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VR Is the Fastest-Growing Skill for Online Freelancers (bloomberg.com)
Workers with skills in virtual reality were the hottest thing on the U.S. job market in the last quarter, even though the technology has yet to break into mainstream use. From a report, shared by a reader: Demand for online freelancers with VR expertise grew far faster than for people with any other skill last quarter. Billings on VR projects grew more than 30-fold from the same period a year earlier, according to U.S. data provided by Upwork Inc's website that connects freelancers with employers. VR has so far struggled to break into the mainstream, with the technology largely confined to high-end video gaming. Facebook, which bought VR headset maker Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion, has already been lowering prices for the Oculus headset and is working on a more consumer-friendly version to be sold next year. Other companies that make VR goggles include Samsung, Google and Sony.
"For example, there are just over 2,500 freelancers on Upwork’s site now who list VR as one of their skills, compared with 106 individuals at this point last year. "
translated: I can export a UE4 / unity game with the vr flag enabled. Also I put a RPG maker game I did once with naked japanese cartoon ladies on steam and so I am a published game maker.
You need five years of VR experience before applying for a job. Never mind that decent VR headsets recently came out in the last few years.
First, the equipment costs about as much as a cheap gaming computer and you need it ON TOP of a cutting edge gaming computer. In other words, if you don't have a computer to plug your VR kit into, 2500-3000 is the price tag you're looking at. If you do have a top notch gaming rig, it's still another 500-800 bucks.
And there is very, very little support from AAA studios (read: ZERO). This in turn means that there are very, very few high quality games available for VR and an unimaginably huge mountain of gimmicky Flashgame knock-offs that some Indie Dev slapped together. They're not really bad per se, but it means that certain genres are overrepresented to the extreme. In other words, what idle-clicker games are to mobiles and zombie shooters are to PC gaming, tower defense is to VR.
There is also very, very little experience what works and what doesn't work in VR. And even less experience with what can only be done sensibly in VR. So far most games mimic what has been done on computer and console gaming for years, and usually they rely on the "shiny" effect of the new, because the games are by no means as polished, user friendly and graphically impressive as their Non-VR computer/console counterparts.
The studios that dared to venture into VR usually treat it as an afterthought rather than a focus, adapting their old games to VR to give them a sales boost, especially on the PS4 with the various racing games that try to gain a new following with the added VR gimmick.
Is it really the "fastest growing skill"? Or, as I'd read it, the highest in-demand skill? I can only say I wish it weren't. At least not yet. AAA studios are not buying into it yet and will probably treat it rather as a quick-buck deal rather than something they want to jump onto and ride as the new platform now that PC and console gaming has pretty much gone stale, with endless streams of essentially identical games being pumped out left and right. There simply is no "VR genre" born yet, we don't know yet what games do and which don't work on VR. There is simply not enough data available so far.
Jumping onto it now will probably lead to VR failing miserably, because the ROI simply isn't there yet for AAA titles (the market size just isn't big enough yet, and the willingness to spend upwards of 100 bucks for a game certainly is not there, not even with people who paid 800 for the VR kit) and large studios tend to shy away from venues that burned them. Even if later it could prove promising.
On the other hand, with VR being basically the playground of mediocre Indie-Games, with the once-in-a-blue-moon gem surfacing, there isn't much incentive to buy the hardware either. Let's be honest, why buy a 800 bucks VR kit so I can play a point-and-click get-out-of-the-room Flash game, with the "awesome new" gimmick of being IN the room instead of seeing it on the screen?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.