Virtual Reality technology has been looming on the horizon, and seems to be the next big step for video games in creating that sense of immersion that every studio so sorely desires. In a time where indie studios can create content that can potentially yield much more acclaim than larger studios (I’m looking at you, Yacht Club Games), it really reinforces just how much this industry has evolved, and how much room there is still for growth and innovation. The Oculus Rift is unique in that it emerged as the first headset to show off what it can do, yet it stood out because until a certain point, it was just a sleek project that seemed a ways off. That started to change though, as it was beginning to garner interest from multiple reputable names.
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“What I walked away with was a sense of wonder for what this technology could do for technology as a whole.”
I shouldn’t have to tell you who John Carmack is, but for the unfamiliar, he’s the founder of iD software, and I’m also fairly sure he’s made a deal with the devil to become nothing short of a programming wizard. He’s an icon in the video games industry, and his notice towards Oculus Rift surely generated additional hype towards the project, with him eventually joining as their CTO in 2013. A year later, Facebook showed their interest in the project by dropping a two billion dollar offer in their laps, and it reaffirmed just how serious people seemed to be getting about this technology. Companies like Sony and Valve also began to come up with their own projects to potentially combat the Oculus Rift in what will likely be the next generation of video gaming.
This was especially evident when I’d first had the chance to demo the device recently. There were a number of large demos that seemed to dominate the floor-space, with multiple lines taking a significant chunk of time to wait in. There were also events that were much trickier to get into, like the seemingly exclusive HTC VR event, which required you either be with the media, or to register well in advance. Frustrated and impatient, I’d opted to peruse the floor, and found a tiny studio called White Lotus Interactive. They were situated in the back of one of the halls, showing off their Kickstarter title “Xing: The Land Beyond.”
The team was incredibly friendly, and the experience itself with the headset was interesting, if not a bit disorienting at first, but what I walked away with wasn’t a sense of awe in the technology itself, although it was admittedly impressive. What I walked away with was a sense of wonder for what this technology could do for technology as a whole. Three people are able to create an experience that sucked me in more than many large titles did at the showing, just for the fact that the headset was so effective at what it did. It interests me to see what the larger demos were capable of providing, but for me, my brief impression of the Oculus Rift was almost fitting in a sense, having come from a humble, friendly team of people, likely mirroring the beginnings of the headset itself. It felt more personable, and left me with an ultimately much better impression as this was something that was lovingly crafted and had effort put behind it by such a small studio.
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“Without sounding nothing less of fanatical, I can assure you as a proverbial “fence sitter” that this technology is going to have a profound impact on this industry.”
The industry has really come such an amazingly long way and my time with the device left me with a sense of excitement that I typically only felt as games shifted from two dimensions to three. From the time growing up where gaming was admittedly more niche in a sense, it’s become so vast now that three people can not only successfully fund a game on kickstarter, but they can craft a technically sound demo making use of cutting edge technology that helps branch that disconnect we typically feel with games and their erratic camera movement, be it by joystick or by mouse. It poses some interesting possibilities for certain genres, but the impact it could hold on any sort of game is nothing short of intimidating. How this headset feels can be quite difficult to put to words. Without sounding nothing less of fanatical, I can assure you as a proverbial “fence sitter” that this technology is going to have a profound impact on this industry.
