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Valve 'Comfortable' If Virtual Reality Headsets Fail (bbc.com)
VR headset developer Valve is "comfortable" with the idea that the technology could turn out to be a complete failure. Gabe Newell, head of the game studio, made the statement in an interview with news site Polygon. From a report: Valve is co-developer of the Vive VR headset with phone firm HTC. Mr Newell said, so far, interest in the technology was in line with its expectations and that some VR games had already sold well. In the rare and wide-ranging interview, Mr Newell said the advent of VR had much in common with the development of PCs in the 1980s. In both cases, he said, people bought technology without knowing why and discovered afterwards what they were good for. For the PC, he said, it was spreadsheets and businesses that drove the initial success. With VR, people were only starting to discover compelling uses as they experimented and took risks with the technology.Mr Newell said there were now about 1,300 VR-based applications on its Steam gaming service and about 30 of those had made more than $250,000 in revenue.
If they're already discussing failure as an outcome, well, then it has.
Out of curiosity, may I ask why? Do you work for Microsoft?
Valve failed.
I never really dug PC games, I've always enjoyed playing casually on console more. However, with Steam creating a pretty good, bonafide controller experience, I've gotten myself a little set-top machine. With Steam you pay more for hardware and less for software. I really like the Steam platform. I hope they can make the transition to SteamOS someday, and I could ditch windows.
I'd wager all that statement means is that they're making plenty of money via the Steam store, and don't see VR as a big moneymaker either way. Hell, they apparently don't even need to release games anymore.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Couldn't this article and the question asked to Newell be slightly rephrased along the lines of, "Is Valve relying on the success of its VR headset as its primary driver of growth?" The answer appears to be "no," which seems like the prudent business strategy to me.
VR will never fail as badly as 3D TVs because it's an easy add-on for smartphones.
Honestly, I don't see how VR could fail. It's a incredible feature for a lot of game (Try Elite Dangerous with a X52 joystick and I dare you to tell me otherwise).
Right now (and I emphasize on that), the only drawback is, well, money for both the consumer and the developer.
The specs needed to support VR is insane right now. Top that the +1000$ bucks for the VR and you'll scare more than a few. The cost for AAA game too is problematic as cannot use fixed cam to render only a part of the games. Top that the small number of people that can afford the VR and it's already unprofitable unless you're making a game that can play with or without VR.
I say, give it some time and, sooner or later, the VR will boom.
Elok
I think a lot of the commenters here are speculating a little too hard. As someone who's met him, Newell isn't one to go ceo-marketspeak on everyone. It seems to me that he is simply stating that they want to innovate for innovations sake, and innovation fails sometimes. We all know they are raking in the money with steam, so they don't NEED this to be successful. Outside of that, they are turning a profit on a high ticket item where most of their target audience cant afford it. Gotta give them props for that. And anyone who knows a thing or two about how development of a new product goes (I'm sure most on this site have a decent idea), the early adopters are there to get the train moving so the next version can be cheaper. And because most of their target audience cant afford it until its cheaper, once it gets there sales will go up with it (vive sales in november were 140,000 Msrp $799, PSVR sales were around 2 million Msrp $399). Its unlikely to be anything as big as the home computer, but it will certainly have staying power, and definitely has a demand.
Gaben: "Well, it's not like this is the 3rd version of it, AMIRITE?"
Gabe never 'positions' himself. You are confusing him with normal 'people in high positions'. He is not a spokesman, or a mouthpiece, or even a manager. He built the entire company of Valve in a way so he doesn't have to be the decider. He's just a smart dude at a company on the forefront of VR, and like any new and risky technology, it could fail. Like John Carmack, he pulls no punches... if something sucks, he says it sucks. If he fires someone, he publicly calls them an ass (not necessarily his best moment).
He is not in Marketing, and he doesn't really care what consumers think about his verbiage. In fact, his lack of a filter is part of why Valve as a company is so reticent to talk to the consumers directly, as his quotes have been used against him many times in the past.
So I'm not saying your options are false, I'm just saying that you ascribe too much forethought into his choice of wording.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
If VR fails, they'll finally release Episode 3
They probably went into VR because if VR became the dominant way of playing games, it would eat their existing business. It's similar to why they made SteamOS as an insurance policy against Microsoft locking them out of the Windows platform.
I think it's safe to say now that VR won't replace PC gaming on a monitor, certainly not any time soon. But since their existing business is doing fine and they didn't invest more than they could afford, it doesn't matter for them if VR fails or becomes a niche product.
Personally, I think VR becoming a niche product is the most likely outcome. People buy expensive steering wheels or flight sticks to get more immersed in their favorite games and, for certain genres, VR can do the same.
Polygon reports on video game news. What is fake about that?
If you read the Valve employee handbook, failure is an accepted part of trying. They are not afraid to fail.
http://www.valvesoftware.com/c...
VR can "fail", and will, because people don't stick with games where the main challenge is "keep from barfing".
To clarify: today's VR will fail, as did VR from the 1990s and 2000s. We might get there in the 2020s, with tracking cameras operating at kilohertz frame rates, displays refreshing at 300Hz or better, and a graphics pipeline that doesn't introduce more than a frame or two of latency -- IF game designers put some serious thought into maintaining consistent motion perception among all modes (visual-field, inner-ear, proprioceptive).
And then what? Origin and Windows store taking over?
Please kill me when that happens. Because then I might actually have to switch to consoles to play games, and even though I hate them with a passion that would be the lesser evil.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
VR has already failed. Remember a couple of years ago that it was "the new darling of gaming" and so on? There's a few niche titles that use it, there's a few games that support it. But it's a rehash of the 1990's failure all over again, with the same problems. Costs too much(this is probably the biggest problem), followed by requiring too much GPU power to output(usually requiring a high-end card, or the highest mid-range card). Between both of those you could make a multi-monitor setup pick up a 2-3 27" and be quite happy. And if you're smart you could pick up 4-5 27" for $25-30 each from some company going under, or upgrading existing monitors. Too many visual problems for people, too many potential or people having actual problems due to headset weights, lack of titles. Pundits and enthusiasts were saying that "porn would be VR's saving grace" but it hasn't happened. These are the same things that happened with 3D-TV remember that? Remember all those stereoscopic type 3D setups for gaming too? Again niche product.
It'll likely be what it is, an expensive niche product that some people will enjoy but will never catch on with widespread adoption and the occasional developer adding support.
Om, nomnomnom...
It'll likely be what it is, an expensive niche product that some people will enjoy but will never catch on with widespread adoption and the occasional developer adding support.
Too right, just like those newfangled "GUI desktops" and mousie-things, or those Aye-Phone thingamabobs. Who's gonna write software for these things? Real Developers (TM) only work on proven technologies where they can make money today.
</sarcasm>
OK, maybe you're right, but I would be less surprised if some form of VR/AR that nobody is quite predicting yet grows up to be a very desirable and commonly used interface to humans. Time will tell.
WALSTIB!
The full unedited version of the interview hasn't been released yet but you can see most of statement responsible for these articles here: https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0?t...
"We think VR is going great. It's going in a way that is consistent with our expectations." "We're also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure. Simply because if you're not trying to do things that might fail you're probably not trying to do anything interesting at all."
It's pretty clear he's not saying VR is dead or SteamVR/Vive is a failure.
I do think HL3 was going to be a big push to VR for Valve but I think they are having a hard time making VR work well for a FPS shooter like Half-Life.
HL1 was a big jump over most of the AI and game design of the time - going back and playing it now it doesn't seem like much but over the other games at the time it was an impressive leap.
HL2 pushed the physics game play unlike FPSes before it - again something that is common now but pushed to the forefront of what is expected in an FPS by Half-Life.
HL2 Episodes were an attempt at changing the publishing paradigm - it didn't work out but one might say it sort of did as the same concept is sort of how some publishers push paid DLC updates.
For each one they found something that they could push to separate it from the other games at the time, for HL3 I think they were trying to push VR, so this lead to them designing hardware but I don't think they have gotten the VR gameplay to where they want.
In the same interview ( https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0 ) Gabe announces Valve is making 3 unique VR games. Not tiny a tiny experiment like "The Lab" but three full fledged games. That's a pretty big investment to make if they didn't care about VR and only making money via Steam Sales.
The Vive/Rift and even PSVR have shown that it's possible to make a pretty darn good VR experience for the consumer market. Sure, there are problems but to say they are no different than the 90s VR headsets is just silly. A game for VR isn't drastically different than any typical high end PC game. VR simply requires hardware a bit more towards bleeding edge end of the spectrum is all.
A multi modern setup is simply not capable of giving you the same experience as room scale VR with motion controls. VR in it's current form can't replace a multi monitor desktop environment either. It's simply too low resolution for anything other than gaming. The difference is VR can and will catch up but multi monitor desktop environments won't.
If VR fails it will be because there isn't software out there to justify it's existence, not technical limitations or even cost. Early personal computers were insanely expensive and I'm sure the same arguments were made back then too...
The software is coming. Value has announced they are making three VR games themselves. The market is small so you'll just have to give it some time for other studios not quite as invested as Valve to catch up.
Out of curiosity I checked the Steam web site for games that I already own and have installed on a PC, to see how many were available for Linux, Mac OS and Steam OS, not only were some of my favourites available but apparently I already own them on that OS as well, now that's cool, what can I say but bugger M$ with a dead dog's dingus. So now I have a choice of three OS's and abandoning some game titles or let a corporation steal my rights (so screw over my rights in order to play with a toy or preserve my rights and say goodbye windows anal probe 10, no choice at all).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Costs too much(this is probably the biggest problem), followed by requiring too much GPU power to output(usually requiring a high-end card, or the highest mid-range card). Between both of those you could make a multi-monitor setup pick up a 2-3 27" and be quite happy.
You're still going to need a mid-high end card to run a setup like that. In fact if it's more than 2 displays then you'll need even more, the latest Pascal architecture allows for single pass rendering of the multiple VR viewpoints so the GPU requirements only decrease with that.
These are the same things that happened with 3D-TV remember that?
Nope, 3D TVs certainly didn't cost much and didn't require any additional power to run.