Gamers are buying Valve VR headsets en masse to play Half-Life: Alyx, so many that the Index HMDs sold out.

Half-Life is a tremendously powerful force in gaming. It's so strong that it could propel VR gaming, a niche market, into mainstream mass audiences.

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The new VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx sparked a massive sales spike in VR headsets, especially with Valve's own proprietary Index HMD, which has been sold out for weeks now. But we haven't had any actual numbers to illustrate what I'd like to call the Half-Life Effect...until now that is.

According to analyst firm SuperData, Valve sold a massive 103,000 Index headsets after revealing Half-Life: Alyx. That's an absolutely incredible amount of VR hardware sales in little over a month's time, and total HMD purchases doubled from Q3 to Q4 after the game was announced.

In fact, 72% of Valve's total Index sales for the entire year were made after Half-Life: Alyx was announced.

Valve's goal with Half-Life: Alyx is simple: They want to create VR's killer app, sell a bunch of headsets, and create a platform that synergizes with its massive investments into VR gaming. Alyx is just the beginning, and Valve plans to release more Half-Life games in the future.

Half-Life: Alyx releases in March 2020 for SteamVR-compatible headsets.