There are more people reading Palmer Luckey's Facebook post about the "Inevitability" of VR than are actually using VR on Steam

Despite or because of Steven Spielberg's ambivalent views on VR, Palmer Luckey just publicly announced on his Facebook wall that virtual reality is inevitable. Which is a nice new case study on the vast chasm between desire and actual reality:

• Number of followers Palmer Luckey currently has on Facebook: 14,737
• Number of people on Steam currently using VR-compatible software: 2,015

In other words,  there are likely far more people reading Palmer's pronouncements on the inevitability of VR than are actually using VR on the top PC platform for VR. Which might make some people wonder how inevitable this inevitability really is. There's something like 750,000-1.5 million Oculus and Vive owners overall, most of whom have a Steam account (especially as the Vive is automatically integrated with Steam), yet somehow at any given time far less than 1% of them are embracing the inevitable.

I put this point to Palmer in the Facebook post, asking: "If it's inevitable, how come hardly any Vive/Oculus owners even use them on a daily basis?"

Above: Top VR games/software on Steam by concurrency

 

Luckey's reply: "I think you mean 'If it's inevitable, how come hardly any Vive/Oculus owners even use STEAM on a daily basis?' The answer is CONTENT!"

But is a lack of content really the problem? Look:

There's nearly 1800 VR-compatible games and software on Steam! Which is way more content than a videogame console has at this stage of maturity. Or to put it another way, there's almost as many VR content options on Steam as there are VR users on Steam.

Far as I can tell, the only inevitability of VR is that its most passionate enthusiasts will keep insisting on virtual reality's inevitability no matter what actual reality suggests.

Comments

[melponeme_k]

This is all predictive programming.

A VR life will not benefit you or me or any other little Joe or Jane. It WILL benefit the elites. They are systematically destroying healthy societal structures so that we can be isolated like hutch rabbits and subject to any cull they would like inflict on us. Eventually we will be forced to wear implants of all kinds. Why?

Because there is no AI. It will never exist. Not unless they harness a free willed human being to the system. That is when they will have "thinking robots". I'm sure there will be small print on the implants stating we give up all rights as real human beings.

VR is a non-starter. SL already shows that the majority of users in VR will not become unhealthily attached to games nor will they stop life to partake in them. It also shows that we will be independent despite socially engineered ideas and ploys piled on top of us. All of these new "worlds" being released are all set with one focus, to take away our independence, to collectivize.

[Amanda Dallin]

This is like a PDA in the late 90s. They existed but didn't catch on for another decade when they were married to wireless phones. We're closer to the equivalent of the Apple Newton or Compaq Aero than even the Palm Treo's much less the Apple iPhone. VR by itself won't go anywhere. It needs something to work with like PDAs needed wireless phones. What's that going to be is the question.

[Grid Famous Games]

VR will be more widespread when it has been around long enough for poor boys from the stacks can afford 2nd hand units.

[irihapeti]

whats most needed to accompany the current sight and sound caps is the ability to apply pressure and feel it

[Clara Seller]

We don't need headsets or sophisticated computers to access a fake world anymore. We get out of bed and turn on the TV or check the daily news and we are there already. Even this concept of VR with with all of it's fictional overstuffed characters like Luckey, Zuckerberg, Spielberg, and our little hometown Sansar, is a big ole pile of artificially animated failure begging for us to reimburse the losses. That's really the next big thing... we pay their tab.

The interests of huge money and profit have made our little lives a murky swamp of fiction and propaganda that have left us desperately dog-paddling through existence to get to some tiny floating pocket of truth that might tell us where we actually are. You look around at friends and family dipping their mugs into this toilet and drinking it up like it's just another day.

VR isn't the wave of the future. It's already here. The wave of the future is truth and it's going to cost us everything we believe is real.