Why Would People Wear VR/AR Glasses When Most of Us Don't Even Like Wearing 3D Glasses to Watch Movies?

3D glasses for 3D movies! They're lightweight, they're cheap, they make cool immersive 3D effects possible, and... they're rapidly losing popularity:

After releasing disappointing second-quarter earnings late Wednesday, IMAX Entertainment CEO Greg Foster said in a conference call the giant-screen company would cut back on 3-D releases to rejuvenate the business... “It’s worth noting ‘Dunkirk’ was showing exclusively in 2-D, which consumers have shown a strong preference for,” Foster said on the call... As it moves to ditch 3-D, IMAX has recently opened its first virtual reality centers, where people strap on eyewear of a different kind to jump into immersive VR experiences using high-end rigs like the HTC Vive. And while Hollywood produced a record 68 3-D releases last year, the MPAA reported an 8 percent drop in attendance to those films.

IMAX's aforementioned VR experience, by the way, is actually not very popular at all, but that's a topic for another post.

What's striking is that 3D movie glasses have been around since 1952, have vastly improved throughout that time, provide access to all kinds of great content, cost just an extra $3-6 dollars or so compared to seeing the 2D version of the same movie. And yet... most of the public... just doesn't want to wear them... for even 90 minutes. Yes, 3D movies gross a disproportionate amount of money because of the higher ticket prices (which is the main reason Hollywood pushes them), but in terms of absolute consumer numbers, the vast majority opt for 2D over 3D. (And per above, even that revenue is shrinking.)

And we're talking about wearing these glasses in an ideal situation -- where you're comfortable and seated, versus walking around the house or even outside, as AR glasses developers envision.

Comments

[Adam]

As much as I play the skeptic, I'm not sure it's an entirely fair comparison - because in this case, the 3D product is at best equivalent to the 2D one, and usually inferior (poor 'dubbing' of the 3D in post, etc).

Very few 3D movies has the 3D been done well, and incorporated properly - Avatar did it well, but ... that's been it? Why would you pay more, and be inconvenienced for something where there's zero benefit, and usually some harm. I'd even pay extra *not* to have 3D in movies.

But - VR/AR/etc do have some unique selling points - you do gain some immersiveness, you can perceive "actually being there" in a way which isn't really the same as being on a monitor - done right, it's cool.

Buuuuuuut I still think everything is way premature. Despite headset pricing going down (yay!) you still need a beast of a computer, and there's still screen-door effects, and neck cramps, and sim sickness, and all the rest of it. 3-10 years from now, if the bubble bursting doesn't kill the industry, there's potential for some really cool things.

Who knows - maybe the next gen of non-tethered headsets might really make it accessible. (Although the performance profile is likely to be extremely limited, so don't expect nice graphics and good physics on those headsets)

[Carlos Loff]

The best possible investment one can do in VR is to start opening a street shop Arcade, no one will be a regular user at home in the next 50 years, hope this dead issue hyped by opportunist sellers soon expires the last breath so we all can move on to interesting new topics, cheers

[sirhc deSantis]

Adam there makes a good point - non tethered is something I would ahem leap at just to play with and bugger the framerate. As its no longer important - I wouldn't want to make any first person shooter because - meh. How very 1990.
As a new display peripheral my creaky old sense of ooo interesting is - creaking. Sketched something this week for a game jam that would be simple and fab - but the 3d aspect would be taken in to account by the raytrace I made specific. Isometric plus, baby.

Oh yes @Carlos I really dont want to wait another of my lifetimes thanks :)