I did have motion sickness at first but got used to it quite quickly. It actually disappeared on the 2nd/3rd day of use I think. I have absolutely no problem driving race sims all day long if needed, I’ve been using my VR gear for 3 years now.
The trick is not forcing it – the instant someone feels even remotely nauseous they should stop. If you the user starts actually feeling sick they’re liable to sensitize themselves to motion sickness.
I see VR arcades in suburban malls fairly often, maybe give that a shot first. The VOID experiences were great but they went out of business during the pandemic.
You just need a bit of knowledge that is tough to get without knowing it exists.
The main component of VR games that causes problems for people is when the motion in game doesn’t match the motion you are really doing. There are plenty of games that don’t have any of that. And even when you are ready to start trying games with that, you can overcome it if you experience it bit by bit. Just play until you start to get a warm/sweaty face or a bit dizzy feeling, then go do something else for a bit. You will build up the time it takes to trigger that feeling and it will be more mild as you keep training out of it.
I’ve been demoing to people for 10 years and have had less than 5% of people even get mildly nauseous during a demo, even fewer recently. The methodology of the test in the article can’t have been anything other than them picking the worst possible experience and having people endure it for an hour or until they felt sick with no explanation of what to look out for. Since 30% of people are literally completely immune no matter how bad their test could have possible been.
Even back with the DK2 and the crappy choices for software back then it was still pretty uncommon to make someone sick, and usually it was either my fault or a hardware issue rather than something that could be attributed to VR as a whole.
I am never sick when doing roller coasters or reading in a moving car, but I was really nauseous after my first 15-min VR session. I was pretty scared I fucked up buying a Valve Index only to get that much sick playing… But I had a feeling (hope?) that I could get used to it: After about 2 weeks of playing a bit every night I was no longer getting sick at all. I can go until the controllers run out of battery now.
To me the effort was worth it, but I have a friend that was the opposite and didn’t enjoy experiencing virtual worlds that way…
My advice: If you ever try it then try to ignore the sickness -as you can get used to it- and focus on how much you enjoy being immersed in virtual worlds.
It isn’t a problem with screen technology or processing technology or anything like that. We aren’t going to “tech” our way out of this.
It is a biological problem and as such, I think the appeal of VR will always be rather niche.
Even the best selling VR headset that I found online was the Quest 2 and it “only” sold like 15M units (honestly way more than I ever expected) with everything else being considerably lower volume. Compare that to the number of Nintendo Switches sold (130M) and you start to see how small the VR market is. I am very curious to see how the Sony VR2 will end up selling. I would love to get a pair, but I think all these headsets will be short lived.
VR has been around since the 20th Century. It is still here, and the market is expanding with more options as time goes on.
I wanted to play VR games since I saw the first VR stuff in the 90s. Finally got a Valve Index set this year, and it’s fuckin’ awesome. For all the Quest and Vive users on here saying VR sucks - it’s your gear that sucks.
Here’s a list of VR games that are fuckin’ awesome:
<span style="color:#323232;">HL Alyx (as everyone already mentioned)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Into the Radius (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in VR)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Grapple Tournament (UT2004 with grappling hooks in VR)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Dragon Fist Kung Fu (kung fu fighting in VR duh)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Blade and Sorcery (swords and sorcery)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Battle Talent (ripoff of Blade and Sorcery that is also cool)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Assetto Corsa (racing sim)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">DCS World (flight sim)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Beat Saber (music chopping)
</span>
I don’t know man. Feels like the whole damn field of medicine does just that. It fixes body problems with (medical) technology.
I would not at all be surprised if later we find a certain framerate or fov reduces motion sickness. Or maybe there’s some device that will go over our ears to trick our equilibrium from getting confused. Or maybe really good head tracking fixes it…
I think it’s more likely than not that we do “tech” our way out of it - just in some unforeseen way.
Only one way to find out, I guess. But still, a lot of this stuff comes from the high end that eventually trickles down, and I’ve never heard any discoveries that claim to have solved the problem. You’d think that since the military would be all over this tech, their limitless budgets would have stated they have sickness-free headsets. But in all these years, nothing.
The trick is to slowly acclimate, which takes patience and body awareness. Play for a short amount of time, pause the game when you start to feel slightly warm (or ideally just before that point), and go do something else for 20 minutes or so. With time, the play periods will get longer and the rest breaks will get shorter. Eventually you may stop needing the rest breaks.
A couple caveats: my sample size is 1, a hiatus of more than two weeks means retraining again, and you have to be firm with yourself about stopping on time.
That is understandable in the moment, it’s alot if the only pay off is one game. But I would argue it is very worth it overall. It’s a small price to pay to permanently be able to handle it and have no qualms about future VR games/uses.
Plus most games and experiences don’t even cause VR sickness to the most susceptible people, so if you pick and choose your games and stick to ones that don’t cause issues, you can play VR without any conditioning right away too.
As this is my personal strategy as well, I would like to add that your sample size is now 2, with a 100% success rate :3
Although for me personally I don’t have to retrain that quickly. My resistance to motion sickness certainly gets weaker over time, but I seem to have reached some kind of baseline, compared to my previous state, where about five minutes could give me an awful headache, while now I can take it for a bit longer, even after not being in VR for a month or two.
Speaking of, we need more VR games. I’d love to play more of them, but nothing new is really big and exciting or anything, which is how these long breaks even happen.
My sample size is much larger and indeed that has been the case. I’ve been hosting VR demos for 10 years now, since DK2. DK1 was bad news for people even slightly prone to motion sickness. 3dof is only viable for motion sick prone people if they can keep their head exactly where the game expects it to be, which you can’t.
With each new generation of headset, there has been so much less prep for getting random people into it and making sure they wouldn’t even get mildly nauseous. More software options without translational movement and much less obvious safety nets in games that do. You can always find at least one game/experience that is right up someone’s alley that won’t cause motion sickness even if it turns out they would otherwise have been really sensitive to it.
But I always let them know that when they do want to start branching out from the “safe” choices, that they should treat it like sea sickness, limit exposure at first and build up sea legs. Ideally never get to the point where you would throw up, try to stay as far away from it as possible while still having fun. You will eventually notice one day that you haven’t thought about it in a long time.
I take an off-brand Dramamine then hop in. Best if I know 20 minutes in advance that I’ll be playing since it takes a little time to digest, but I’m not doing chores.
It really depends on the person and the hardware. I’ve seen people with PC-VR setups that get sick, but are 100% okay with wireless. I think it’s an issue of FOV, FPS, and overall just getting used to wearing a big box on your face.
I see a ton of people shitting on VR because they get sick, saying that it’s just a gimmick and it’ll pass. I think it’s a neat piece of tech that deserves to get better, hopefully the issues will be ironed out over the generations.
I see a ton of people shitting on VR because they get sick, saying that it’s just a gimmick and it’ll pass.
And that’s such a weird take for them to have, which I have also seen. I get sick real easy from VR and it doesn’t make me mad at VR, it bums me out that I’ll have to wait for something slightly more accommodating to come out first.
In my mind they look like little Goblins or Ferengi who dream about all the other VR related stuff people can start buying when finally VR headsets become common.
It’s almost as if we shouldn’t listen to the marketing types that are trying to sell a product, but rather what the end users say.
I remember trying VR in the 90s: from the VirtualBoy to expensive and bulky setups in malls. I’ve tried 3D TV, google cardboard, and the range of consumer VR across the decades. They were all fundamentally flawed and like everyone else I was jaded. Then I tried what the 2020s had to offer.
My take away is that the technology available has finally reached the point where consumer VR is starting to become viable. We’re seeing the first real prototypes that have the capacity to evolve into something practical. It’s still expensive, bulky, and limited – but the fundamental issues that plagued previous generations of VR have mostly been addressed.
And you even have some vr fans just blindly claiming that all games should use gliding for movement and that having the option to teleport ruins the game even if they don’t use it. even though gliding (they call it natural locomotion) makes people sick because it’s obviously unnatural. They claim there is no need for movement systems that don’t induce motion sickness because it’s a matter of getting used to “natural locomotion” an anyone who doesn’t get better is because they are lying🙄.
It’s a tricky issue. On one side, yes, it will make some people motion sick, but on the other side limiting a game to teleport drastically limits what you can do in the game. It means nothing of currently established monitor-based game mechanics work in VR. You essentially completely lose locomotion and environmental navigation as game mechanic and everything becomes a static gallery shooter. It also means that multiplayer completely stops functioning, as while yourself zapping around might be acceptable, having the other player just randomly switch placed is certainly not.
Modern VR has been around for 10 years and so far nobody has figured out how to make teleport gaming work. Meanwhile all the unofficial VR mods gets celebrated, since despite their locomotion issues, they actually feel like full games in VR, which the teleport games never archived.
At the end of the day, it’s a far better idea to design games for the people that want to play them, then those that don’t. The early focus on teleport has regressed the VR industry for years and the conclusion after 10 years is basically that it causes far more harm than good. You don’t win anybody over for VR by showing them games that look far less impressive than what they are used to from a monitor.
Also worth mentioning that there are alternatives to teleport that aren’t stick-locomotion. Lone Echo or Gorilla Tag have you move around with your arms and hands. This gives you smooth motion without inducing or at least drastically reducing motion sickness issues. Those mechanics still feel quite a bit underused in the modern VR landscape.
I am not sure if you are mixing allowing teleportation with not allowing natural locomotion or if you are claiming that allowing teleportation would be limiting the game in some form. Many games support both. My comment was about people complaining that the game should not have support for teleportation (since they don’t use it).
There are plenty of multiplayer games with locomotion. The problem you describe regarding not being able to play multiplayer has been resolved in this games with different mechanics. Most of them use some form of stamina so you can’t just run away. To name an example since you claim no one has done it take a look at half life alyx.
I agree with the fact that it doesn’t work well for existing games non vr games. But I don’t want to play those games in vr…
Regarding your static gallery comment that’s not true at all. You teleport to move larger distances but you interact with your environment by moving in the room where you are playing so you can walk, dodge, crawl, etc…. Teleporting is more about repositioning your play space so you can actually walk and move around using your body.
You can’t add teleportation into a game after the fact. You have to design it for teleportation from the ground up for that to work. You can only add smooth motion after the fact, since it’s the superior control scheme. That’s the issue, teleportation limits game design.
And yes, there are games were teleportation works well, simple single-player point&click exploration games work fine. But everything involving action and movement just takes a turn for the worse if developers are adding teleportation.
To name an example since you claim no one has done it take a look at half life alyx.
Half Life: Alyx is an example of exactly what I am talking about. It’s a far worse game than Half Life 2, as being designed around teleportation turned it into a static shooting gallery.
by moving in the room where you are playing so you can walk, dodge, crawl, etc….
Developers gave up on roomscale years ago. Everything these days has to work sitting or standing in place, without walking around, as that’s how the majority of peoples actually play VR. Valve tried to hype up roomscale in the early days, but as it turns out nobody really wants, and nobody has the space for making that work well anyway. Taking two steps only to hit the chaperone is no fun and constantly interrupts the flow of the game, sticking to controller based locomotion gives a much better experience.
But I don’t want to play those games in vr…
I would. And most other gamers seem to agree, as nobody wants to play mediocre VR games we have today, as can be seen by the general disinterest in VR. VR hype used to be based around it being the “next level” of gaming, futuristic scifi tech, yet the current VR games just feel like a total downgrade compared to what we can have on a monitor.
Thanks for clarifying your position. You seem to be the type i was describing. Well except that you didn’t claim everyone can get used to it and anyone who can’t is because they are not trying. As te technology stands, making games that only a fraction of the target audience that want and can consume it is not a great idea. Instead you say that most people want what you want and ignore the statistics.
I agree with your opinion that games that cater to me are better than games that don’t.
When you have the choice between making games that 20% of the audience can’t play, but everybody wants or making games that everybody can play, but 80% don’t even care about, the first option is the better one. VR however worked itself into a corner going far to much for the later one, maximum accessibility by making VR look boring, small scale and limiting, the exact opposite of everything it should represent. The result is that nobody wants or cares about VR anymore.
Motion sickness is simply not as serious of a problem as everybody makes it out to be, as the people that have issues with it won’t play the games that cause it. Not every game has to work for everybody and the majority of people can get used to it anyway.
The article doesn’t cite a source and the number is meaningless without knowing the methodology. If you put a headset on somebody new to VR and spin them around the yaw or roll axis, almost everybody will get sick. But that’s a situation you encounter in no modern VR game, which all have snap-turn (except for flight and racing sims). Furthermore, most people simply get used to it, even if they initially have issues with it. For some it takes longer than others, but the end result is that it is a non-issue. Fans, ginger and a bunch of other things can help as well.
Ever seen a beginner try dual stick controls in a FPS game? That doesn’t exactly come naturally either, that doesn’t mean we should stop making FPS games. My worst case of motion sickness so far was Half Life 2 on a monitor before they patched the FOV.
I suppose you are entitled to your opinion and so am i. I will keep not buying or refunding games that make me uncomfortable. developers that cater to you and oppose supporting teleportation will learn how it goes as well.
So glad I didn’t but an oculus. All of my friends got themselves and their kids headsets and I’ve yet to hear about them being used often. Everyone I know that has a vr headset told me to never buy one. Complete waste of money.
Yeah of all the people I know that rushed out to get vr none of them mention it now, a lot of streamers I watch did a video or two then have never done another one. It’s such a great idea but also so many issues to work around.
I think most people don’t really want to be totally immersed, I like just relaxing watching some YouTube and playing games, having a snack and a drink, chatting to friends on my phone… a game has to be so much better if it’s going to hold my full attention but pretty much universally vr games are far worse than their screen based versions - hitman vr for example, there’s a million videos of people playing and laughing at how bad it is and almost none actually playing properly
IMO, the biggest limitations are the fact that it’s not quite there yet for resolution/graphics, and the devices are still a bit oppressive. If I could read text in VR and the goggles weren’t much more than my prescription glasses, I’d be using it a lot more. Would be cool to even just get rid of monitors and have all my workspaces VR.
But now, I have to don this unwieldy wired thing on my head, fiddle around for the wands blindly, and everything is kinda fuzzy. It’s an exhausting experience.
The OG Vive is pretty bad to read things with, I can attest to that. My brother had one and I know what it looks like. Screendoor effect, text difficult to read, and for some games the platform you’re standing on moves below your feet making dizziness worse.
I have the Vive Pro 1st-gen w/ Eye-Tracking, while I wouldn’t recommend buying it retail for the price it is, I would say it’s a huge upgrade over the OG Vive. The screendoor effect is nearly gone, text isn’t perfect but easier to read, and I’m not that upset about the resolution or refresh rate, I don’t get dizzy and the platform stays put below my feet in all of my games. Now, to be fair, the platform moving in some games may have been a difference between my brother’s and my PC, either drivers or the headset itself, and not the games, since it was Linux vs Windows. I never tried the OG Vive on my PC.
I’d recommend the Valve Index if you were to buy right now without doing some looking around. If you want to wait, there are some newer headsets coming soon that look promising, the next 2 months should be interesting as that’s when new hardware typically becomes available.
That’s my problem too… it promises so much, but massively undedelivers, and just ends up being a heavy weight strapped to my face when I could get a better experience by just looking at a monitor… better games too.
Manufacturers (especially Meta) are trying to sell it as if it’s Ready Player 1 level immersion, and it’s just not, and never can be.
I read this as “40-70% of VR developers don’t know what they are doing”. What needs to be done to avoid motion sickness has been known for a long while now.
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