Who cares what they look like while gaming?

Tags

computer, desk, dirty, headset, helmet, looks, silly, stupid, virtual reality, Warren Spector

It is funny and sad at the same time that people keep saying that VR will never take off (it already has) because you look ‘silly’ while wearing a VR helmet.

Seriously?

Even people who are supposed to know better say this, like Warren Spector an American video game designer best known for Deus Ex, a well known game I’ve never played.

In an interview (click here to read it) he recently said that VR was just a fad, because;

I don’t think most humans want to look stupid (everyone looks stupid in a VR headset) and they don’t want to isolate themselves from the world. I mean, if someone’s sneaking up behind me with a baseball bat, I want to know about it, you know what I mean? And let’s not talk about nausea.

I find this rather silly.
Because in my personal experience, and I’ve been a hardcore gamer since the 1980s, most humans couldn’t care less what they look like while gaming and they want to do nothing more than isolate themselves from the world.

We sit in our parent’s basement (sorry couldn’t resist that joke) in our underpants behind a computer covered in cookie crumbles, wearing our glasses, not having brushed our hair, surrounded by game guides, wearing an ugly but good headset while screaming at the 12 year old on the other side of the world who just defeated you, as the pesky little monkeys always do.
And especially if you’re a young gamer, your room will be quite a mess anyway.

How many of us, while being in SL or playing a game, can without one second of delay turn on the webcam?
Be honest?
I bet quite a few of us first have to change our clothes or even clean up everything in view of the camera…

And do you want to isolate yourself from the world while gaming?
I sure do!
That is the main reason I even play games or am in VR; to get away from reality for a bit.

When I have visitors, I am not wearing my VR headset, I don’t play games, I don’t even watch tv.
And if I would go into VR while other people are in my house, I would make sure these are trusted friends and family members, who don’t care what I look like with a VR helmet and who would not hit me over the head with a baseball bat, although they do feel the temptation to do so now and then…

Some people apparently enjoy computer games in a completely different setting than I do and than most of my friends do.
It is not a social thing, not in reality anyway, we play games together, but very rarely in the same room or in public.
If the best VR helmet was pink, had a rainbow unicorn on it and was covered in glitter, I’d still wear it.

Seriously, who actually cares like what they look like when they play a game?

Who even plays games with others in the room a lot?

Who of you don’t have a door with a lock on it?

How many gamers are in danger of being hit with a baseball bat by the people they share a home with?

He ends with the nausea, which shows he hasn’t really been paying attention.
I already had no issues with that when I tried the DK1 a year or so ago, but to be fair, I never get nausea, even when I was sailing on an old ship during a hurricane.
Maybe its in my genes, my family were all at sea.
But according to most people trying the most recent helmets, it has been pretty much solved, unless you’re very sensetive.

So come on, can we forget for a second what we look like while using a VR helmet?
Many, if not most of us will not care and those who do will probably stop caring when they start becoming a bigger part of our lives.

Remember that not that long ago people talking on a mobile phone in public looked silly… but today… wait… never mind, bad example.
People with mobile phones still look stupid.
Yes, especially you.

Finally, here a photo of my computer room, for everyones sake, I left myself out of the frame.

Foto: Emok.tv