John Carmack: “VR Devs “Coasting on Novelty” of System (Opinion Piece)

While speaking to the crowd at Oculus Connect, John Carmack, co-founder of id Software and CTO of Oculus VR, told audience members that developers for the VR platform need to “be harder on themselves” and continue to push themselves further.

He seemed to take issue with the fact that VR experiences offer less value than what a non-VR experience can give.

Carmack’s thoughts were expressed in this quote:

“We are coasting on novelty, and the initial wonder of being something people have never seen before,” he continued. “But we need to start judging ourselves. Not on a curve, but in an absolute sense. Can you do something in VR that has the same value, or more value, than what these other [non-VR] things have done?”

Carmack went on to demand changes to the many technical issues he saw with the platform, with aspects like poor UI design, lack of voice control, and lengthy load times being his main gripes.

He discussed how other developers in the industry are fighting to combat long load times and minimizing them to be 29 seconds or less by whatever means necessary. He made it clear that he feels the current average load time for Oculus to boot up was unacceptable.

Michael Carmack

“That’s acceptable if you’re going to sit down and play for an hour….but [in VR] initial startup time really is poisonous. An analogy I like to say is, imagine if your phone took 30 seconds to unlock every time you wanted to use it. You’d use it a lot less.”

He then explained how he’s attempted to use certain apps he found interesting, but gave up on them due to their lengthy load times.

As he made some parting comments, he remarked that every developer is guilty, in some respect, of taking advantage of novelty a little too much.

He made his feelings regarding relying on novelty known:

“This is misguided. It’s not just that it hurts your performance, or the visual quality isn’t as good; it’s actually the wrong thing to do.”

He then finished his speech by stating that he believes VR to be the future, and that VR on PC would become the “creative class” and “laboratory” where ideas can be formed that would be available to both high-end AND lower-end systems.

I have had an extremely limited use of any kind of virtual reality, with my few experiences being demos that were extremely simplistic by design. One was a sequence in which a dinosaur pops up from behind a corner, and then walks threateningly towards me, roars, and then walks away from me. Another was me shooting at random things in the air while attached to a slow-moving plane that lasted approximately a minute and a half. The only other VR experience I had was one that placed me at the top of a building in a steampunk-like setting, which was great visually, but didn’t actually involve any gameplay.

Although I can recognize that there is plenty of fun to be had with Oculus or the HTC Vive, these kind of games are  where I can understand what Carmack is trying to say regarding the actual experiences being offered to gamers.

If customers spend $600 on a new Oculus Rift or $800 for an HTC Vive, then they deserve a full and complete gameplay experience. Unfortunately, considering the price point for both platforms and the gameplay experiences that are offered, it’s not quite living up to the price point or the “system of the future” tag that it’s been getting.

batman-arkham-vrEven Playstation VR, with its cheaper price point, isn’t quite offering the gameplay experiences that players would hope to get when they pay the price equivalent of a new home console. Games like Arkham VR have been praised for their novelty and graphics, but fitting to what Carmack had said, it was criticized for its extremely short campaign (approximately one hour) and lack of engaging gameplay.

The VR platform has all the potential in the world to take the gaming industry by storm, but until they’re willing to give players the value and quality experiences they crave with a new system, the “future of gaming” platforms will continue to be pushed aside by the main console market. If virtual reality won’t end up being just another short-lived fad, then developers need to heed Carmack’s words and expand their resources to make complete experiences that every gamer can always remember and appreciate, rather than short-lived experiences that are just “fun while it lasted.”

Do you think VR is just a fad, or is it here to stay? What kind of games do you want to see on VR? Let us know in the comments!
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