Here’s
What Needs To Happen For VR To Go Mainstream
It’s going to take lower prices, better gear, better content, and more
funding to move the phenomenon from virtual to real.
You know a new technology is on the minds of a lot of people when
it appears in a commercial during a major sporting event like the NBA Finals.
So Samsung’s TV ad featuring an ostrich using a Gear VR headset to take flight
was a major step forward for consumer virtual reality.
But just because big tech companies like Samsung–and Facebook, its
partner on the Gear VR–want something to become
mainstream doesn’t mean it will. For all the gee-whiz excitement that VR can
generate by immersing people in experiences they can’t get anywhere else–like
soaring above the clouds and being able to leisurely look all around you, as
that ostrich does in the ad–the technology’s adoption has been fairly tepid. A
lot is going to have to happen, on a lot of different fronts, before VR can
truly become a part of most people’s lives.
Between their launches last year and the end
of March, according to SuperData Research, consumers had purchased a combined
total of about 7.7 million of the five most high-profile VR headsets—the Gear
VR, Sony’s PlayStation VR, Google’s Daydream View, HTC’s Vive, and the Oculus
Rift. Even though SuperData predicts that those numbers will rise to 15.9
million total headset sales by the end of 2017, those are not the numbers of a
mainstream technology, especially when you consider that other data
suggests little regular usage of those VR systems.
Think about it: How many people do you
know own VR equipment, especially high-end systems like the Rift or Vive? Odds
are the answer is zero. That’s even true in tech-centric places like Silicon
Valley.
Yet, analysts are bullish on VR, with some
predicting a $38 billion
industry by 2026, and another saying the numbers could
be $28.3 billion as
early as 2020, up from $3.7 billion this year.
Facebook, which bought Oculus in 2012 for
what ended up being around $3 billion, has been trying to change the game. This
month alone, it has slashed the
price of the Rift to an all-time low of $398 and
launched the ability to broadcast
Facebook Live video from inside Spaces, its social VR platform. Those moves are likely to bring a few more people into
VR, but probably won’t change the overall dynamic all that much.
Nor does even Facebook expect it to. After
all, earlier this year, CEO Mark
Zuckerberg cautioned investors to be patient about the growth and profitability
of VR, suggesting during a quarterly earnings call
that the technology could take up to 10 years to hit massive adoption.
So how does the industry get there? Fast Company polled
a group of industry experts and observers, and here’s what they think.
LOWER PRICES
Notwithstanding the Rift price cut, many people think VR gear,
especially high-quality systems, costs too much. The Vive, for example, costs
$798, while the PSVR and Rift run $398. All three systems require being
tethered with pricey computing hardware, either gaming-quality PCs in the case
of the Rift and Vive, or the PlayStation 4 for the PSVR. Even inexpensive
mobile VR headsets like the Gear VR and Daydream View require being connected
to costly phones like Samsung’s Galaxy S8 or Google’s Pixel.
Alexis Macklin, an analyst with Greenlight
Insights, pegs lower prices as the single-most important factor in
building a mainstream user base for VR, pointing to a Greenlight survey in
which 38% of those asked said the hardware cost was the biggest impediment to
their buying a headset.
Neither HTC nor Sony have shown any indications they plan on
dropping the price of their gear anytime soon. But one can expect that over the
next year or two, consumers will be able to buy high-end VR gear, including a
computer, for substantially less than $1,000. That will no doubt make a big
difference.
BETTER, MORE COMFORTABLE GEAR
Besides the high prices, the most obvious shortcoming of today’s
VR systems is the gear itself. While mobile systems like the Gear VR or
Daydream View are fairly easy to use, they still require frequent updates, and
they’re still somewhat bulky. The higher-end systems, which offer by far the
best experience, are also hamstrung by being the most cumbersome: They are
tethered to PCs by multiple wires, they require frequent updating, and there’s
very little sense that they can be plugged in and used right out of the box,
the way many consumer tech products can.
We’re still in the first generation of consumer VR, though, so
some of those problems are certain to go away with subsequent
generations–though no one knows when those will hit the market. Oculus chief
scientist Michael Abrash has talked of futuristic VR
systems that are hard to distinguish from a normal pair of glasses, but he also acknowledges that we won’t be seeing that
kind of gear for years to come.
In the shorter term, though, there are steps forward that will help a lot with making wearing a VR headset a better
experience. Beyond getting rid of the wires, as Oculus, Vive, and others are promising to do with forthcoming
new high-quality “standalone” headsets, perhaps the biggest advances would be in the
optics and displays, said Gartner analyst Brian Blau.
“Today, some people have some amount of negative physical response
when [using VR] headsets,” Blau said, “and improvements in the hardware can
help with that to some degree.”
The main goal there would be to match VR displays’ capabilities to
those of human vision, including offering eye-tracking tools that make it
possible for users to look around them without moving their heads. Numerous
companies are working on better displays, including Finland’s Varjo, which recently unveiled a prototype
that promised to improve VR display resolution by as much as
60 times over that offered by systems like the Rift and Vive, and
which is expected to include onboard eye-tracking.
Blau also sees a lot of promise in headsets that eschew the big,
bulky form factors of just about all of today’s systems. He thinks that the
industry made a mistake by focusing on wide headsets that wrap around users’
faces, and thinks that smaller, more glasses-like gear could do a better job of
being ergonomically comfortable. “You’ll probably see a whole bunch of
different ones, like ski goggles, sports goggles, and safety goggles,” he said.
“It’s likely we’ll see displays being integrated with lots of different form
factors.”
VR AT THE MALL
To Stephanie Llamas, a VR analyst at SuperData Research,
content is the key to more users.
She, like others, believes that one way many
people will be exposed to VR is through what’s called location-based
virtual reality. Businesses like The Void and Nomadic are
building experience centers in places like malls and movie theaters that invite
customers to work their way through complex VR narratives, for a price–the
future’s budding take on the immersive multiplex.
This is still a niche sector, and it’s unclear if these companies
will end up making much headway in the competitive world of date-night and
family entertainment. If they do, though, they could become a massive
gateway, offering many people their first taste of what VR can really
do.
“It’s going to get people in headsets and get people understanding
what VR is,” Llamas said. “Truthfully, most people don’t know what VR is. [They
think it’s] gimmicky sci-fi. You can’t know unless you try it. [Location-based
VR will] be a great way to get people understanding it, and trying it, and
wanting it in their homes.”
“UNIVERSALLY APPEALING” CONTENT
Much of VR’s early focus has been on games, and attracting
hard-core gamers. Those are the kinds of early adopters that can get new
systems off the ground, but there’s not likely enough of them to support an
entire ecosystem. That’s why Llamas thinks another big step to bringing wide
audiences to VR is to convince people that there’s more to the medium than just
games.
One area that has a lot of potential, she says, is animated,
immersive VR storytelling, especially when it’s extremely easy for users to
watch, “where you just put on the headset and you’re inside it.”
As an example, she lauded Baobab Studios,
a Silicon Valley-based VR filmmaker run
by Hollywood and game industry veterans that has produced some of the most
popular VR content thus far.
Naturally, Maureen Fan, Baobab’s cofounder and CEO, agrees that
more, and higher-quality, VR content is the top factor that will lead to more
users. “That’s the number-one thing that needs to happen,” Fan said. “Content
is what drives adoption.”
This, of course, is a common refrain. For example, in lowering the
price of the Rift, Oculus cited the idea that its content library had reached a
size–500 total titles–where there’s enough choice to keep anyone coming back
for more.
Maureen Fan, CEO of Baobab Studios said, “As the VR
industry matures, the novelty of VR will eventually wear off. You need not just
the sizzle, but the meat.”
At Baobab, the meat is traditional three-act storytelling that
leads viewers to care about the characters, and want to see them over and over
again–even if the stories are fairly short. The trick, she added, is choosing
stories with “universally appealing” themes that will attract everyone, from
your mother to your grandmother to your brother.
She pointed to the company’s third project, the forthcoming
“Rainbow Crow,” which tackles the concept of self-sacrifice in times of
darkness. Similarly, its first film, Invasion!, showcased a heroic
bunny who saves Earth from hapless aliens who arrive hell-bent on destruction.
Bunny on ice, It helps, of course, if those characters are played
by celebrities. Which is why the company’s three major projects so far have
featured voice acting by the likes of Ethan Hawke, Elizabeth Banks, and John
Legend.
Baobab’s deep ties to Hollywood and the games industry have helped
it win funding from headset makers like Samsung and HTC, which has given it the
runway to look well down the line and have confidence it can plan for future
projects. That’s not a luxury many VR content makers have, Fan said.
In order for there to be more and better content, there needs to
be funding, she said–a dynamic that’s a problem since many venture capitalists
prefer to invest in technology over content.
Nonprofits put a lot of money in VR documentary projects, Fan
argued, but there’s not enough of either to account for mainstream interests.
Nor are there enough gamers to help VR become mainstream. Solving this funding
dilemma will be a major hurdle the industry must overcome if it’s to reach its
potential, she said.
“The holy grail is when content funds itself,” she argued, “when
creators make enough money off the content that” they don’t need outside help.
That’s the strategy behind projects like
Fox’s “The Martian VR
Experience,” a 20-minute accompaniment to the hit
Ridley Scott movie that the studio hoped viewers would pay for. There’s no
official data on the project’s sales, but SteamSpy, a site that provides
estimates of VR content sales, suggests only a few thousand people got to play the role of Mark Watney on Mars in
high-quality VR. And while there have been a few VR titles that have
earned more than $1 million, it’s still a small number, and nowhere near what’s
required to prop up an entire content ecosystem.
That’s where funding programs from the likes of Oculus–which has
committed to invest $500 million in VR content–will help. But to hear Fan tell
it, there needs to be more, and broader, funding sources for there ever to be
enough content to satisfy the masses.
THE KILLER APP
When a new technology comes along, everyone instantly wants to
know what will take it to mass adoption. That’s a question about VR that people
have been wondering for years, decades even.
It’s probably too early to know, and in a way, that’s probably
good given that there aren’t enough users. Until hardware prices come down
significantly, there likely won’t be enough users to support even the greatest
content.
But Macklin of Greenlight Insights said that things are looking
up. A year ago, 20% of those the firm surveyed said they’d tried VR. This year,
that number rose to 38%. “VR will have a slow, steady climb until it hits [the]
mainstream,” Macklin said. But until there’s better hardware and lower prices,
she said, it won’t matter how good the content is.
At Facebook, though, there’s no questioning what it’s going to
take to get mass adoption for VR: users understanding how the technology
can be used to bring them closer to the people they know and love.
That’s the impetus behind Facebook Spaces, the company’s social VR
initiative, and it’s why it just launched the ability to broadcast live video
from Spaces.
Facebook sees VR as the “ultimately communication device,” said
Mike Booth, head of product for Spaces. “I think the biggest thing is just
letting people see what this weird VR thing is,” he said. “It’s not just for
blowing up robots and shooting zombies. It’s, hey, there’s my friends having
fun in VR, and I want to join in. I want to participate, and see how this all
works. Maybe I’ll want to go out and get my own VR headset.”
And while Booth acknowledges that there aren’t enough folks
looking at VR yet as a way to have meaningful connection with their friends and
family, he’s hopeful that what the company’s doing with Spaces, and what others
are doing with social VR, can change that dynamic sooner rather than later. In
short, Booth argues, “people are really the killer app in VR.”
BY DANIEL TERDIMAN
https://www.fastcompany.com/40439481/heres-what-needs-to-happen-for-vr-to-go-mainstream?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fcdaily-top&position=1&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=07132017
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