VR has to be tried out by people first-hand to be viable. Magazine covers, both good or bad, means nothing until a commercial product is on the market so people can experience it
I don't know, I don't think the people reading Time are going to be VR early adopters. Shoe-less flying nerds are probably going to grab peoples attention a lot more than random dude wearing big piece of plastic.
Are the cords for VR headsets long enough to even allow a person to just freely jump? I'd imagine as soon as the person lands they would have changed their orientation and would have problems working their way back to whatever neutral position they started from.
Of course Time is going to be sneering at our culture. Gotta get in those last few licks at the people who made them completely irrelevant before they pack up their offices and start writing chain letters about how dumb blogs are.
Silly cover, but I really don't think it matters. The only people this cover is capable of scaring off are people who were never going to touch VR anyway.
Are the cords for VR headsets long enough to even allow a person to just freely jump? I'd imagine as soon as the person lands they would have changed their orientation and would have problems working their way back to whatever neutral position they started from.
He isn't jumping. He is flying.... On a beach...... Don't think about it too much.
VR is dumb from any objective standpoint. I think it would be fun to try, I think it would make some awesome VR cockpit simulators and whatnot, but it will never be the best way to play games.
Palmer lucky does not deserve to be ridiculed like that though, that's just rude and uncalled for. I feel like the photoshopping of that image is begging for a libel suit, no context, front page exposure in an embarrassing pose? That's not right.
Is it kinda lame? Sure. This article makes it seem like the end of the world. Mainstream people won't even be using this stuff for a bit because it requires high end PCs. The success of this technology will be in weather it actually works, not some guy floating on a beach you saw once.
fuck.. I owned both dk1 and dk1. Both were super amazing (for me, just need higher res and body that aint so sweaty). Especially loved dk1. There was something about it and I regret selling it.
The point is, People looked at me like aa idiot hyped kid who is playing with some stupid toys (I am 26 and have masters degree). Every time. I explain them that it feels really convincing and it might be the future, which can be glimpsed at my house. They all laugh and mimic me wearing a big box on my head. To this day they say that I live in my stupid imaginary oculus world (at least they remember oculus name).
Only those who came to my house and tried it on were totally amazed and wowed. Every one who tried it. even sceptics.
Also, recently tried gearvr2 and that damn thing is so sweaty, foggy and res is still bad. This thing have 5 years to go, but it will be there
How many people read Time is not the point. Time is relevant enough that morning news, morning talk shows, late night talk shows and pop culture shows could pickup on this. And the chances of those shows doing more than just cracking jokes about it are slim to none.
I don't think this will matter if the product is good enough to thrive. Remember the ipad? Remember the max-ipad jokes? Im not sure it's 100% good enough to thrive, or if people will actually want it. I know I don't have any interest in VR.
My take is, "who cares"? I mean, really. I don't beleive for one second that what you look like wearing a VR headset will in ANY way change the acceptance of VR. VR is in the DNA for an entire generation of kids who grew up EXPECTING VR. This is a fufillment of a promise, not a new thing. Kids of the 90s grew up with VR in almost every cartoon and young adult show they watched, and it always looked stupid. That was part of the charm.
I see there being no resistance to VR at all in the public adoption of the concept.
I haven't met Palmer, of course, but to me that "New Age cyberhippie beach fantasy land" seems like what the Rift is all about, isn't it? All they talk about is how it's going to change the world and how we're going to live in VR. Facebook even made a statement that basically sounded like they were building a new Second Life in VR for everyone in the world to live in, around when they bought Oculus. Palmer seems very naive and whimsical. I don't think this image represents VR in a very misleading way.
Look on the bright side, Brett: The only people who still take Time Magazine seriously are people who never were going to buy into VR in the first place. I'd argue the gaming media's hysterical coverage of this cover is more harmful than the cover itself, but I'd argue even more strongly that the people who are excited for VR already know how foolish it makes us look and already do not give one single shit. My excitement is bulletproof right now, but Time's sad dead-tree bullets are laughably impotent even if it wasn't.
Yeah, super out of touch. That feels like it was written in 1985.
It's not a great cover, but I don't know what cover you use to make VR compelling to 60-year-olds reading your magazine in a dentist's office. Maybe have Paul McCartney wearing it?
Of course Time is going to be sneering at our culture. Gotta get in those last few licks at the people who made them completely irrelevant before they pack up their offices and start writing chain letters about how dumb blogs are.
Except unless the words on the cover is a giant bait and switch...
I continue to not give a single shit about VR, but I'm still comfortable saying: "Man, what a hideous magazine cover." Seriously, fire whoever came up with that and then fire whoever gave it the go-ahead.
Good stuff. I only hope that one day I too will be able to talk in normal sentences, just like Palmer.
It.is.too.late.for.me...
OT: I think the photoshop is god awful, and wouldn't be out of place in a SNL news sketch, but I think Jeff and the rest are exaggerating the impact of it. Looking at the twitter reactions, they make it look like it is the burst of the bubble, when isn't even in the market yet...
The Times magazine is not the general public; it is up there with Rolling Stones. I would be more concerned about VR if it got smeared in John Steward, or the Farmers' Almanac...
The problem with the cover is that there are simply no "good" way of presenting VR, not when you want to present it as some sort of world-changing new way of viewing media. The hilarious pose in the actual cover is not going to come across as any less absurd and bizarre as Will Smith with the head gear gasping for air, a grandmother that looks like she's clutching her head in pain, or just someone standing upright with a neutral expression. Your cover has someone wearing a TV over their eyes. Nothing is going to make that not weird as fuck.
Also, "New Age cyberhippie beach fantasy land for complete lunatics" is exactly what VR is, and Jeff is about as big a lunatic as any of the residents of this particular fantasy land. He just lives in a different area code.
Even though it's Time, it's a testament to the irrelevancy of print magazines that they are crowning this guy as "King Nerd of Dungeons & Dragons!" in 2015.
I see there being no resistance to VR at all in the public adoption of the concept.
Really? Not even the fact that by putting on the VR set you are completely blocking yourself out of the real world. It's pretty much like being blindfolded, you lose a sense of security you had otherwise, no matter how amazing the game you are playing is you will know that it's not real and in the real world you are currently defenseless. I can't use the Oculus for more than like 20 minutes at a time, without getting anxious of my real world surroundings, not to mention that whenever you hear a noise or get a text you can't just glance over at your phone, instead you have to take off a headset.
Maybe living in an apartment or a smaller house would take away that anxiousness, but i live in a large house and just that feeling of defensiveness in a large area is overwhelming and takes away a lot of the initial enjoyment of the experience. Also there is the family aspect too, my wife has no problem with me playing games because if she needs me she can just yell and i'll hear her. Wearing this headset and headphones is just much more isolating.
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