How Virtual Reality Will Explode
I recently came across Hardwired, an entrepreneurial community in New York hosted by FirstMark Capital exploring the potential of frontier technologies. As someone who has worked in virtual reality, I was particularly intrigued by one talk given by Daniel Beauchamp, Head of VR at Shopify. Dan discussed his work in revolutionizing commerce through VR, and painted for us a world where designing, selling, and shopping for goods online is faster and more engaging than ever before. You can find his talk here.
But, as Beauchamp pointed out, the rate of VR adoption by the public has been slow, and that will be a big hurdle to clear before we can see a VR eCommerce revolution. That’s likely to change very soon though, and the industry is only three big developments away from making it happen.
Greater Enterprise Use
For decades, computers were massive, heavy contraptions that cost millions of dollars to purchase and install. Nevertheless, they had tremendous value for businesses and academic institutions, and the drive to improve on these early mainframes led to progressively better and more compact systems.
By the time these systems were cheap and portable enough for consumer use, the industry had a backbone of technical expertise and robust applications — most notably spreadsheets, word processors, and email — that quickly drove consumer sales.
One key thread ran through all of these early “killer apps”: they were designed as productivity tools, and were valuable for professionals and consumers alike. By targeting areas where VR can significantly enhance productivity across both B2C and B2B use cases — collaborative design, communication, and simulation for instance — VR developers have a chance to strike gold the same way.
VR is still in its infancy though, and while it’s far easier to gather information on VR development tools today than it was to become a coding whiz in 1970, even early software developers could use the TV screen, the typewriter, and the ledger as blueprints for their UX design. In a fully immersive, 3D space, VR developers don’t have the luxury of precedent.
Despite the challenges, other benefits abound from an enterprise-first approach. Targeting professionals will help validate VR as a medium for more than just video games, short films, and other creative expression, and provide exposure beyond the demographic of gamers that heavy-hitters Oculus, Sony, and HTC have been pursuing. It will also provide more opportunities for demo events with consumers, which do far more to introduce people to VR and boost demand than anything else.
Hardware Improvements
A quick look at the current lineup of available VR headsets paints a familiar picture of first-gen technology with substantial promise, but major hiccups in execution.
While it comes as no surprise that rudimentary VR systems such as Google Cardboard and similar bargain headsets do not properly reflect the potential of VR, even the major headsets suffer from a consistent set of issues. Most reviews of current VR offerings tend to shower praise, but I have not yet come across a single “flawless” review. Here are the most common issues I spotted across 50 online reviews of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift:
Though a lack of blockbuster gaming or film content was noted as a major concern, the majority of reviewers could not recommend VR to the average consumer based on its price. A significant number also had problems with headset comfort, excessive wiring, setup challenges, or buggy and unreliable firmware.
Note: these are just the two most sophisticated headsets available. Other headsets are cheaper, but fare much worse in terms of comfort, content availability, and firmware.
Fortunately, efforts are underway to address each of these drawbacks in hardware quality:
- Economies of scale and refinements in production should drive down prices for the second generation of VR and onward. We should observe similar price reductions with high-end PCs needed to run them.
- User feedback and testing should lead to improvements in design and ergonomics, reducing or eliminating discomfort. More feedback should also lead to simpler, more straightforward setup processes.
- There is ongoing research into wireless data transmission that should enable wireless VR at an acceptable latency across all major headsets. This technology is already available in an add-on for the HTC Vive.
- In the absence of any rush to get their products to market, major hardware manufacturers should offer more stable firmware updates in the future.
Perhaps most importantly, competition should enable manufacturers to better study the advantages of opposing headsets, and incentivize them to use those insights to improve future releases.
A Social Killer App
Another Hardwired speaker I enjoyed listening to was Lux Capital VC Bilal Zuberi, who commented, “VR is going to be much more social than we anticipate it to be today.” I agree.
This past summer, Pokemon GO released to global fanfare on Android and iOS. While “Pokemon GO” quickly become a household name, capitalizing on the strength of the Pokemon brand and its social gameplay, it had one other interesting effect: it added “augmented reality” to the public lexicon.
Searches for “Pokemon GO” and “Augmented Reality” spiked in July following the game’s launch, and AR experienced a permanent uptick in searches, even after most of the world had moved on from Pokemon GO.
VR now needs its own Pokemon GO, its own social app that can drive sales and interest toward VR: the “killer app” the masses will watch with interest and curiosity.
Social use cases are critical in any new medium, and VR is no exception. While the personal computer found mainstream success on the strength of its productivity apps, the internet itself grew up on Usenet newsgroups, IRC channels, and social media. Even today, 5 of the 20 most popular websites — YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and Pinterest — are social.
A social VR experience that can leverage existing brands and services to achieve viral growth could rapidly accelerate VR adoption in the consumer home market.
While VR development is still in its infancy, and there is no widely-accepted set of best practices, it’s already clear that VR can enhance existing social experiences like chat rooms and multiplayer games through heightened immersion, and social VR apps such as Altspace VR and Rec Room are already offering a glimpse into the potential of social engagement in VR. Of course, there is Facebook’s foray into VR social media as well.
One thing seems clear though: when virtual reality does bring us the next revolution in social, we’ll know.
2016 proved that VR is here to stay, and it’s only a matter of time now before VR headsets go from niche to necessary. That might come in 2017, or 2018, or even 2019, but it will be soon. For my part, I’ll be keeping an eye on any new apps that might leverage the power of VR to transform how we work and connect, and I recommend you do the same.
Marcello Miranda is a tech entrepreneur and writer for Virtual Reality Pop and The Cube. Follow him on Medium and Twitter, and if you enjoyed this content, hit that ♥ to help spread the word!
