Part of the problem here is that people think of VR headsets like 3D TVs. (I’m not saying this is you)
Using a headset is nothing like using a 3D TV, where your viewport is locked, and moving yourself doesn’t change the parallax. No immersion, just another way to see.
Using a headset, well, you’re there.
The tech’s not perfect, but comparing it with the previous consumer tech is just insane. It’s orders of magnitude more capable.
So with the news of the community team being layed off, what do you think of the future of CSM?
Maybe ccp should stop hemorrhaging money by flying all of you people out to Iceland multiple times a year and providing you shelter and food while you are there.
That could save a Dev or 2s yearly salary with how much plane tickets are and how much you CSMers eat and how little ccp pays devs.
The problem with VR and 3D TVs are indeed similar. The problem is that it ads little to the experience to offset the inconvenience of the fixed position, glasses or headset and motion sickness.
I know a few people who got a headset, used it for a few days and then shelved it because the wow effect was over and in the end you just want to relax while playing a game and not always want to completely immerse yourself and strap a giant headset to the face. Same goes for the 3D TV, you just want to watch a movie and relax and the glasses and the positioning just make it inconvenient.
So they may have sold over a million headsets, but if they are not used or only used for an hour a week then there is obviously a very limited marked.
We could discuss the actual value of “being there” in the context of escapism. People have been capable to “be there” through nothing more sophisticate than a piece of written text, a painting or some music. Even just spoken words may carry you to a different place, so escapism is a need well fulfilled by means other than strapping a visor on your face and look at a 3D world as if you were inside it.
So, what does VR bring to the table? As I said above, the first wave bringed 3D worlds in a 2D gaming scene. But 3D worlds are now commonplace and their rendering on 2D surfaces will always be better than on simulated 3D. And some worlds are just not meant to “be there”.
VR is akin to a solution in search for a problem, with its own baggage of issues. There is no value in itself but for a few niches where “being inside the world” is relevant. Vehicle simulation is one of those niches, but it’s a small one. Pornography is another one, but it’s not exactly the most marketable niche for a technology that pretends to appeal to the masses.
Last, being “inside the world” is downright bad in some cases. Let’s say you’re “inside” Blade Runner and you’re busy looking around right as Shepard shots Pris dead… congratulations, you missed it!
Frankly, the problem with VR goes beyond technology. It’s a problem of “why VR?”
The term pay2win is never meant literally, it usually means that you can invest money into a game to lower the grind (get ISK instantly) or reduce some timers (SP injector vs. SP accumulation).
That is true for every other game if it is worthy of being called a game at all. So this is not really an argument for or against if something is pay2win, it is just a simple fact that you can’t sell Player skill. I’m sure as fraked up as the game industry is they will even change that in the end and probably sell you AI bots so they play the game for you and win… you heard it here first.
EVE by it’s nature is a full loot PvP sandbox, and that fact is the reason why the whole PLEX to ISK which in many games would amount to blatant pay2win is somehow offset, because you can always throw more people with extremely cheaper ships at the problem and literately dunk the pay2win whale into oblivion.
But that does not mean that there is no problem. New players don’t know EVE, people have a relatively hard time understanding the nature of the game and the sandbox, we see that every day here on the forums when people cry for more isolation while keeping the influence they have in the sandbox.
This people come to EVE and they often expect a similar experience like they had in other MMOs. There your main goal is to grind your character up for a few days/weeks so you reach the endgame content. They look at EVE and compare it to those experiences. They see the SP timer which ticks down slowly and tells them that to reach their badass ship they think is the goal to get into needs half a year of waiting just so you can barely fly it. Then they get mocked with 2x speed for Omega and instant SP injector ads all over the plays which makes very clear that you could just lower the timer by investing money. And on top of that if they purchase and inject the SP there is a good chance they can’t even use the ship except if they pay a monthly fee for omega or lose access to it again.
And I don’t think I have to make even an argument about ISK for PLEX, since that is just obvious how this lowers the grind for $.
Yes, I know what you think, they don’t understand the game and blah blah blah, EVE is is a subscription game, blah blah blah, sandbox… I know!! Every time I mention this someone then turns around and tries to explain the sandbox to me. This is about how new players may see EVE and not how I may see it (I know this isn’t a big problem for the game per se) and how the current marketing writes pay2win all over it for those new players which do not know how the sandbox works.
Thats why I don’t believe either Hilmair or Seagull when they are saying such things from the stage. It’s insincere.
Apart from above it looks like it is worse that they are saying it is.
Sure, but outside of walking simulators it doesn’t offer anything for most gamers, i’m not going to play OW in VR or EVE in VR or destiny 2 in VR
It doesn’t have any mainstream appeal, yes VR has its uses, but gaming really isn’t one of them
Tech is one thing, but this concept of straping screens to your head never will be good enough for wide adoption. The computer-brain interface like in matrix have more chances.
Apart from the VR people geting fired it’s clear someone at CCP noticed just how useless and silly the comunity team was,those people were clear dead weight being paid only to make us feel good about ourselves they didn;t work on programming or art aspects of eve heck their entire work could be taken by 1 guy typing down some of the development progress as updates. As a customer the image that the comunity team was diplaying I found extremely unprofessional.
Good you didnt want them to fix lag. 
im pretty sure they all work on temp contracts and are probably used to shifting around
i doubt any of them expected to make a full time career out of this project
The Vr thingy face a dire wall for rentability because of physiological issue.
Nothing new. All this stuff is edgy and on on a razor blade from a medical point of view.
I don’t care about you believe or at least think it can be resolve. Today there’s more people who have issues after they used a VR system than people enjoy to use it.
Not sure if this true (if you read Leeloo’s post).
I do understand the cut of the VR part. It was a risk, it didn’t pay out in the short term, so you need to make sure to not burn money. I’m not sure about the dismantling of the community team, but we don’t know all details and plans. It’s difficult to believe it was only for cost cutting purposes.
this thread is 190 posts long it’s hard to find a specific post without being directed
but yeah its sad and i feel sorry for people being laid off
but im pretty sure they would know they were only employed on temporary basis anyway
kinda like how i work i only work maybe one or 2 weeks for a lot of money
but when the job is over i take a 6 week vacation until the next one comes up
I think by now every single non Icelandic CCP employee knows they are on borrowed time.
Outside of a little motion sickness, which isn’t the reason VR has failed yet again, its the cost and the fact that for most games it doesn’t add anything
the motion sickness issue is buried, and all after affect too.
Some people are really mesmerized after too much hours of play. And “How much” is again in debate. And How Many people too. Some are ashamed to be defeat by a feature like this. They never tell they are sick because it cost.
One fact.
The VR can alleviate the Ghost Limb sansation some Amputee feel each hour and day. And make them feel better
So it is Factually Obvious someone who have done too much play wit ha VR System could feel somme limbs in excess and make feel sick.
The issue is that all the reasons add up. Motion sickness does not kill VR but it hurts it. So is the relative lack of games, the lack of real feature, the cost, the physical limitation,…
VR carries a huge show stopper when applied to gaming: “motion sickness”.
So in fact you are not really “there” because you no longer have a visual horizontal reference (what you see is no longer in sync with what your brains tells you according to your body gravity reference) when you play. Your play time is therefore reduced to the time you can handle it without being “sea sick”. Which is very short for most people (a few minutes for some people, a few seconds for others). Do you get it?
EVE is one of the rare space games where there is no motion sickness at all, you can play for hours and, drink like hell, eat a big fat turkey at the same time, and it’s all good. All the others have motion sickness which turns off a lot of players.