with them. Static objects (walls, couches, beds, cabinets etc) can be mapped out easily so you don't bump into them. Moving objects could be tracked with a small wireless puck-shaped thing, though that's still TBA. IR cameras that are tracked in the lighthouse's range also become a lot more useful for depth tracking, that's still early stages.

      The tech is far more thought out than you think.

  4. 3m x 3m is still pretty big.... by Harlequin80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know I know metric but hey I can't think in ft....

    But anyway roughly 3m x 3m of clear space is still a big space. Especially in a bedroom that will contain a bed, a book case a desk and quite often a wardrobe (Which TFA comments on). My gaming PC is in a dedicated room and I don't have that amount of space behind me.

    So honestly I question their results as I don't believe that people really have that amount of space they could dedicate to VR. A more realistic figure would be 1.5m deep by 2m wide.