Demystifying VR: From Video Games To Virtual Reality Games

You might have heard a thing or two about it, but virtual reality is coming. It has invaded sports. It's targeting your social life. But what sphere of life and entertainment encompasses those two aspects and more? What is the major driver behind VR right now? Well, of course, that would be video games. They seemed to be the perfect match when VR first appeared in the 90's. It was a dream to actually be in the game. We have been making movie after movie, writing book after book about characters getting to be inside the game. Even Tron and Snow Crash had their protagonists play in the virtual worlds (as they were imagined back in the 90's). However, what is different this time? What are the unique ways that VR is going to impact our gaming experiences?

Because there's no escaping gaming when dealing with VR. Oculus Rift was announced to the great joy of gamers, and many developers declared their intent to create VR games or to adapt their existing titles to VR. Two of the biggest VR headset launches of the year - HTC Vive and PSVR - are tied to either game publishers (HTC is partnering with Valve) or game consoles (PSVR). And while Tilt Brush seems like one of the possible killer apps for VR, we have more and better examples that come from gaming: Raw Data, Job Simulator, Hoverjunkers are just some of the titles that have been developed with VR in mind and are available to the general public. Mobile VR, even if it is constrained by hardware limitations and lack of motion controllers, also has a healthy offering of VR gaming options, such as EVE: Gunjack - a very spiffy looking game that runs on Unreal Engine.

Gaming and socializing: two sides of a VR coin

Many gamers will rush to tell you that gaming is a social activity rather that being something that separates and isolates people. VR developers are also extremely interested in taking their products on the social route. While we have genius single player games like I Expect You To Die, there are many social gaming applications on offer, ranging from such meta examples like AltspaceVR's Dungeons and Dragons room (a social game within a social game) to relatively straightforward stuff like cooperation in Raw Data. High Fidelity and Linden Labs are some of the companies that dream of even bigger digital world. However, developers are seeking even deeper ways to connect VR and socializing.

Kite and Lightning is a Los Angeles studio that is looking at a strange, yet all encompassing solution. Bebylon: Battle Royale is a game set in a future where people have discovered immortality... which is a pill that stops people from growing past the baby stage. But this experience, describe as something akin to Super Smash Bros. is just scraping the surface of the game. The whole battle thing is a game inside a game. VR babies can take a stroll through the whole Bebylon entertainment complex and discover other side attractions like gambling, shows, and rides. They can meet other players and prance around flaunting their trophies, cosmetic items and likely DLC hats. More than that, they can watch the arena fights and make them more interesting by throwing weapons and goodies into the ring. This is a social experience, a game and a spectator sport all in one. And the feeling of being together with a bunch of other people is strong in regular MMOs; imagine how it will be in actual VR!

NPCs Are People, Too

And there's work being done on making the feeling of immersion in the game more realistic. Think of videogame NPCs: they're usually really stupid. Running into walls, hiding behind explosive barrels, spinning in place, getting stuck on bits of geometry, that sort of thing. Well, what if you replaced them with people, in at least some of the situations? This "Wizard of Oz" method lets one actor - an improv actor if possible - control several characters inside the VR application. This gives a wider range of possible interactions, as well as unparalleled level of responsiveness on the part of the app. Synthetic Reality Lab and the associated TeachLIVE project already uses this method: several puppeteers control digital avatars of children to give teachers an interactive and responsive classroom environment where they can get used to the teaching process or innovate new teaching practices.

What's even better, this technology can be implemented in video games. Real Time Cinematography on Unreal Engine was shown off at SIGGRAPH. One of the greatest features that would be important to VR is the ability to capture facial animations and body language from an actor and translate it into character movements in real time. With some fiddling, this technology could work with previously mentioned digital puppeteers. It would be great for regular games, and it would do wonders for immersion in VR gaming. Could it lead to MMO studios hiring people to live in their digital worlds, something like hiring entertainers to put on a suit in an amusement park? We can only wonder!

Gameplay Does Not Involve Puking

Nausea and puking is the specter that hangs over the VR head mounted displays and games. Among other things, users need 90 FPS to not start feeling nauseous while playing the game. This is a hard limit that can't be circumvented, but in the end, it's largely a technical issue that can be solved with more powerful hardware and optimized assets. However, the gameplay can still make people hurl. The newest Resident Evil game was presented in E3 and it was done in VR. While the presentation was low on jump-scares, the way that movement was handled in game - you still need to use analog sticks to fine tune it - left players clutching they stomachs. What developers need to solve here is an entire new approach to constructing games and narratives. Regular PC and console games can easily take away the controls from the player and even use the camera in any way they want. Doing something similar in VR games is ill advised, as it kills immersion. Moreover, movement schemes will have to be rethought, as seeing movement without feeling your body move will cause nausea. Raw Data gets around this by letting the player point at a place and teleport there - but that's not something that would work in a WWII game!

So the VR game developers are still looking into the whole "making games for VR" thing. The good news for them is that they have the faith of big-time developers. Ubisoft is planning on releasing games for the three VR platforms out now. And the company is optimistic about the games both working and being profitable. Their potential for success is limited by the install base, but they have hopes of making good, historically important games. This is exactly what HMD developers are waiting for, too. Google Daydream will come with many games developed for the platform. But they don't want simple games "but in VR now", they want to see the genre-defining "Citizen Kane" of VR games. And you can be sure that we're waiting for it, too!