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Valve believes Half-Life: Alyx will be modded to play without VR

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

You need a virtual reality headset to play Half-Life: Alyx. For now.

But PC games end up in places that are often very far from where they began, and no one knows this better than Valve’s Robin Walker. Walker co-created the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, before working on Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike for Valve, as well as many of the Half-Life releases).

He’s keenly aware that someone out there, right now, is likely working very hard to modify a version of Half-Life: Alyx that can be played on a standard screen, with a mouse and keyboard.

“I know it’s going to happen,” Walker told Polygon. The bigger question is what the fans will think of this ported version of the game.

It’s strange admitting that a game designed to be played in one very specific way may soon be played in a manner never intended, and I was curious if Walker, or anyone at Valve, was worried about the idea of someone modding the game in this way.

“The answer to this diverges significantly depending on which members of the team you talk to, so this answer is definitely just from me,” Walker explained. “There are a set of people on the team that are concerned about that. Personally, I’m not concerned about it at all.” The reason is pretty simple: The game just wouldn’t be much fun as a standard release.

“It will clearly demonstrate to people why we did this in VR,” Walker said. “It will be a very crisp way of seeing all the stuff we got for the move into VR. If people play [a modded version on a standard display] and say this is is just as good, that will teach me a lot. I will realize I’m wrong, and we didn’t get as much as we thought, and I love to know whenever I’m wrong.”

“Yes, it’s going to happen. I’m fine with it, for the sake of the other members of the team I don’t want to say I encourage you to do it, but it’s going to happen,” Walker said. “I think people will then hopefully have an even greater understanding of why we decided to build the product in VR than they do now.”
 
I think the bigger problem is how they make people "pay for the assets" of the 2D version.

When you do not offer what the customer wishes to pay for, they won't pay....
 
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INC

Member
This game would be really shit in pancake mode.
No offense.

The whole game based around the feeling of using the gravity gloves and the gfx in VR

In 2d the gfxs aren't special, and the gravity gloves won't have the same impact.
So you're left with a hollow corridor shooter in 2d.

Just watch it on YouTube if you're really bothered, because it'll play like shit in 2d, and then they'll swamp the forums sayk g it's shit and boring......yes because it's not meant to be played in 2d you dick splashes
 
After playing it I've got to say it just won't work, the fundamentals of design will not translate to a flat screen environment. The mechanics won't allow it, the pacing won't allow it, this isn't a Half-Life 2 in VR, it's completely different.

The way I explained it to a friend is imagine building a bulldozer and then your friend says; "hey, let's convert this to a racecar".

It's nonsensical. I'm sorry to say it but if you want to experience this you need to get VR, this would translate terribly if at all.
 
Because most people don't own a VR headset.
And majority of people could not run doom 3 when it released or Crisis.. in a hobby as tech based as ours I think people should just start shutting the fuck up about it already.

Vr is no more costly than a PS4 or a new phone for a oculus or PSVR "but you need a decent PC or PS4 to run it" if your PC can't run basic VR or you don't have a PS4 then you was never to interested in gaming to begin with.
 
And majority of people could not run doom 3 when it released or Crisis.. in a hobby as tech based as ours I think people should just start shutting the fuck up about it already.

Vr is no more costly than a PS4 or a new phone for a oculus or PSVR "but you need a decent PC or PS4 to run it" if your PC can't run basic VR or you don't have a PS4 then you was never to interested in gaming to begin with.
But it's clear that people don't want it. But the problem is that companies invested so much cash into VR technology and it's not the second coming of Jesus.
 

INC

Member
Even not having a AAA FPS game on VR yet (alyx isn't a shooter as such), I still find game like onward and pavlov.far more entertaining than any normal mnk FPS that's been released. Just not the same not me doing the actual aiming with the gun in my VR hands
 

4EZCOOLDART

Member
No doubt people will play in 2D though. It wont be the same gameplay experience but some will want to play through the story.

I have a Quest but not a computer that could handle this if I get a Link cable. This is the number one reason I need to upgrade my motherboard / cpu.
 
And somebody needs to model those fucking arms, please. I can't look at that flying hands. Kills every shit.
Arms aren't visually rendered for a reason, they look awkward and detract from the experience, they never line up exactly as they should or stretch and bend in very odd ways. Also there are arms in the game they're just transparent and used as a collision model.
 
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Paracelsus

Member
And when it is, people will realise its a boring basic game in 2d, it's just a walking corridor shooter.

In VR is a great looking thing, with old gameplay mechanics.

Be careful what u wish for tbh

Congratulations, you just described the entire reason the Wii existed.
 

Romulus

Member
After playing it I've got to say it just won't work, the fundamentals of design will not translate to a flat screen environment. The mechanics won't allow it, the pacing won't allow it, this isn't a Half-Life 2 in VR, it's completely different.

The way I explained it to a friend is imagine building a bulldozer and then your friend says; "hey, let's convert this to a racecar".

It's nonsensical. I'm sorry to say it but if you want to experience this you need to get VR, this would translate terribly if at all.

It does make sense to people that haven't played VR. Most people I demo VR to think it's just a flat screen close to your face with motion controls. That would translate, but that's not what VR is.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Let's all recognize that a product being out of stock for months does not prove any sort of mainstream demand, could easily mean not many were built and resupply orders were conservative since the first headset sold so badly.

Show me any sort of number that indicates that vr is even hinting at mainstream success. There is a reason why MS doesnt care about the vr market.

Vr will take off when the stand alone headsets are powerful enough to convey excellent graphics and no pixels visible conveying a true sense of immersion that is lacking now. Its coming, but it's not here yet. In addition, price needs to hit $299.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
The busiest electronics quarter of 2019 and this was it eh?


kEAy3ks.png
 
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Romulus

Member
Let's all recognize that a product being out of stock for months does not prove any sort of mainstream demand, could easily mean not many were built and resupply orders were conservative since the first headset sold so badly.

Show me any sort of number that indicates that vr is even hinting at mainstream success. There is a reason why MS doesnt care about the vr market.

Vr will take off when the stand alone headsets are powerful enough to convey excellent graphics and no pixels visible conveying a true sense of immersion that is lacking now. Its coming, but it's not here yet. In addition, price needs to hit $299.

Who said anything about VR having a mainstream demand though?

And Superdata for a source? People have been laughing at that for years when someone uses it.

It's not just "a device" sold out. You could say the Index, Rift S, an Quest(both versions) all being sold at the same time for months is significant though.
 
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SonGoku

Member
I would like VR games to offer a game setting with normal gamepad controls (no clumsy waggle controls) and normal graphics (no flying hands).
Graphics and motion controls is why VR games so unappealing
 

Wonko_C

Member
I would like VR games to offer a game setting with normal gamepad controls (no clumsy waggle controls) and normal graphics (no flying hands).
Graphics and motion controls is why VR games so unappealing

This player's experience sounds the opposite of clumsy waggle, completely natural and intuitive:

I had one [headcrab] come at me and I was fumbling around to reload, then just instinctively grabbed a metal tube and swung it just as the headcrab jumped at me and smacked it aside. It was completely natural, I didn't even think about what I was doing. It's seriously some next level stuff.


Flying hands is a non-issue. You don't really notice when inside VR.
 
People really like to get dragged kicking and screaming into new things, don't they?

Buy the cheapest used windows mixed reality headset for like 100-200 bucks and I guarantee it will still be 10x better whatever modded dreck people come up with.

Let's all recognize that a product being out of stock for months does not prove any sort of mainstream demand, could easily mean not many were built and resupply orders were conservative since the first headset sold so badly.

Show me any sort of number that indicates that vr is even hinting at mainstream success. There is a reason why MS doesnt care about the vr market.

Vr will take off when the stand alone headsets are powerful enough to convey excellent graphics and no pixels visible conveying a true sense of immersion that is lacking now. Its coming, but it's not here yet. In addition, price needs to hit $299.

Off topic, but here we go:

They weren't ready for Alyx' response, that's for sure. But even before then the Quest was doing well and the other headsets are sort of tail end gen 1 headets. Yeah, there have been iterations, but no fundamental improvements. These improvements are in the pipeline (Integrated wireless PC, streaming, foveated rendering/eye tracking, varifocal displays, micro screens, enhanced FoV, ergonomics etc.), and will dwarf the Index at a fraction of the price within a couple years. Now literally everything is sold out, even shitty WMR. You may not be able to make anything of current figures, but there has been slow, steady growth year over year, so that's a good thing.

Steam VR usage since October 2016:
HNP3hnv.png


Growth year over year, bigger bump end of last year, bigger fall due to lack of supply, and there will be a bigger rise for this month. Looks like the patterns of a healthy stock about to explode if you ask me. Also note this does not include Oculus Quests + Link, Valve stated as much but have added them/are going to add them soon. And of course keep in mind, this is just SteamVR with possible lower reported than actual considering the method of drawn data (look it up).

I disagree with the idea that it has to be $299. The tech simply has to be worth it for more people. It already is to early adopters, but the VR ecosystem has not fully embedded itself into society yet, therefore its true benefits and success cannot yet be known. Like what would smartphones be if you could only communicate with a few hundred thousand people around the world. This is why it takes time to grow. This requires vision and long term investments, which multiple tech companies are doing right now, especially Facebook. Without those two things, it will remain a chicken and egg scenario in regards to adoption; hardware won't improve because there's not enough software, vice versa. Disruption happens when emerging tech is able to do something so much better than anything else that it, well, causes disruption. Businesses that don't adapt fall behind due to the tech's unique effectiveness and efficiency improvements. If you want me to make a list of what those things will be across different fields I can do that. But for now...

People seem to disregard how emerging tech works. Here's a couple graphs to make it easier:

Gartner Hype Cycle (perception of emerging technology over time):
lzd0pFf.png


VR is just coming to the end of the Trough of Disillusionment (I marked the current state of VR in red). Of course this is just a trend, and the labels given here aren't 1 to 1 with VR (I don't know if the labels are even "official" to the guy that came up with it, although they seem to be in the right order for the most part).

Diffusion of Innovative Tech:
8UxFHXc.png


Depending on what specific market base we're talking about, VR is close to the end of innovator phase or beginning of early adopter phase.

These don't showed guaranteed results. Some tech does die. But if you research the numbers like I have since consumer VR's inception, the steady growth is just starting to go parabolic, which is a good sign. I'd suggest if you're doubtful and haven't played games like Alyx or a myriad of other high quality VR games, or researched other fields of utility, do more research or get more experience under your belt before making assumptions based on a quarter of sales in which companies weren't ready to meet demand.

Even with limited supply, Half Life Alyx had over 42k concurrent users on launch, more than 5x Boneworks (which was half the price), the next highest concurrent SteamVR count. That may seem low compared to some games, but it's extremely promising considering the number of headsets out there and the fact that Doom Eternal only had a bit more than double at it's peak. Once again, this doesn't necessarily say anything beyond people want to play a Half Life game, but it's not a bad thing, and Valve believe in the tech and know what the hell they're doing. And it shows as the game is fucking amazing.

Also keep in mind that VR has unlimited application beyond gaming/entertainment and is being utilized across multiple professions including military/medical/psychology/training/and anything involving virtual presence such as meetings and presentations, which is an important factor. This versatility will feed off itself like any other general technologies such as PC's or cell phones.

We're talking about a new method of input/output in computing that emulates human senses. Ready or not, here it comes.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Who said anything about VR having a mainstream demand though?

And Superdata for a source? People have been laughing at that for years when someone uses it.

It's not just "a device" sold out. You could say the Index, Rift S, an Quest(both versions) all being sold at the same time for months is significant though.

The whole debate about this game being modded revolves around that.

Superdata or not, vr is having a hard time. Rift and quest are both by oculus and they are clearly being carefully with not over ordering stock like they did with the go. Index is an even smaller market with small runs. It's not significant at all without knowing how many customers didn't buy as a result of no stock. It could a million or is could be 100. (More likely the latter based on previous vr products)
 
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Romulus

Member
The whole debate about this game being modded revolves around that.

Superdata or not, vr is having a hard time. Rift and quest are both by oculus and they are clearly being carefully with not over ordering stock like they did with the go. Index is an even smaller market with small runs. It's not significant at all without knowing how many customers didn't buy as a result of no stock. It could a million or is could be 100. (More likely the latter based on previous vr products)

But you came right off and said VR being sold out doesn't translate to mass demand. No one even said that to begin with. VR doesn't need "mass demand" to be successful.


And everything you're saying about sales is speculation. Literally, a 100 units sold? lol. You're basically saying everything being sold out means nothing when that has never happened before. That might not be significant for you, but it is for VR. It's definitely not going anywhere for a long time. Not after this past year.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
But you came right off and said VR being sold out doesn't translate to mass demand. No one even said that to begin with. VR doesn't need "mass demand" to be successful.


And everything you're saying about sales is speculation. Literally, a 100 units sold? lol. You're basically saying everything being sold out means nothing when that has never happened before. That might not be significant for you, but it is for VR. It's definitely not going anywhere for a long time. Not after this past year.

No one said it outright, but it was implicit when people are saying VR is hot, sold out everywhere! When in fact it's not hot, it's ice cold. And thus the reason for the game likely being modded.

Not everything is speculation, we know VR is way behind where companies like Oculus expected it to be by now - the general public has basically not embraced the tech.

Now that said, there is room for it, it's just years away from mainstream, those enjoying it now saying it's going to huge this year are in denial just wanting it to be big so they can play more games like this one. And great software like this and beat saber will drive sales to some extent - but not yet.
I personally look forward to that day, a few years from now.
 
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Romulus

Member
No one said it outright, but it was implicit when people are saying VR is hot, sold out everywhere! When in fact it's not hot, it's ice cold. And thus the reason for the game likely being modded.

Not everything is speculation, we know VR is way behind where companies like Oculus expected it to be by now - the general public has basically not embraced the tech.

Now that said, there is room for it, it's just years away from mainstream, those enjoying it now saying it's going to huge this year are in denial just wanting it to be big so they can play more games like this one. And great software like this and beat saber will drive sales to some extent - but not yet.
I personally look forward to that day, a few years from now.

Understood, but do we have any actual evidence that VR isn't hot, by VR standards? No one compared it to a console or anything and superdata is just unreliable. Being modded doesn't mean it isn't hot either. The PC nonVR community is just massive, that's what they do. They mod everything. Not to mention you can't even get one of the top 3 VR headsets now so there's that.

All we know is 3 of the top VR headsets have been sold out for months when they knew a milestone AAA game was coming.
 

Romulus

Member
Vr will take off when the stand alone headsets are powerful enough to convey excellent graphics and no pixels visible conveying a true sense of immersion that is lacking now.


Also, what does this mean? That's the first thing everyone says to me when I demo my VR unit. "My God, you're literally inside the game world." Hundreds of times I've heard that over and over.
 

Grinchy

Banned
What a waste of time to make this mod. Imagine modding Beat Saber to just use your mouse to slice through the blocks with the music. Just dumb as hell.
 

PanzerAzel

Member
Amazes me how angry people get when something is VR only.
As one who gets violently ill using VR and nauseated simply thinking about it, I’m not angry, just disappointed. I was forced to sell my Vive because I couldn’t tolerate it. Tried acclimatizing, working slowly into it over many weeks, sitting down, room scale, playing with a fan on......nothing helped.

I adore the tech, think it’s incredible and wish I could use it (mostly for apps like Tiltbrush and Occulus Medium) but until they find a way to lessen sim sickness, it’s a bummer to see franchises go exclusively to the hardware. That it’s not a matter of finances or inability to run it, but is instead me, makes it all the worse. I should’ve known before I bought mine.....I get sick if I so much as set foot on a boat in a calm harbor. Im extremely sensitive and susceptible to motion sickness.

I’m happy for those enjoying it, Alyx really does look amazing, I just wish I could join the party. Can’t say I’m not jealous.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Understood, but do we have any actual evidence that VR isn't hot, by VR standards? No one compared it to a console or anything and superdata is just unreliable. Being modded doesn't mean it isn't hot either. The PC nonVR community is just massive, that's what they do. They mod everything. Not to mention you can't even get one of the top 3 VR headsets now so there's that.

All we know is 3 of the top VR headsets have been sold out for months when they knew a milestone AAA game was coming.

Again, selling out understocked products doesnt mean much. As far as hot goes, hasn't facebook lost tons of money on its oculus purchase so far? 2 billion up.front and probably a loss each year, I'd call that ice cold vs its other investments like Instagram and whatsapp.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Also, what does this mean? That's the first thing everyone says to me when I demo my VR unit. "My God, you're literally inside the game world." Hundreds of times I've heard that over and over.

This ones easy, for me, there is some immersion factor with vr that is great, but I find its shattered quickly either by an uncomfortable headset, bad lenses, poor field of view, speed, and or visible pixels combined with poor graphics. And that's not even mentioning the nausea that affects some people.

The above reasons are why probably half the people that own a vr headset have it in a closet ........take a poll.
 

Romulus

Member
Again, selling out understocked products doesnt mean much. As far as hot goes, hasn't facebook lost tons of money on its oculus purchase so far? 2 billion up.front and probably a loss each year, I'd call that ice cold vs its other investments like Instagram and whatsapp.

But how do you know it doesn' mean much if the numbers are unreliable? Any evidence to support this? Why would Oculus and Valve suddenly both be out of stock for months? I could understand a couple of weeks if there was little demand, but obviously they were way off in anticipating demand.
 

Romulus

Member
This ones easy, for me, there is some immersion factor with vr that is great, but I find its shattered quickly either by an uncomfortable headset, bad lenses, poor field of view, speed, and or visible pixels combined with poor graphics. And that's not even mentioning the nausea that affects some people.

The above reasons are why probably half the people that own a vr headset have it in a closet ........take a poll.

I'm not sure what VR headset you're playing, but I just finished one fo the most immersive experiences of my life and there was no issue with comfort or poor visuals.. 2 other incredible games before that. Taking a poll makes it impossible to know usage overall, it's too small of a sample. Maybe if you polled all the major forums you'd get a glimpse imo.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I had an samsung odyssey +, a regular oculus rift, and oculous go. What are playing on? The valve headset is too much of an investment, I have been toying with trying out the quest but fear I will be disappointed based on the reviews.
 
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No one said it outright, but it was implicit when people are saying VR is hot, sold out everywhere! When in fact it's not hot, it's ice cold. And thus the reason for the game likely being modded.

Not everything is speculation, we know VR is way behind where companies like Oculus expected it to be by now - the general public has basically not embraced the tech.

Now that said, there is room for it, it's just years away from mainstream, those enjoying it now saying it's going to huge this year are in denial just wanting it to be big so they can play more games like this one. And great software like this and beat saber will drive sales to some extent - but not yet.
I personally look forward to that day, a few years from now.

Huge is subjective. I think VR is huge, it's a huge leap forward and the next iteration of gaming.

If we compare VR to the console life span, the VR currently sits at the end of the 90's; Ps2, Dreamcast and (soon) Xbox style innovations. Making 3d better, having more creative games.

VR will see another huge leap when Sony unveil the PSVR2. The original PSVR, while dated now, was conceived and created while Sony were going through a financial crisis. It was made of old Vita's Sony visors and move wands. Yet, it captured there imagination. All of this constrained to a shitty laptop Jaguar CPU.

A well engineered, VR headset with good financial backing and a powerful console to run it, will show us what VR can really do.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
It will be about as fun and good compared to the real deal as playing Virtua Cop 2 & House of the Dead 2 on Dreamcast @ home without a lightgun, dragging the crosshair with a d-pad. There's little gameplay to speak of without performing the actions, shooting included, manually/realistically while being immersed in an environment that surrounds you to scale and astounds you as you reach around its various interactive points with your own damn hands. And no, not being fun out of VR/with a mouse/gamepad doesn't mean it's a boring game with no merits beyond some kind of superficial VR luster, just as the aforementioned lightgun shooters are tuned for lightguns and therefor naturally aren't fun or compelling with a gamepad even though the same levels/enemies/content remain, their gameplay and whole experience relies on those devices as VR games rely on what it offers, like independent hand control so you can perform different actions at once, from reloading to parts of the game that surprise you and make you act fast on natural instinct as they subvert expectations in clever ways. I guess they could make it playable with two mice to convert that, lol.

Mods are cool the other way around, when they manage to convert non-VR games to VR well, as that actually adds to the visuals and gameplay rather than take anything away. Like Lambda1VR on the Oculus Quest and Quake VR on pretty much any device and so on, all the really good stuff.
 
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Scotty W

Member
And when it is, people will realise its a boring basic game in 2d, it's just a walking corridor shooter.

In VR is a great looking thing, with old gameplay mechanics.

Be careful what u wish for tbh
Yeah, but if you really want to be consistent with this line of logic, you will have to admit that all pc game experiences are staring at 2 dimensional configurations of lights on a box that you manipulate by pressing buttons on a piece of plastic.
 

GymWolf

Member
And when it is, people will realise its a boring basic game in 2d, it's just a walking corridor shooter.

In VR is a great looking thing, with old gameplay mechanics.

Be careful what u wish for tbh
exactly this, i watched some gameplay and it's a super basic game that become great just because of VR.
 
This game is beyond amazing with the Valve Index. I just wish it was the standard controller and headset in VR. This game will not have that same amazing feel in pancake mode, and even with other VR headsets.
 

lukilladog

Member
I was gonna say that maybe for $20 bucks but it´s already $25 for me. I´d not pay more anyway, it lacks intensity and creativity compared to previous HL games and it´s not dubbed anymore.
 

SonGoku

Member
This player's experience sounds the opposite of clumsy waggle, completely natural and intuitive:




Flying hands is a non-issue. You don't really notice when inside VR.
I saw shroud playing, it was so clumsy and awkward to do things as simple as moving a box
 
Give me a flat screen version I can play with the Vive motion controllers and I'll bite. View to thumbstick or trackpad. Crouch, jump and move like any other fps, just let me control the hands.

Not gonna drop $1k on a visor that will be outdated in a couple months just to get 'presence' and slowed down motion sickness inducing gameplay.

I am not swayed by gimmicks like 'presence'. The gameplay revolution here is in the hand manipulation of the physics objects. You take that out and the game isn't worth shit.

So why not let everyone get on board and bring that revolution to a wider audience. VR exclusives should be bending over backwards to make flat screen compatible versions while still requiring the tracked controllers.

This is what I don't get about the VR die hards... You are sabotaging your own revolution by trying to conflate the requirement of expensive and gameplay limiting VR headsets with advanced motion input. If you supported more options to ease into full immersiveness you'd get more games and higher adoption....

But you then attack anyone who suggest otherwise. "Its ImPossibru!!!" ..." Entirely different game!! ". Only because you think it will undermine VR adoption, when actually it would do the opposite.
 

Romulus

Member
Give me a flat screen version I can play with the Vive motion controllers and I'll bite. View to thumbstick or trackpad. Crouch, jump and move like any other fps, just let me control the hands.

Not gonna drop $1k on a visor that will be outdated in a couple months just to get 'presence' and slowed down motion sickness inducing gameplay.

I am not swayed by gimmicks like 'presence'. The gameplay revolution here is in the hand manipulation of the physics objects. You take that out and the game isn't worth shit.

So why not let everyone get on board and bring that revolution to a wider audience. VR exclusives should be bending over backwards to make flat screen compatible versions while still requiring the tracked controllers.

This is what I don't get about the VR die hards... You are sabotaging your own revolution by trying to conflate the requirement of expensive and gameplay limiting VR headsets with advanced motion input. If you supported more options to ease into full immersiveness you'd get more games and higher adoption....

But you then attack anyone who suggest otherwise. "Its ImPossibru!!!" ..." Entirely different game!! ". Only because you think it will undermine VR adoption, when actually it would do the opposite.

I honestly don't think you've tried high end VR reading this, despite the obvious response that will come. No one says "there's no presence." The first thing everyone talks about is how immersive it is, how it places you inside the world more than ever imagined. I've demoed mine to hundreds, never heard anything close to this sentiment before. Not to mention, good VR isn't that expensive. The Samsung Odyssey is great for $200.
 
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