Carmack: VR "coasting on novelty", Mobile is the future.

John Carmack has impressed the need for developers to push beyond the "novelty" factor that continues to dominate the software content on VR platforms.

Speaking at the close of Oculus Connect last week, the company's CTO told the crowd that, as a community, VR developers, "need to be harder on ourselves." In particular, he implied that a lot of VR software doesn't offer the same value to consumer as a non-VR experience.

"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?"

Elsewhere in his closing keynote, Carmack also played booster for mobile VR, which he described as "the future" of the medium, reminding the audience that, "it's still not easy to make a Gear VR app."

Source.

The whole Note 7 fiasco might have given PSVR some borrowed time, but is just that.

Flat out, VR needs real games, not VR games, real games with VR functionality.

VR is not a gimmick, what is a gimmick is the software being produced for it.

It's why I'm not an early adopter of the tech. It looks like mostly shovelware releasing so far.

Coasting on novelty is also why the Wii and Kinect ultimately failed to last. Too few legitimate uses of the tech in between mountains of doodooberry game released.

My feeling though is that the Wii and Kinect were just not good techs, but had room for improvement. It'll be crucial for the VR device makers to really stick with improving the tech to ensure that devs can actually make legitimate high value games.

Right now VR is in a grey area. It's reminiscent of those consoles prior to the NES (and the Atari somewhat). Game devs were experimenting as best they could, but the tech ultimately was too poor to provide anything of substance.

I.. I.. I. . . Agree? with. . . you?

Between this and Glenn Beck pledging support to Hillary today, I think the apocalypse is upon us.

I LOVE the novelty of VR and think that PSVR is launching on the right foot, but the overall picture is that we are a year into both Oculus and Vive being out and there is little in the way of a full game. There's a very real danger that "VR game" is going to go from nifty to stanky unless some big games step up and show what can be done with the medium. VR, as a technology, is great. The games for it need to be objectively compelling, or else the potential will be wrung out of it before people are willing to give it a chance again. I take heart in something like Resident Evil, Ace Combat, and Gran Turismo using VR. If developers and publishers can shift from treating VR like a low budget experiment, it will make that turn.

Amazingly I agree with NyaDC. VR should have been compatible with conventional gaming software. An innovation without a practical use is a gimmick.

People should stop saying stuff like "X is the future"

It's really starting to bother me. It's not like people will stop PC or console gaming and move on to mobiles. This industry should get a clue.

@dynamitecop: indeed. VR has a content problem at the moment. plenty of experiments but it needs full games made for it.

Absolutely agree. VR is a fad, it'll come and go. Mobile is here to stay.

I'm still not comfortable with the idea of having a bright display right in front of my eyeballs.

These 'mobile is the future guys' need to give it a rest. It might be the future if cash grabbing but not gaming. No matter how good mobile hardware gets, desktop stuff will still be better.

Well, the big problem is that it's such a niche market, and adapting a full-fledged game to VR might result in a loss of time and budget. The market just isn't there, and with that, it'll probably just remain a novelty.

If mobile is the future, its a very dim one

He only said it was the future for VR. You are taking it out of context.

Maybe I am misunderstanding something, but I wouldnt want vr to focus on mobile right now. They are trying to hit a big audience, but they should start with a reliable base first and I think thats what standard pc/console games can offer. Even later though, I feel like it would be weird

There's potential passed games for VR.

Besides mobile isnt the future...it's the now. So he's no Nostrodomus.

That's only what he thinks. It's currently being marketed to PC and console gamers, but Carmack thinks it'll be only successful on the mobile front. It's really just a prediction.

Eh, I think he should stick with software side of things and leave hardware prediction to the experts. He's a genius and I respect him but he's no Nostradamus.

VR's problem is a software problem, once devs finally get comfortable making VR games we should get some killer apps and quality titles. Mobile isn't the future, it's the present. I do agree with him that a lot of tech demos are being made now instead of actual games. I think that's devs testing the waters to see what works and what they can get away with. With time real fully featured games will arrive.

It's kind of a cycle with this isn't it?

VR needs good full fledged games in order to thrive.

Publishers and developers need a populated platform to develop games for.

No gamers => No budget => No big budget games => No gamers.

VR needs to get away from gimmicks, but I only see that happening in isolated cases.

We're at 6 months and Steam has VR at 0.31% which is abysmal when many industry experts expected 2-5% by year one. For those playing at home, that means that to meet their worst predictions it needs to sell roughly 6x more units than it has to date. Some even said 10% rofl.

VR units are in abundance, people aren't buying.

PSVR could break the trend, the lower price might help. We will see in early 2017.

YES if carmack says Gear mobile VR is the future I BELIEVE carmack i grew up with carmack and doom.

What he says goes imo. PSVR will fail Gear VR from samsung will succeeed im with carmack im with samsung not sony.

Agree.

I was on the Sony bandwagon until they split up the development of games.. why split PS4/VR games.. combine them you dumb fools, you have the money.

don't let this forum fool you, most consumers assume the worst and try to be safe, at the moment VR is just a gimmick, a phase.. something new.. entry technology... In canada, that shit costs 700 dolllars, none of my hardcore cow friends are going to buy it.

Sony should have said **** the VR, and put all their money and dev power to making more PS4 exclusives.

There is still time, **** VR.. put it in the backburner and make PSPro your priority with games.

I agree with VR is a novelty and it will wear off sooner or later. But I don't agree with mobile gaming is the future.

It's also too expensive and needs too powerful hardware.

Carmack is hyping mobile vr because its the way Oculus are going and he put all his eggs in Oculus basket.

Im pretty sure either HTC or Valve have a patent on wireless VR to PC so that could be why Oculus have taken the mobile route for wireless VR.