For a long time, video games have been experienced through a screen. Arcade units, TVs in the living room, or a smartphone in your pocket. No matter the device, the screen always separated players from the game. You could control game characters, but you could never immerse yourself in the game.
That has changed with virtual reality. You don't just watch a game; you experience it. Most of the time you are just looking at a game from the developers perspective. VR takes you out of the developers perspective and puts you in the players perspective. You experience everything from a first-person view. This new technology is giving a new perspective on storytelling and interaction in video games.
VR used to be a new and rare technology but that has changed. In the past few years, the technology that powers VR has become more accessible, leading to massive growth in VR's popularity, and it is expected to continue to grow. Here is how virtual reality is changing gaming.
True Immersion: From Button Inputs to Body Movement
One of the greatest effects that VR has is the amount of physical activity involved. Unlike traditional gaming, where reloading can be a simple button press, like an 'R' key bind, VR reloading requires a whole different type of experience. You need to have the physical memory to remove the magazine, pull out a new one from your belt, insert it, then slide the slide. (And yes, this is a real experience).
Trying to describe the experience from other tap gaming experiences is, to say the least, a little pointless. When VR overlays the traditional tap gaming interfaces, it adds a tactile and visceral sensation that requires the user to engage physically.
The combination of gaming experiences like Half Life: Alyx and Beat Saber has shown all of us how mentally and physically engaging activities can be. You can let your body do the movement needed to open a door, hit an enemy, or even swing a sword. When playing non VR games, a simple pull of a button is all that is needed to do any of the activities mentioned. As an added bonus, this creates a super high experience ceiling for veterans to be physically precise, and a super low skill threshold for physical activities for non-gamers.
Fear and the Atmosphere in Horror
Unlike Action games that rely on the player’s physical involvement, the horror genre depends on the player’s isolation. Overall, for a long period of time, horror directors understood the fundamental truth that fear of the unknown was the main component. VR Main gives the directors the ultimate toolset for creating different fears.
On a standard videogame console, you can pause and take a break in the action. You can even leave the room and turn on the lights because you know the monster is fake and so are the vampires, ghosts, demons, and scary clowns. But this is not the case for Virtual Reality; you become fully immersed in that environment. The most troubling thing is that the audio you hear is situational, so you can hear the footsteps of something potentially dangerous that is behind you. This will require you to turn around.
This leads developers to create these highly psychologically effective environments. They do this with the audio and visuals by utilizing situational hearing and deep spatial perception. The developers of these environments have pushed the limits to such a degree that psychologically effective environments have become the norm.
Virtual Games and Social Hubs
When it comes to social gaming, the gaming VR landscape will provide a totally unique experience. Instead of relying on text and voice channels, players will be able to interact using body language and movements. If a person wants to engage in social interactions with their friends and family, or with new people they meet, they will be able to do so directly using their avatars. VR will give players the ability to be virtually present with others, and will make the experience even more great.
The technology provides a new lease of life to many social genres of games. Many of the MMO type games are becoming VRChat style games where the social aspects of the games overshadow the gaming.
This is even more the case for the online poker and gaming industries. The online poker games that are played in a browser give the players the ability to play using only their statistics and interact with a very basic 2D user interface. VR poker will enable players to return to the social aspects of poker and give them the ability to virtually participate in a poker game, interact with their poker chips, and try to pick up on the poker tells of their opponents.
There are more and more calls for VR apps which are more enticing and rewarding. Just like the typical internet gambling customer takes advantage of various websites for the best casino bonuses, VR gaming users will seek out more rewarding apps. The ultimate prize for virtual casino apps will be offering the chance to gamble in virtual high roller rooms in your own house.
New Narratives and Perspective Taking
In typical video games, the story is presented through cutscenes, which are periods of time when the player loses control of the game. In VR, this is even more disruptive. VR games are more likely to induce motion sickness, and a player’s control of the game is crucial to the success of the VR experience.
New methods for storytelling in VR games must be developed. One of the most common methods emerging in VR is called environmental storytelling. This is a technique that allows the player to learn about the world by picking up certain items, reading notes, and examining various details of the world at their own pace.
Developers let players experience life differently, and difficult emotionally by using VR ‘ empathy machine’ . VR is an empathy machine because it lets players experience life through different people’s eyes, and by literally placing players in the shoes of the characters, looking out of the front them and hands. This is insighting more emotional empathy because consoles and flat screen TVs do not evoke the same level of empathy.
The Future of Designing and Technology of Gaming
There is a strong connection between gaming and the development of new technology. In the beginning of VR, there were a lot of wires, expensive sensors and very annoying pixelated visuals. Now, there are devices such as the Meta Quest series that are letting us lose the annoying wires! Apple Vision Pro is delivering a technology that allows users to not see the pixels.
Next is the technology of touch and feel. Increasing your immersive experience with innovation through your mental and auditory senses is already perfection. They are developing technology to suit your immersive experience through feel with gun, wheel and rain simulation.
With advancing technologies, the difference between the real world and the virtual world will become indistinguishable. Increasingly, it seems there will be a future where gaming is not an activity you watch but a location you visit.
Welcoming the Virtual Future
Virtual reality is no longer a concept of the future and gone are the days of it being viewed as a short-lived trend. Rather, it has become a medium that has its own set of rules, genres, and specific strengths. From the excitement of reloading a virtual pistol to the social intricacies of a VR poker game, the technology is deepening our relationship with recreational activities.
The question is no longer if VR will transform gaming, but to what extent it will do so. New forms of gaming are being innovated and developed with advances in technology and more accessible and portable hardware. We're also witnessing the beginning of a new era of recreation where the screen will no longer be an obstacle to unlimited exploration.
