Sam Machkovech



Kyle Orland



Sebastian Anthony

Nine years ago, when the first iPhone was about to debut, not many people envisioned a revolution that would fundamentally change the shape of the game industry (for good or for ill). Today, as we await the impending release of high-end consumer virtual reality headsets from the likes of Oculus, Valve, and Sony, it feels like we're at a similar crossroads.

Unlike the slow, quiet dawn of smartphone gaming, the hype around VR has been building to a relentless, deafening pitch for years. Yet despite this hype, the industry and those watching it seem relatively split on the eventual impact of VR gaming. It could be a smartphone-level technological change—the biggest the gaming industry has seen in years—or it could be a quickly irrelevant fad on the order of the Wii or Kinect.

The answer to that question will determine the state of the video game market for years to come. So as many of the industry's biggest names gathered for the DICE Summit and Awards ceremony in late February, I asked everyone I could get my hands on what they thought virtual reality gaming would look like a decade from now. The range of responses shows just how unsettled, and unsettling, the fate of the latest virtual reality boom really is.

Lessons of the past

Those that have been in the industry long enough to remember the last wave of VR hype, back in the mid-'90s, largely agree something feels different this time around. "We wanted Snow Crash to happen, and then we put on the things, and it was just Pterodactyl Terror, and we all threw up," said Double Fine founder Tim Schafer (Monkey Island, Psychonauts). Perhaps it's telling he misnamed the less-than-impressive '90s VR installation Dactyl Nightmare, but Schafer is confident in the present. "I think there's been a huge leap [this time]."

"I remember when Lawnmower Man came out, or Disclosure," freelance game writer Rhianna Pratchett (Mirror's Edge, Tomb Raider [2013]) said, recalling the pop-culture obsession with virtual worlds at the time. "Everyone was saying, 'Oh, it's going to take over,' and then it went approximately nowhere. It's got its foothold now, and I think that's important. It's here."

"I remember when the Virtual Boy and the Power Glove came out," prolific video game voice actor Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite) said. "I used to play Battletech where you went to [an arcade]... I definitely believe we'll get there [this time], because what games have shown us is a trend towards more immersive content. The more that we can bring about that immersion into gameplay, it's really what people want. To me, [VR] is the most immersive thing that you can get, where the reality that you're touching and experiencing is the world that these people create."

Even some who didn't bring up direct experiences with the VR of decades past think there's an air of inevitability about the current virtual reality push. "The question is whether it happens now or whether we have to wait a little longer for it," DICE Studios Senior Producer Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir (Star Wars Battlefront) said. "I think we're due for virtual reality becoming really mainstream. I'm not sure whether it's 10 years or 20 years, but I think at some point down the line we're going to make that leap."

"I do see that tech as something that will become mainstream for us," Tom Lee, creative director at Team Ninja (Dead or Alive 5), said. "I don't think it's a fad, I don't think it's a niche. I think it has enough not just tech, but enough personality for a lot of us creators to do things that we were never able to do, so I think it's definitely here to stay."

And now for something completely different

The ability to create experiences unlike anything that's possible in a traditional gaming on a 2D screen was a recurring theme as I asked attendees about VR's future potential. "I was a little skeptical when I first put them on, but I have to say I was really blown away," Fallout 4 Lead Producer Jeff Gardiner said. "I felt emotions that I think were impossible to reproduce without that medium—a real sense of fear, a real sense of wonder."

In particular, Gardiner recalled a moment in an HTC Vive demo in the Portal universe, where "they open up the thing in the bottom of the floor, and I honestly felt for a second... my gut reaction was a fear of falling. No matter how good you do on a 2D screen, you can't reproduce that."

"I think it has so much potential for great storytelling, so much potential everywhere," Pratchett added. "Being able to put players into a relaxing environment, there are health benefits in that alone. Take away narrative and just transport me to a beach, or a jungle, or the countryside if you live in the city, or the city if you live in the countryside. That's really exciting."

To those who might think VR hype is being pushed by clueless moneyed investors trying to force demand for an unwanted product, Supergiant Games Amir Rao (Transistor, Bastion) says the interest on the development side is real. "The thing I have noticed, at least among people I know who work in VR, is the passion is really crazy high in a way I think is pretty inspiring to see. How excited the people who are working on either the hardware or the software or cool new games or solving new problems, is how thrilled they are to be doing that stuff. That, to me, is a good sign."

Put the brakes on the hype train

For all the over-the-top love from many industry movers and shakers, there were just as many reactions ranging from somewhat skeptical to downright bearish on the VR hype. Even some who saw the potential for the technology couldn't quite see the path to large-scale, mainstream success in the near future.

"I'm still having a hard time with it taking off," Mortal Kombat co-creator and NetherRealm Studios founder Ed Boon said. "I don't think it's going to take over like console games. It's very immersive, but you really need to commit to the experience. It's not like a phone experience, where you take it with you while you're in the car or something like that. [But] I think its novelty is so powerful that there will always be a place for it."

The high initial cost of VR headsets (and the additional hardware needed to run them) was also a concern for some in the industry. "I think where we're at right now, it's still very much an installation thing," Baker said. "I don't know what's going to bring it into the living room. For Oculus, they just announced you're going to need a $1,500 computer... $2,000 if you want to get it specced out the way you want. That's a big price point, so I think it's going to be early adopters that have to really push it in."

Others saw the initial high prices as a natural starting point for a new medium. "It's early tech, right?" Moon Studios' Gennadiy Korol (Ori and the Blind Forest) said. "It's going to be expensive, the first revision is always going to be rough. The first iPhone wasn't perfect either, right? It will take a couple of iterations, but there's no doubt that it's the future of entertainment."

Even assuming the price point eventually comes down, getting virtual reality in front of people is going to be a difficult but important step to building the market. "I think a lot of us in the industry debate how quickly things are going to grow," Insomniac President and CEO Ted Price (Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank) said. "Right now, early adopters for VR are highly enthusiastic and are going to drive a lot of the market. But to ensure that it goes mainstream, I think people are going to have to try it. That means it has to be accessible. You have to be able to try it at stores, at your friend's house, wherever you want. I think content has to be there to drive players and consumers in general to VR."

Listing image by Sebastian Anthony