Every so often in gaming, there comes an innovation that fundamentally changes the way games are played. From 3D graphics to online, the industry has been constantly evolving to adapt to these advancements.
Unfortunately, the industry seems to have stagnated in recent years with minimal technological or graphical improvements. Even in 2022, hyped-up triple AAA games hardly look better than their 2012 counterparts. Fortunately, there’s one new technology on the rise that could fundamentally change gaming: virtual reality.
While developers have been playing around with the idea of virtual reality (VR) technology since the 90s, the technology didn’t gain much mainstream attention until the release of the Oculus Rift in 2012. Since then, developers have been pushing to take advantage of VR to make games more innovative.
Sony, Valve, Microsoft, and others have all tried their hand at making VR headsets and have succeeded to varying degrees. While many companies still treat VR as a novelty product, there’s been undeniable progress in recent years.
From the simple but addictive fun of Beat Saber to the immersion and polish of Half-Life: Alyx, it seems like VR is beginning to cater to all different tastes. As these hits continue to expand the VR market, it seems like game companies would be wise to take note and invest money into producing high-budget VR titles. Despite this, VR faces one major obstacle in revolutionizing gaming: the “metaverse”.
Back in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of his “Metaverse” project was met with both scorn and interest. Zuckerberg’s plan for a VR social network is hardly anything impressive at the moment. Technologically, it’s simplistic, and conceptually it’s been done before. However, it’s that lack of innovation that makes the “Metaverse” so threatening to the VR market.
While companies like Valve see VR as a gaming technology, the “Metaverse” is starting to shift focus away from the technological potential of VR to a more social approach. While VR technology has previously been seen as expensive and inaccessible, the “Metaverse” approach to VR is clearly aimed at being cheap and accessible. After all, what good is a social network without many people.
If the “Metaverse” approach to VR grows, we’ll likely see a decrease in innovative and polished experiences to the cheap and bland look and interfaces prevalent in the “Metaverse”. While gamers and critics would flock to more high-budget VR games, there’s far more advertising and data collection interest in the “Metaverse” approach.
The VR social experience is limited and clunky, but nevertheless, corporations are trying to adopt it. Earlier this year, Walmart showed off a demo for a virtual shopping experience meant to simulate the sale of virtual goods in the “Metaverse”. As more companies try to cash in on this model, it’s likely that the cheaper, shoddier look of these demos will become predominant.
While the future of VR for video games has a lot of potential, the market now has two possibilities. Either the technology will be used for more innovative and immersive VR gaming experiences or it will be home to the cheap escapism of sci-fi movies like Ready Player One.
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