Which is to say, the current adoption rate of VR hardware is 0.38% of users on Steam as of October 2019, and Steam supposedly had around 90 million active users month to month in 2018. Being a very successful VR game means selling your game to most of the about 350k people who own a headset.
Yeah "insulting" is where I draw the line. You don't have to be happy about a VR game or a prequel when what you want is HL 3, but Valve doesn't owe anyone a product they haven't already paid for, any more than Sega owes me Phantasy Star V instead of those "insulting" online spinoffs. Companies are not obligated to sustain the same goddamn franchise forever in more or less the same exact way, and its really tiring seeing the internet predictably jump beyond criticism into outrage when an old IP gets adapted to some different venue they don't care for. And even when they screw up and disappoint fans with a crappy product, barring scammy monetization practicies, it does not amount to a moral transgression.
In general I agree with what you're saying here, but yet I will say content creators tread a thin line at certain points as far as to what they might "owe" in regards to a product or story. To frame this issue in another way, I'd like to consider Game of Thrones for a moment here. George RR Martin published A Dance with Dragons back in July of 2011. Now imagine a world where the TV show didn't exist, and that come 2024 or so he finally announces he's ready to publish a new book! But it's not a continuation of the story you were waiting on, because he didn't feel like actually writing about that. Also it's only being released on holodisk, which he also happens to have a personal stake in that new medium's success or failure.
Now, at the end of the day he doesn't truly owe anyone jack; he's a rich individual who can do what he wants in regards to his world. But if you are a storyteller wanting to continue getting paid for storytelling at some point you kind of *do* owe it to your fans to progress the tale in a straightforward fashion. Ideally in a more timely manner, and ideally in ways that don't alienate your fanbase in the process. If you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be setting up plot dominoes you never intend to push over.
Like...people in this very thread have made note how many gamers today don't even know about Half Life, really. You could have a teenager in your household you raised playing games in the timegap between Episode 2 and HL: Alyx. Resentment grows, and in this case it has had a very long time to grow. Whether or not it is a "moral" transgression, it is still a real transgression of its own sort.
Anyway, that's probably the last I'll say on the matter. I'm not trying to defend those blinded by outrage, but on the flip side of things it seems like a lot of people are similarly downplaying the shittiness of the situation for a lot of Half Life fans who still hold fondness for the series despite Valve's approach to it. The new game looks good. Hopefully it plays good! Maybe one day all the HL fanbase can enjoy a new HL game together, even. But it's a real shame that it couldn't be this one.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited November 2019
I do believe selling loads of copies is Valve's secondary or maybe even tertiary objective here.
I think their main objective is moving hardware and probably just increasing the adoption rate of VR in general, even if it isn't Index (though preferably Index I'm sure). To that end I believe this game had to be a Half-Life game. If it was a new IP no one would really be talking about it much, AAA quality or no. Making it a Half-Life game has absolutely put far, far more attention on it then it likely would have ever gotten otherwise. For good and bad people are talking about it and undoubtedly many, many more people have been made aware of Alyx because of this.
Just looking at the Steam store page certainly makes it look like the gambit is paying off. Hell, even I'm strongly considering getting a VR setup of some sort now.
While I'm sure Valve would love to move a bunch of copies of the game, I'm fairly certain that this is them attempting to lay down the foundation for a longer term goal.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Which is to say, the current adoption rate of VR hardware is 0.38% of users on Steam as of October 2019, and Steam supposedly had around 90 million active users month to month in 2018. Being a very successful VR game means selling your game to most of the about 350k people who own a headset.
You are misreading the Steam survey. 0.38% represents only the chunk of users using the most popular headset, the Rift.
If you click on it to expand, the numbers break down into all headsets and you can total it up from there.
I realise the distinction between 0.38% and a little over 1% is not super meaningful as a demographic, but in these kinds of quantities it's still triple the base.
Which is to say, the current adoption rate of VR hardware is 0.38% of users on Steam as of October 2019, and Steam supposedly had around 90 million active users month to month in 2018. Being a very successful VR game means selling your game to most of the about 350k people who own a headset.
You are misreading the Steam survey. 0.38% represents only the chunk of users using the most popular headset, the Rift.
If you click on it to expand, the numbers break down into all headsets and you can total it up from there.
I'm pretty sure I'm reading it right and the Rift is just the most popular of the total 0.38%, the breakdown of what headsets are being used is in a graph higher up the page. It would make no sense to break out just the most popular headset for the "VR Headsets: X%" item on the list. The Rift is 36% of the 0.38%, the Huawei VR is 33% of the 0.38%, the Index (as of October, pre-Half Life announcement) was down among the others with 4.92% of the 0.38%.
edit: oh no you're right, there's an expandable table there. What a shitty way to present that information!
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
You absolutely are not reading it right, unless you're suggesting only 14% of Steam users have a graphics card.
You can see from the GPU section that it just displays the most popular in each category, and you break it down from there.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
I'm fairly sure their goal for presenting the information is to present it as "here's the % chance of any given Steam user having this specific setup" as data for devs, but it does come across awkwardly. They could, at the very least, provide an easier way to total it.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
While I'm sure Valve would love to move a bunch of copies of the game, I'm fairly certain that this is them attempting to lay down the foundation for a longer term goal.
Yep, it seems pretty evident from their actions that if Valve could choose between selling 25 million copies of the game, or selling a million copies and a million new headsets to go with them, they'd choose the latter, even if a big chunk of the headsets were Rifts or WMR.
I do believe selling loads of copies is Valve's secondary or maybe even tertiary objective here.
I think their main objective is moving hardware and probably just increasing the adoption rate of VR in general, even if it isn't Index (though preferably Index I'm sure). To that end I believe this game had to be a Half-Life game. If it was a new IP no one would really be talking about it much, AAA quality or no. Making it a Half-Life game has absolutely put far, far more attention on it then it likely would have ever gotten otherwise. For good and bad people are talking about it and undoubtedly many, many more people have been made aware of Alyx because of this.
Just looking at the Steam store page certainly makes it look like the gambit is paying off. Hell, even I'm strongly considering getting a VR setup of some sort now.
While I'm sure Valve would love to move a bunch of copies of the game, I'm fairly certain that this is them attempting to lay down the foundation for a longer term goal.
Certainly. Though I suspect the move would have been a lot more effective if they did it two years ago, before general interest moved away from VR*. But Valve does Valve.
*yes, I realize the niche is still very excited about VR, etc.
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
It wasn't even in a good place when Valve swore up and down it was the future of all PC gaming. "Better returns to manage spiraling game costs!" "A natural fit for digital distribution!" "Conducive to better writing and plot composition!"
Then Sin: Episodes (total number: one episode) came out, which was a pretty good indicator of the future of a lot of episodic gaming.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I do believe selling loads of copies is Valve's secondary or maybe even tertiary objective here.
I think their main objective is moving hardware and probably just increasing the adoption rate of VR in general, even if it isn't Index (though preferably Index I'm sure). To that end I believe this game had to be a Half-Life game. If it was a new IP no one would really be talking about it much, AAA quality or no. Making it a Half-Life game has absolutely put far, far more attention on it then it likely would have ever gotten otherwise. For good and bad people are talking about it and undoubtedly many, many more people have been made aware of Alyx because of this.
Just looking at the Steam store page certainly makes it look like the gambit is paying off. Hell, even I'm strongly considering getting a VR setup of some sort now.
While I'm sure Valve would love to move a bunch of copies of the game, I'm fairly certain that this is them attempting to lay down the foundation for a longer term goal.
Certainly. Though I suspect the move would have been a lot more effective if they did it two years ago, before general interest moved away from VR*. But Valve does Valve.
*yes, I realize the niche is still very excited about VR, etc.
I dunno. The tech was largely in its infancy a few years ago. Things in the VR sphere have progressed considerably since then (not just the tech, but games too) and prices have dropped as well. The original Rift was like $600 vs the current model's $400.
In general I think VR may be an easier sell to the masses now, especially with a high profile game attached to it. Which is what I think Valve is banking on and not necessarily to just sell Indexes.
edit- Or to put it another way.
I don't think Valve is getting in to VR now because they think the market is good for it. I think they are getting in to VR now in an effort to make the market good.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I do believe selling loads of copies is Valve's secondary or maybe even tertiary objective here.
I think their main objective is moving hardware and probably just increasing the adoption rate of VR in general, even if it isn't Index (though preferably Index I'm sure). To that end I believe this game had to be a Half-Life game. If it was a new IP no one would really be talking about it much, AAA quality or no. Making it a Half-Life game has absolutely put far, far more attention on it then it likely would have ever gotten otherwise. For good and bad people are talking about it and undoubtedly many, many more people have been made aware of Alyx because of this.
Just looking at the Steam store page certainly makes it look like the gambit is paying off. Hell, even I'm strongly considering getting a VR setup of some sort now.
While I'm sure Valve would love to move a bunch of copies of the game, I'm fairly certain that this is them attempting to lay down the foundation for a longer term goal.
Certainly. Though I suspect the move would have been a lot more effective if they did it two years ago, before general interest moved away from VR*. But Valve does Valve.
*yes, I realize the niche is still very excited about VR, etc.
I dunno. The tech was largely in its infancy a few years ago. Things in the VR sphere have progressed considerably since then (not just the tech, but games too) and prices have dropped as well. The original Rift was like $600 vs the current model's $400.
In general I think VR may be an easier sell to the masses now, especially with a high profile game attached to it. Which is what I think Valve is banking on and not necessarily to just sell Indexes.
edit- Or to put it another way.
I don't think Valve is getting in to VR now because they think the market is good for it. I think they are getting in to VR now in an effort to make the market good.
Again, I agree. I just suspect that it'll be a bit more difficult to do that now, since the general public has already gone "meh" and stopped paying attention two years ago, and the big-name game makers who don't manufacture hardware have stopped doing much with the tech. It's a single game. Which, yes, it looks to be a great single game, but the VR ecosystem needs a steady stream of great, big-name games to really get people's attention, even with improved tech. (Ask Microsoft how the improved Kinect worked out for them.)
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
Telltale Games' collapse is not because they made episodic games. It was because of gross mismanagement.
There are plenty of folks who are successfully releasing games in episodic format. That they aren't AAA studios doesn't mean it's a failure.
I agree that it's a viable release approach if handled properly, but it was heavily hyped as the future of game development at the time. Thankfully, that did not turn out to be true because it seems like only a few studios are able to do the episodic thing well and the bulk of games being put out a third of a game at a time every six months would've been a really shitty future for gaming.
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
Telltale Games' collapse is not because they made episodic games. It was because of gross mismanagement.
There are plenty of folks who are successfully releasing games in episodic format. That they aren't AAA studios doesn't mean it's a failure.
I agree that it's a viable release approach if handled properly, but it was heavily hyped as the future of game development at the time. Thankfully, that did not turn out to be true because it seems like only a few studios are able to do the episodic thing well and the bulk of games being put out a third of a game at a time every six months would've been a really shitty future for gaming.
It’s arguable that “live” games/games-as-service took up that mantle, for better or worse.
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
Telltale Games' collapse is not because they made episodic games. It was because of gross mismanagement.
There are plenty of folks who are successfully releasing games in episodic format. That they aren't AAA studios doesn't mean it's a failure.
I agree that it's a viable release approach if handled properly, but it was heavily hyped as the future of game development at the time. Thankfully, that did not turn out to be true because it seems like only a few studios are able to do the episodic thing well and the bulk of games being put out a third of a game at a time every six months would've been a really shitty future for gaming.
It’s arguable that “live” games/games-as-service took up that mantle, for better or worse.
I've never thought about it before, but yeah it does seem like that manages to achieve similar ends.
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drunkenpandarenSlapping all the goblin hamIn the top laneRegistered Userregular
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
It wasn't even in a good place when Valve swore up and down it was the future of all PC gaming. "Better returns to manage spiraling game costs!" "A natural fit for digital distribution!" "Conducive to better writing and plot composition!"
Then Sin: Episodes (total number: one episode) came out, which was a pretty good indicator of the future of a lot of episodic gaming.
Sin's issues was more related that no one bought the game and it was glitchy as heck with it's AI.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Certainly. Though I suspect the move would have been a lot more effective if they did it two years ago, before general interest moved away from VR*. But Valve does Valve.
Just to be clear, you're suggesting they should have started development on a massive AAA VR title in...2015?
Certainly. Though I suspect the move would have been a lot more effective if they did it two years ago, before general interest moved away from VR*. But Valve does Valve.
Just to be clear, you're suggesting they should have started development on a massive AAA VR title in...2015?
Well since Valve was one of the early pushers of VR, uh.....yeah?
The Rift was announced in 2012, and the first Dev kits came out in 2013.
The Vive was announced in early 2015, with Dev kits coming out a few months later. The actual set itself came out in 2016.
So yes, starting development in 2015 is wholly realistic.
Expecting any dev to be starting development on a full length AAA game that early in VR's lifespan is entirely unrealistic.
When do you think companies start development of new games for the next gen of consoles?
The answer is as soon as they get Dev kits.
Yeah, because new consoles are a proven market with a predictable growth curve and a known potential. VR had none of that. It still represents a risk even today, which is why Valve is one of the first big names to announce anything, but back in 2015 the risk would have been untenable even for them.
There's a reason they partnered with HTC instead of doing their own headset at first, and only started developing the Index once the tech was proven and established.
Expecting any dev to be starting development on a full length AAA game that early in VR's lifespan is entirely unrealistic.
When do you think companies start development of new games for the next gen of consoles?
The answer is as soon as they get Dev kits.
Yeah, because new consoles are a proven market with a predictable growth curve and a known potential. VR had none of that. It still represents a risk even today, which is why Valve is one of the first big names to announce anything, but back in 2015 the risk would have been untenable even for them.
There's a reason they partnered with HTC instead of doing their own headset at first, and only started developing the Index once the tech was proven and established.
Yeah sure for a regular AAA developer maybe it wouldn't have made sense.
But Valve was a literal partner on a VR headset. You don't think they should have started on some kind of AAA game immediately? You know, putting their best foot forward? Instead of waiting 4 years?
Like yeah regular consoles are a known quantity, but AAA devs still try to put their best foot forward immediately on new consoles. They don't wait 4 years to start putting out their games.
But Valve was a literal partner on a VR headset. You don't think they should have started on some kind of AAA game immediately? You know, putting their best foot forward? Instead of waiting 4 years?
Like yeah regular consoles are a known quantity, but AAA devs still try to put their best foot forward immediately on new consoles. They don't wait 4 years to start putting out their games.
I don't think so. The price point for VR as an entry starting point was too high - a single AAA game wasn't going to sell many headsets at $800. At $400, they have a much better shot.
On top of that, the tech simply wasn't maturing quickly enough to make it a particularly compelling game. Let's remember that the Oculus Rift was seated-VR only until late 2016 when they released their Touch controllers. There was no finger tracking, no high refresh, resolutions were lower, and system requirements were massive. Slightly over 7% of Steam users had a VR-Ready PC even in late 2016 when the two VR ecosystems of Rift & Vive finally reached feature parity with hand tracking. That number is over 25% now.
It's clear that the moment Valve saw that the market was stable and sustainable, they began work - there's clear evidence of them in full swing of devleopment on a Half Life VR project going back as far as 2017, or even further if you count the fact that Valve devs throughout 2016 used their free time to assist amateur developers working on HLVR, a mod to enable VR in Half Life 2, which was quite successful as amateur mods go.
This is from February 2017, where Valve themselves cite that they are working on three full VR games. We've only seen one, so far.
This is less than a year after the Oculus Rift launched. It's hard to argue they could or should have started all that much sooner than this. Even had they started a full year earlier, this game would only have come out this year. It's not like they could have had it ready to go for the launch.
This is a good watch if you have more interest in knowing behind the scenes information; specifically, they cite that they explored the possibility of Portal first, and realised the movement systems of Portal would not work in VR, so they settled on Half Life. They also cite the idea that using VR gave the project a unique attribute, and gave them a focus, as the gravity gun & physics interactions in general had for Half Life 2. They also cited that they were prototyping using HL2, which I assume partially refers to the time spent working with the HLVR amateur devs, and that they worked on different types of game mechanics during those prototyping phases.
Lastly, and most importantly, they specifically mention that they began the process of working out what games to build all the way back in 2015 when they began the major partnership with HTC. So I guess they really did start development that far back, at least in a sense - it's certainly a nebulous concept, to pin down exactly when development "started" on a game, but I think that it's clear they were prototyping their options almost from the start.
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
It wasn't even in a good place when Valve swore up and down it was the future of all PC gaming. "Better returns to manage spiraling game costs!" "A natural fit for digital distribution!" "Conducive to better writing and plot composition!"
Then Sin: Episodes (total number: one episode) came out, which was a pretty good indicator of the future of a lot of episodic gaming.
Sin's issues was more related that no one bought the game and it was glitchy as heck with it's AI.
I bought it on release and was psyched for episode 2
Normally I like to be around when people play VR at my place so I can be sure to "babysit" them and prevent them from hurting themselves (my area is a little smaller than I would like it to be). During this time I can joke with them and watch what they are doing. It's definitely not a anti-social experience unless you want it to be.
I like to wait until they are fully immersed in VR and then head to the pub.
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ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
edited November 2019
I just wanted to chime in and say that yes, I will buy this game, and to reiterate that VR is NOT expensive these days.
The Odyssey+ is a fine headset with decent controllers and tracking. It has same or better resolution than the Rift and Index (and OLED colour!) but worse tracking. Still does fine in almost everything.
It's on sale for Black Friday for $325 CAD, or $250 USD. That's generally cheaper than the video card of a mid-range system, which hey, is all you need these days too!
I feel badly for the people complaining that they can't play VR due to sickness/disability. But I don't feel much for the people dismissing VR as waggle - go try a game of Beat Saber and see if you walk away calling that 'waggle'. Or fly a jet into a hillside and see if you don't flinch. I can understand why Valve would make a game built in VR, and only VR - it really is a completely different way of interacting with a game.
Also, one of my biggest disappointments was that MWO wasn't made to be VR compatible (they hard-coded in a 2D HUD that does not jive with VR). That would be incredible, and here's hoping MW5 will be at least VR compatible, if not optimized for it.
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
I mean...Telltale produced a significant amount of quality content. Mismanagement toward the end of the long stretch of their existence is what killed them. Ironically, Gametap (which is where Sam & Max exclusively debuted, initially) started two trends that people mocked initially and frankly didn't fail - subscription-based gaming and episodic content.
I don't think episode gaming has failed at all. I think Telltale did. At the end of a lot of not-flopping.
Valve just stopped giving a shit at some point. That has nothing to do with episodic gaming. It has to do with Valve shitting on their franchise. Sorry, I meant "sitting" on their franchise. Honest mistake.
I'm going to start Half Life 2 soon in preparation, for the first time. Should I read up on the story for Half Life 1? YouTube it? (I would play it but time is extremely limited for me for gaming, HL2 will be a push).
I'm going to start Half Life 2 soon in preparation, for the first time. Should I read up on the story for Half Life 1? YouTube it? (I would play it but time is extremely limited for me for gaming, HL2 will be a push).
If you were going to watch a LP of HL1 just play through it with invincibility on instead. It'll take less time.
Funny how the episodic thing that so many were hyping back then turned into such a flop. Even Telltale Games is gone now.
I mean...Telltale produced a significant amount of quality content. Mismanagement toward the end of the long stretch of their existence is what killed them. Ironically, Gametap (which is where Sam & Max exclusively debuted, initially) started two trends that people mocked initially and frankly didn't fail - subscription-based gaming and episodic content.
I don't think episode gaming has failed at all. I think Telltale did. At the end of a lot of not-flopping.
Valve just stopped giving a shit at some point. That has nothing to do with episodic gaming. It has to do with Valve shitting on their franchise. Sorry, I meant "sitting" on their franchise. Honest mistake.
Technically it was a constant mismanagement at Telltale that killed them. After the massive success of the Walking Dead, they got it in their heads that "licensed game = big bucks" so they wound up shelling out for big licenses only to make games that weren't successful enough to justify the licensing cost, which just resulted in them losing money over time. Instead of recognizing the issue, the leadership at Telltale decided to hope for another runaway success and kept on trucking until they were out of money.
I'm going to start Half Life 2 soon in preparation, for the first time. Should I read up on the story for Half Life 1? YouTube it? (I would play it but time is extremely limited for me for gaming, HL2 will be a push).
I want to say to play them both so bad but I totally understand time constraints.
Both are amazing games but 2 is what you need to get familiar with Alyx and Eli
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Been wondering if they were going to leave that article to languish in the depths of the wayback machine.
Kind of? Blizzard did it relatively successfully with Starcraft 2.
The second to last item in this list is important context for what a "very successful VR game" means currently:
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam
Which is to say, the current adoption rate of VR hardware is 0.38% of users on Steam as of October 2019, and Steam supposedly had around 90 million active users month to month in 2018. Being a very successful VR game means selling your game to most of the about 350k people who own a headset.
Those games came out YEARS apart
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In general I agree with what you're saying here, but yet I will say content creators tread a thin line at certain points as far as to what they might "owe" in regards to a product or story. To frame this issue in another way, I'd like to consider Game of Thrones for a moment here. George RR Martin published A Dance with Dragons back in July of 2011. Now imagine a world where the TV show didn't exist, and that come 2024 or so he finally announces he's ready to publish a new book! But it's not a continuation of the story you were waiting on, because he didn't feel like actually writing about that. Also it's only being released on holodisk, which he also happens to have a personal stake in that new medium's success or failure.
Now, at the end of the day he doesn't truly owe anyone jack; he's a rich individual who can do what he wants in regards to his world. But if you are a storyteller wanting to continue getting paid for storytelling at some point you kind of *do* owe it to your fans to progress the tale in a straightforward fashion. Ideally in a more timely manner, and ideally in ways that don't alienate your fanbase in the process. If you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be setting up plot dominoes you never intend to push over.
Like...people in this very thread have made note how many gamers today don't even know about Half Life, really. You could have a teenager in your household you raised playing games in the timegap between Episode 2 and HL: Alyx. Resentment grows, and in this case it has had a very long time to grow. Whether or not it is a "moral" transgression, it is still a real transgression of its own sort.
Anyway, that's probably the last I'll say on the matter. I'm not trying to defend those blinded by outrage, but on the flip side of things it seems like a lot of people are similarly downplaying the shittiness of the situation for a lot of Half Life fans who still hold fondness for the series despite Valve's approach to it. The new game looks good. Hopefully it plays good! Maybe one day all the HL fanbase can enjoy a new HL game together, even. But it's a real shame that it couldn't be this one.
I think their main objective is moving hardware and probably just increasing the adoption rate of VR in general, even if it isn't Index (though preferably Index I'm sure). To that end I believe this game had to be a Half-Life game. If it was a new IP no one would really be talking about it much, AAA quality or no. Making it a Half-Life game has absolutely put far, far more attention on it then it likely would have ever gotten otherwise. For good and bad people are talking about it and undoubtedly many, many more people have been made aware of Alyx because of this.
Just looking at the Steam store page certainly makes it look like the gambit is paying off. Hell, even I'm strongly considering getting a VR setup of some sort now.
While I'm sure Valve would love to move a bunch of copies of the game, I'm fairly certain that this is them attempting to lay down the foundation for a longer term goal.
You are misreading the Steam survey. 0.38% represents only the chunk of users using the most popular headset, the Rift.
If you click on it to expand, the numbers break down into all headsets and you can total it up from there.
I realise the distinction between 0.38% and a little over 1% is not super meaningful as a demographic, but in these kinds of quantities it's still triple the base.
I'm pretty sure I'm reading it right and the Rift is just the most popular of the total 0.38%, the breakdown of what headsets are being used is in a graph higher up the page. It would make no sense to break out just the most popular headset for the "VR Headsets: X%" item on the list. The Rift is 36% of the 0.38%, the Huawei VR is 33% of the 0.38%, the Index (as of October, pre-Half Life announcement) was down among the others with 4.92% of the 0.38%.
edit: oh no you're right, there's an expandable table there. What a shitty way to present that information!
You can see from the GPU section that it just displays the most popular in each category, and you break it down from there.
Yep, it seems pretty evident from their actions that if Valve could choose between selling 25 million copies of the game, or selling a million copies and a million new headsets to go with them, they'd choose the latter, even if a big chunk of the headsets were Rifts or WMR.
Certainly. Though I suspect the move would have been a lot more effective if they did it two years ago, before general interest moved away from VR*. But Valve does Valve.
*yes, I realize the niche is still very excited about VR, etc.
It wasn't even in a good place when Valve swore up and down it was the future of all PC gaming. "Better returns to manage spiraling game costs!" "A natural fit for digital distribution!" "Conducive to better writing and plot composition!"
Then Sin: Episodes (total number: one episode) came out, which was a pretty good indicator of the future of a lot of episodic gaming.
I dunno. The tech was largely in its infancy a few years ago. Things in the VR sphere have progressed considerably since then (not just the tech, but games too) and prices have dropped as well. The original Rift was like $600 vs the current model's $400.
In general I think VR may be an easier sell to the masses now, especially with a high profile game attached to it. Which is what I think Valve is banking on and not necessarily to just sell Indexes.
edit- Or to put it another way.
I don't think Valve is getting in to VR now because they think the market is good for it. I think they are getting in to VR now in an effort to make the market good.
Telltale Games' collapse is not because they made episodic games. It was because of gross mismanagement.
There are plenty of folks who are successfully releasing games in episodic format. That they aren't AAA studios doesn't mean it's a failure.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Again, I agree. I just suspect that it'll be a bit more difficult to do that now, since the general public has already gone "meh" and stopped paying attention two years ago, and the big-name game makers who don't manufacture hardware have stopped doing much with the tech. It's a single game. Which, yes, it looks to be a great single game, but the VR ecosystem needs a steady stream of great, big-name games to really get people's attention, even with improved tech. (Ask Microsoft how the improved Kinect worked out for them.)
I agree that it's a viable release approach if handled properly, but it was heavily hyped as the future of game development at the time. Thankfully, that did not turn out to be true because it seems like only a few studios are able to do the episodic thing well and the bulk of games being put out a third of a game at a time every six months would've been a really shitty future for gaming.
It’s arguable that “live” games/games-as-service took up that mantle, for better or worse.
I've never thought about it before, but yeah it does seem like that manages to achieve similar ends.
Sin's issues was more related that no one bought the game and it was glitchy as heck with it's AI.
Steam: pandas_gota_gun
Just to be clear, you're suggesting they should have started development on a massive AAA VR title in...2015?
Well since Valve was one of the early pushers of VR, uh.....yeah?
The Rift was announced in 2012, and the first Dev kits came out in 2013.
The Vive was announced in early 2015, with Dev kits coming out a few months later. The actual set itself came out in 2016.
So yes, starting development in 2015 is wholly realistic.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
When do you think companies start development of new games for the next gen of consoles?
The answer is as soon as they get Dev kits.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Anyone except Valve, though for the vast majority of devs you are absolutely right.
VR doesn't have the market penetration for any dev to create a AAA game just on the VR platform.
Yeah, because new consoles are a proven market with a predictable growth curve and a known potential. VR had none of that. It still represents a risk even today, which is why Valve is one of the first big names to announce anything, but back in 2015 the risk would have been untenable even for them.
There's a reason they partnered with HTC instead of doing their own headset at first, and only started developing the Index once the tech was proven and established.
Yeah sure for a regular AAA developer maybe it wouldn't have made sense.
But Valve was a literal partner on a VR headset. You don't think they should have started on some kind of AAA game immediately? You know, putting their best foot forward? Instead of waiting 4 years?
Like yeah regular consoles are a known quantity, but AAA devs still try to put their best foot forward immediately on new consoles. They don't wait 4 years to start putting out their games.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I don't think so. The price point for VR as an entry starting point was too high - a single AAA game wasn't going to sell many headsets at $800. At $400, they have a much better shot.
On top of that, the tech simply wasn't maturing quickly enough to make it a particularly compelling game. Let's remember that the Oculus Rift was seated-VR only until late 2016 when they released their Touch controllers. There was no finger tracking, no high refresh, resolutions were lower, and system requirements were massive. Slightly over 7% of Steam users had a VR-Ready PC even in late 2016 when the two VR ecosystems of Rift & Vive finally reached feature parity with hand tracking. That number is over 25% now.
It's clear that the moment Valve saw that the market was stable and sustainable, they began work - there's clear evidence of them in full swing of devleopment on a Half Life VR project going back as far as 2017, or even further if you count the fact that Valve devs throughout 2016 used their free time to assist amateur developers working on HLVR, a mod to enable VR in Half Life 2, which was quite successful as amateur mods go.
Sources;
https://www.cnet.com/news/valve-makers-of-half-life-and-portal-are-working-on-three-full-vr-games/
This is from February 2017, where Valve themselves cite that they are working on three full VR games. We've only seen one, so far.
This is less than a year after the Oculus Rift launched. It's hard to argue they could or should have started all that much sooner than this. Even had they started a full year earlier, this game would only have come out this year. It's not like they could have had it ready to go for the launch.
This is a good watch if you have more interest in knowing behind the scenes information; specifically, they cite that they explored the possibility of Portal first, and realised the movement systems of Portal would not work in VR, so they settled on Half Life. They also cite the idea that using VR gave the project a unique attribute, and gave them a focus, as the gravity gun & physics interactions in general had for Half Life 2. They also cited that they were prototyping using HL2, which I assume partially refers to the time spent working with the HLVR amateur devs, and that they worked on different types of game mechanics during those prototyping phases.
Lastly, and most importantly, they specifically mention that they began the process of working out what games to build all the way back in 2015 when they began the major partnership with HTC. So I guess they really did start development that far back, at least in a sense - it's certainly a nebulous concept, to pin down exactly when development "started" on a game, but I think that it's clear they were prototyping their options almost from the start.
I bought it on release and was psyched for episode 2
*tear*
I like to wait until they are fully immersed in VR and then head to the pub.
The Odyssey+ is a fine headset with decent controllers and tracking. It has same or better resolution than the Rift and Index (and OLED colour!) but worse tracking. Still does fine in almost everything.
It's on sale for Black Friday for $325 CAD, or $250 USD. That's generally cheaper than the video card of a mid-range system, which hey, is all you need these days too!
I feel badly for the people complaining that they can't play VR due to sickness/disability. But I don't feel much for the people dismissing VR as waggle - go try a game of Beat Saber and see if you walk away calling that 'waggle'. Or fly a jet into a hillside and see if you don't flinch. I can understand why Valve would make a game built in VR, and only VR - it really is a completely different way of interacting with a game.
Also, one of my biggest disappointments was that MWO wasn't made to be VR compatible (they hard-coded in a 2D HUD that does not jive with VR). That would be incredible, and here's hoping MW5 will be at least VR compatible, if not optimized for it.
I mean...Telltale produced a significant amount of quality content. Mismanagement toward the end of the long stretch of their existence is what killed them. Ironically, Gametap (which is where Sam & Max exclusively debuted, initially) started two trends that people mocked initially and frankly didn't fail - subscription-based gaming and episodic content.
I don't think episode gaming has failed at all. I think Telltale did. At the end of a lot of not-flopping.
Valve just stopped giving a shit at some point. That has nothing to do with episodic gaming. It has to do with Valve shitting on their franchise. Sorry, I meant "sitting" on their franchise. Honest mistake.
I'm going to start Half Life 2 soon in preparation, for the first time. Should I read up on the story for Half Life 1? YouTube it? (I would play it but time is extremely limited for me for gaming, HL2 will be a push).
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
If you were going to watch a LP of HL1 just play through it with invincibility on instead. It'll take less time.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Technically it was a constant mismanagement at Telltale that killed them. After the massive success of the Walking Dead, they got it in their heads that "licensed game = big bucks" so they wound up shelling out for big licenses only to make games that weren't successful enough to justify the licensing cost, which just resulted in them losing money over time. Instead of recognizing the issue, the leadership at Telltale decided to hope for another runaway success and kept on trucking until they were out of money.
I want to say to play them both so bad but I totally understand time constraints.
Both are amazing games but 2 is what you need to get familiar with Alyx and Eli