This post comes after a discussion I head with VR innovator Enrico Speranza about Altspace VR shut down announcement. We agreed in thinking that Altspace VR was so cool, that it changed the VR ecosystem introducing the first social VR platform and that its sad closure hasn’t deserved. But he doesn’t surrender to a technological world where technology is actually one of the least important things, while I, after a failed startup experience, have clearly understood the concept.

When we innovators think about the future of virtual reality we all start thinking about:

Resolution & FOV improvements

Wireless

Foveat rendering

Eye tracking

And since I’m a dreamer (but I’m not the only one… [here the sing along can start]) I also go on fantasizing about cool stuff like full body tracking and brain computer interfaces, envisioning a future where we’ll be like in The Matrix, or in Total Recall and we’ll live in a virtual world shooting with Vulcans and kissing 3-breasted women (or men).

And a lot of people are like me, we find ourselves in forums and we discuss how the future of VR will be, how awesome it will be. On Quora a bazillion people ask me: when will we have a VR experience like in Sword Art Online?

And what about the present? Well, we debate if Oculus is better than Vive, which one offers the best UX, which one has the best specs… if Vive tracking is better than Oculus one. We laugh at people having Cardboards, because it is just crappy VR for poor people :) . 360 videos are the Devil incarnated inside VR, because… they’re not truly VR.

I’ve come to a conclusion lately. We are the only ones who care. Because all other people just don’t give a heck about all of this.

With “other people” I mean users and investors. So all the people really involved in the business side of Virtual Reality.

Users don’t care about FOV or the “Screen Door Effect”. If I tell my mother the world “Screen Door Effect”, this would be her reaction

And they don’t even care about Vive tracking being the best of the world. Reason is, most people out there won’t be even able to install it.

Ordinary people care mostly for something that is:

Useful

Usable

Affordable

And VR currently isn’t like that. Let’s take Oculus, for instance. Is it useful? No. If you’re a gamer, you may find it useful to play games like Robo Recall… but otherwise it has little use. Is it usable? Well, the 3–4 sensors setup of Constellation sensors is a complete PITA for a non-technician. Is it affordable? If we consider the cost of the VR ready PC + Oculus, well, it is not. So, why a normal person should buy it?

“But it is the future”. Who cares. “But games like Robo Recall are awesome”. Yes, but few people would spend thousands of dollars just to play few games.

Reality is, most people use electronic devices just for very simple stuff, because they just need that. What are computer mostly used for?

E-mail

Facebook

Dropbox

Word/Excel/Powerpoint

Adobe Acrobat

Look for cat GIFs on the web

And smartphones?

E-mail

Facebook

Whatsapp/Telegram

Look for cat GIFs on the web

Candy Crush

Take photos that no one will ever look at again

Do we need powerful devices to do that? No. An average device is sufficient. A standard user won’t care if his/her PC is an i3 processor while the most powerful one is the i7. He doesn’t even know the meaning. And to use facebook maybe even a 486DX2 would be enough :D.

When talking about electronic devices, it is used to always talk about Apple. So, Apple. It has rarely invented something: smartphones were something that NOKIA already produced; tablets were already made by COMPAQ. But they take something rough and wait enough to create something truly user friendly. Apart from the brand, Apple is great in creating a UX that makes things usable and graphically appealing. That’s the reason of its success. Then other players enter the field and copy them to create something that is affordable, too. Here we have explained all the success of smartphones. That due to all their applications are also super-useful.

Reason for VR not successful is mainly due to the above points: it should cost less, it should be super user-friendly and should have content that people truly needs (and not just games). From a user’s standpoint, having an easy setup for the headset is 100x important than 10° of FOV more (while for us techies it is exactly the opposite).

Most successful headsets (GearVR and Cardboards) are the cheapest and most easy to use.

“Yes, but it is not true VR, only 3DOF!” say a lot of people. “Who cares” say the users. “360 videos are not virtual reality”… yes, but people like them anyway.

To catch the point, you have to think about VR as you think about things that you are not into. For instance “shoes”. If you ask me what shoes I’m wearing… I just answer “shoes”. I don’t remember the brand, I don’t know if they’re made in plastic or with human skin, if they’ve been crafted in China or in Taiwan. I just know that I tried them, I found them comfortable, I found they suit me well and I had the money to buy them. Fashion bloggers would say that “They’re not true shoes, just some cheap crappy stuff that lacks all principles of design and fashion”. But I don’t care… if I can walk with them, I’m ok with them. And people are like this for virtual reality.

So yes, crisper resolution, foveat rendering and such are all useful to make a better VR, but priorities are on making VR usable, cheaper and appealing.

And what about investors? Well, they only care about money. You may create the most interesting VR experience out there, but if it doesn’t make money, it’s not interesting for them. And lot of them are not interested in VR because the market is too little and the future is still uncertain.

“But VR is so cool and I’ve seen predictions on UploadVR saying it will skyrocket” Yes, but it’s market, compared to PC and smartphone ones, is little as a fly compared to a big potato.

AltspaceVR was cool, but as they’ve admitted, one of the reason they failed is because they predicted a bigger growth of the VR market. VR is going slow in its adoption, always for the above reasons. They were idols for all us techies because they’ve somewhat created a genre… but they didn’t manage to monetize it, so investors didn’t care.

When I pitched my full body startup to investor Bill, he said to me “Why should I care about full body in VR?” and I answered “because it gives you a better immersion in the virtual world”. “Who cares? I’ve the Vive, I can take objects with my hands and this is all I need to do” he answered. Explaining the sense of immersion to Bill has been impossible, because he didn’t see that as a problem: VR is cool anyway without full body and I can interact with it just with controllers. Again, this is the point of view of most users. And if users are not interested, investors are not interested.

I’m not saying that evolution of VR is not important: talking about smartphones, everyone appreciates the improvements in resolution, the addition of multiple cameras, the water-proof cover. But smartphones started becoming successful a lot before that.

And of course the techie that is in me still appreciates any technical evolution. But the businessman that is in me, just remembers this graph

(Image from ReadWrite)

and VR is now in the yellow part of the graph and is trying desperately to get to the orange one. And to do this, technological innovation is maybe the least interesting part. VR must start becoming appealing to the majority of users and not only to us techies. It should start having a cool design (and the Vive is ugly), an easy installation and lot of useful programs.

Microsoft has got completely the concept and that’s why is creating a platform for headsets that are cheap, work with almost any PC and require a super-simple installation. The problem is that they’ve a ugly design and almost no content at the moment, but they understood the path to take. “But it’s controllers are not tracked if they’re behind you, so I can’t play with bow and arrow in VR!”. Who cares, again.

Apple is creating hype with ARKit because it works well and out-of-the-box with the smartphone that people already have. “But Vuforia worked well before them!” Who cares, Vuforia needed markers and they are not user-friendly.

So, my fellow innovators, my advice is to stop thinking as techie and start thinking as users. This will surely help the ecosystem in growing healthier.

If you want to discuss about that with me, come an visit me at my blog! (hope that your answer won’t be “Who cares”…)