DEV Community

Discussion on: What great software invention or idea never gained adoption?

Collapse
 
leastbad profile image
leastbad

I mean, speak for yourself. They literally cannot make Oculus Quest units fast enough.

The fact that I can jump into Unity and throw together a concept and then walk around in it in a few minutes to blow off steam is amazing.

I guess I wonder what you thought it would be like? On the inside of the VR ecosystem, things are happening way faster than we'd anticipated, not slower.

Collapse
 
roh_mish profile image
Rohan Mishra

Im not a minecraft player, i may have tried that game for like 2 hours at most. But Minecraft VR or a game similar to that would be awesome!

Thread Thread
 
leastbad profile image
leastbad
Collapse
 
mellen profile image
Matt Ellen • Edited

OK, so what I, and I assume Sam, thought it would be like is that VR would be a major consumer product, like TV or video games. The latest VR bubble has been going for 10 years now? I have many techy friends and acquaintances in an affluent area and I know 2 people who have VR systems. And they don't have them setup at home. They bring them to techy meetups for other people to try.

I expected VR to be popular like, like Sam says people "spending two hours in VR every night". But we're not. We're still gaming on PCs or consoles, or binge watching some streaming video.

Maybe it's taking off in academia or for military applications, I don't know about that, but that's not what I was expecting from the VR industry.

P.s. I'm looking forward to when AR takes off. Like Google Glass but with a company I don't yet distrust.

Thread Thread
 
leastbad profile image
leastbad

Let's first establish that my perspective and your perspective are both highly subjective. I haven't owned a television in well over a decade and I honestly have no idea why anyone with a computer needs or wants a console gaming device. Also: I am way too busy for that stuff. In other words: we belong to different demographics.

Next, as I attempted to explain in my last comment, the only people who were expecting a faster ramp up were people writing clickbait journalism and the people who read it assuming that if it's in a publication, it's relevant or true. Again: everyone actually involved in the VR community is thrilled at where things are at. You keep ignoring the part where it's difficult to buy an Oculus Quest, which has blown open the doors for accessibilty. There is no more "setup at home" because it's not plugged into anything. It is close to a miracle device.

It is almost certainly taking off in academic and military, but you forgot collaboration and industry. COVID has ramped up adoption of apps like Spatial so quickly that they are having trouble keeping up.

VR is nowhere near casual mainstream yet, but your mistake is the assumption that this is problematic or unexpected. Meanwhile, you shouldn't decide how you spend your time based on what the people close to you are doing or what you read in trade journals that have to post controversial things to spark discussion. If you only know two people with VR, maybe meet some more?

Thread Thread
 
mellen profile image
Matt Ellen

I don't think I've made any mistakes. You asked what my expectation was and I told you. You have expert insider knowledge, so your expectations are more grounded. I understand that, but your question was not "why don't you believe what I believe".

If you want to change hoi polloi's expectation of VR you need better control of the narrative. At the moment nobody but VR devs and scant technology enthusiasts care about VR.

Also, I don't care about VR. This is my point. I'm active in the technology scene in my area, and so few people care about VR it's remarkable. I can't get out and meet more people who have units because those people don't exist.

Not having enough units to ship doesn't tell me there's "high demand", just that demand is too high to be covered. It's not like if there weren't enough iPhones. It's not surprising that small to medium manufacturing enterprises can't keep up with demand.

I'm glad you're doing well and that things are how you want them and expect them to be.