VR isn't all that it's hyped up to be

Any conversation related to gaming will invariably lead to the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and inevitably, the joys of VR. Those who’ve tried the Rift or the Vive will wax lyrical on the experience; “It looks so real”, “You can follow the spaceship with your head”, “It’s the most immersive experience ever” are just some of the things you’ll hear. And they’re right. A proper VR experience with the right equipment is all of that, but so is piloting a virtual aircraft with a Thrustmaster Warthog or drifting round the Nürburgring’s perilous “Swallow’s Tail” with a Logitech G27 Racing Wheel. All these experiences have two things in common— expensive hardware and unparalleled immersion. And one thing more, they’re not for everyone. The cost of immersion For a game to be immersive, you need to the right tools and hardware, which is expensive, and when you’re fully immersed, you’re oblivious to everything else. If you’ve seen anyone playing with the Rift or the Vive, said person would have been deaf and blind to the world around him, not to mention the milling arms and possibly, a little walking around. Can you imagine staying at home, putting on a VR headset and isolating yourself from the rest of the world? You won’t hear the bell ring (or your phone for that matter), you won’t know if you’ve stepped on your cat, you won’t know if you’ve knocked over the table lamp and you definitely won’t know what time it is. This might sound like heaven to some, but it’s impractical for most. You’re deaf, you’re blind and you’re flailing your arms about; the phrase, “bull in a china shop” springs to mind, a deaf and blind bull at that. Impracticality aside, the price of a VR experience is exorbitant. Rs.41,000 for the Rift itself, at least another Rs.60,000+ for a capable PC (much more for a capable laptop), the negative points add up. The average person doesn’t own a powerful PC, an NVIDIA GTX 970 (minimum requirements for a Rift) is only used by 4% of gamers and the average gamer does not play flight simulators and niche FPS titles like ARMA III. Games; they’re the reason you’re looking at something like the rift in the first place. Immersive gaming means playing games like flight simulators and driving simulators, a niche audience in itself and other than immersion, there’s no real reason to want VR in the first place. There are other games, but other than the novelty of, say, solving puzzles in 3D, none of them offer anything truly compelling enough to justify the investment. Especially not, again, a Rs.40,000+ investment. Mobile VR options like GearVR and Google Cardboard haven’t really caught on either and anyway, how many of you have considered putting down Rs.11,000 for GearVR? Beyond sheer idle curiosity, do you even care? Virtual reality is the most exciting thing to happen to gaming since we first experienced Doom. As a gamer myself, as someone who’s invested an inordinate amount of money into my gaming rig and spent thousands on flight sims, I desperately want something like the Oculus Rift and even then, I’m balking at the high price. VR is fun and in the gaming world, an experience unlike any other, but then so is scuba diving and mountain climbing and unless you’re a very dedicated gamer/diver/mountain climber respectively, with the means to indulge your passion, you will not want to invest in it. There is a large enough audience for VR to justify its existence, but for everyone else, it’s just not worth it. If not VR, is Augmented Reality then, the true future? Only time will tell.