VR is the dumbest idea there ever was in gaming and hereby in this very thread I will share my issues with the concept and why it will ultimately fail and remain curiosity in the future. For that I will consider 2 reasons that have implications on each other in complete isolation, as to make it easier on VR.
I. The adaptability to different games/genres.
In theory you can use VR to do your daily work on excel spreadsheet, but obviously it's not something anyone would actually want to do, which however brings a question - what games will translate well into the new eh... screen system? Obvious first candidate are all sorts of first person shooters, however even early adaptations of "CoD-like" multiplayer shooter have shown that it's too fast and elements like quick respawns etc. make it at times nauseating to large part of the test audience(here I'm only using my memory of seeing an article about it back when OR was still a prototype that wasn't bought by Facebook yet). With the more recent attempts, especially Flop Life: xXxAnusxXx you can see that even idea of letting the player to move fluidly with use of analogue stick is something they'd rather have you to choose, as the default movement mode is "teleporting". Now I suspect it's not THAT bad, but the movement in general is bound to be slower and less fluid than you'd actually want from videogames.
That's just FPP game. The amount of issues the most obvious genre brought VR devs already shows you that we're in for a wild ride. Overall for FPS you can predict they're gonna get slower, more static and more of a "exploration-storygame" than actual shooters, meaning the dreaded influx of STORYFAGGOTRY into yet another genre, rotting it even more than consolitis did.
A place where VR will in my opinion succeed completely are simulators - flight, train, submarine, you name it. I don't think there's much to say here besides it.
With non-FPP games the problem again is that you can do it... but why would you? There's DOTA2 VR, I guess everyone prefers that to normal DOTA oh wait. It won't make even TPP game more "immersive"(what a silly idea it is that it would), obviously strategy games of all kinds are outside of the considerations.
II. The mass appeal
Just because you can make something work doesn't mean it will be bought. Let's say you'll make that CoD:Battle Royale:VR Edition work. It's mass appeal product adapted to new technology. For a mass consumer however, this comes at the steeper price(of at the very least the headset alone) while potentially being nothing burger. Are the VR companies capable of convincing the mass consumer that theirs is the product they should COOOMSOOOM now? Well let's think about it - it's potentially an improvement to gameplay experience that differs only partially from the base product. Meaning that even perfect adaptation of CoD:Battle Royale into VR will be essentially the same game... on 2 monitors strapped to your head. $400 for that one. Oh you're console gamer - I guess you're gonna have to play it with degraded graphics. Oh, you're a PC gamer - well if you don't want to get downgraded graphics better upgrade now(add $400 on top of headset).
This will unleash a vicious circle where nobody will finance a game that actually takes the most out of the little VR has to offer because the more half-assed attempts sold badly and the customer base is smaller, meaning slow death of the systems outside of simulation circles.
Therefore I conclude that VR must be destroyed its creators buried alive in mass graves, which later should be ploughed and covered in salt, as no life shall ever come out of their rotten bodies, rotting with the same vice their brains did as they pushed the VR meme.
I. The adaptability to different games/genres.
In theory you can use VR to do your daily work on excel spreadsheet, but obviously it's not something anyone would actually want to do, which however brings a question - what games will translate well into the new eh... screen system? Obvious first candidate are all sorts of first person shooters, however even early adaptations of "CoD-like" multiplayer shooter have shown that it's too fast and elements like quick respawns etc. make it at times nauseating to large part of the test audience(here I'm only using my memory of seeing an article about it back when OR was still a prototype that wasn't bought by Facebook yet). With the more recent attempts, especially Flop Life: xXxAnusxXx you can see that even idea of letting the player to move fluidly with use of analogue stick is something they'd rather have you to choose, as the default movement mode is "teleporting". Now I suspect it's not THAT bad, but the movement in general is bound to be slower and less fluid than you'd actually want from videogames.
That's just FPP game. The amount of issues the most obvious genre brought VR devs already shows you that we're in for a wild ride. Overall for FPS you can predict they're gonna get slower, more static and more of a "exploration-storygame" than actual shooters, meaning the dreaded influx of STORYFAGGOTRY into yet another genre, rotting it even more than consolitis did.
A place where VR will in my opinion succeed completely are simulators - flight, train, submarine, you name it. I don't think there's much to say here besides it.
With non-FPP games the problem again is that you can do it... but why would you? There's DOTA2 VR, I guess everyone prefers that to normal DOTA oh wait. It won't make even TPP game more "immersive"(what a silly idea it is that it would), obviously strategy games of all kinds are outside of the considerations.
II. The mass appeal
Just because you can make something work doesn't mean it will be bought. Let's say you'll make that CoD:Battle Royale:VR Edition work. It's mass appeal product adapted to new technology. For a mass consumer however, this comes at the steeper price(of at the very least the headset alone) while potentially being nothing burger. Are the VR companies capable of convincing the mass consumer that theirs is the product they should COOOMSOOOM now? Well let's think about it - it's potentially an improvement to gameplay experience that differs only partially from the base product. Meaning that even perfect adaptation of CoD:Battle Royale into VR will be essentially the same game... on 2 monitors strapped to your head. $400 for that one. Oh you're console gamer - I guess you're gonna have to play it with degraded graphics. Oh, you're a PC gamer - well if you don't want to get downgraded graphics better upgrade now(add $400 on top of headset).
This will unleash a vicious circle where nobody will finance a game that actually takes the most out of the little VR has to offer because the more half-assed attempts sold badly and the customer base is smaller, meaning slow death of the systems outside of simulation circles.
Therefore I conclude that VR must be destroyed its creators buried alive in mass graves, which later should be ploughed and covered in salt, as no life shall ever come out of their rotten bodies, rotting with the same vice their brains did as they pushed the VR meme.