Earlier this month, the New York Times released its first Virtual Reality Sunday subscription. Readers received Google cardboard virtual reality viewers in the Sunday edition and used them to immerse themselves into the NYTVR app, which hosts short non-fiction films that tell important stories. And early next quarter, Oculus Rift is set to release the first consumer version of its headset. YouTube and Facebook just enabled 360 degree videos for their platforms, perfect for virtual reality early adopters and web users alike. The groundwork is clearly being laid for virtual reality in the mainstream world, but is it viable? And more importantly, is it here to stay?
To find out more, I talked with Ben Paluba, the founder of Augur, a digital strategy and consulting firm that specializes in creating virtual reality experiences. Paluba shared a few insights on some of the challenges in VR right now, and what might be next on the horizon for consumers.
“Right now it’s a lot to ask your average viewer experiencing media to invest the time and expense into VR content,” said Paluba. Because, the fact of the matter is, unless you are a hard core gamer, the average person will have a harder time adapting to virtual reality technology. “It’s not at the point of ‘plug-and-play’ right now.” In other words, standardization across platforms doesn’t yet exist for VR, making usability difficult for consumers across providers, networks, and between PC and Mac users. For example, if Samsung releases a hot new VR game, you can only play and experience it if you are a Samsung user.
Remember way back when the Internet was new? In the time before universal browsers, people couldn’t get the same content on every browser. Content was made for specific browsers, which is similar to where the VR space is right now. But if VR follows in these footsteps and consolidation and standardization take place, it could very well open a new world for the majority of consumers.
Another big challenge with getting VR to take off is that once the initial thrill and novelty of the simulated environment wears off, people start to notice flaws. Many people have brought up motion sickness as a barrier to long-term use. If you’ve ever put on an Oculus Rift headset, you’ll know what he’s talking about. “Developers are in the early stages of correcting that,” said Paluba. But Paluba gives credit to the Oculus Rift as the first viable product to spark much of the development going on in virtual reality right now. Enhancements in computing technology, improvements in hardware and high speed internet have all ensued and resulted in higher resolution displays and smoother virtual reality experiences.
Paluba predicts that we’ll start seeing more VR products come out over the next year. As technology and hardware evolve, the easier it will become to display virtual reality content on the web, and the easier it will become for people to connect headsets and adopt the phenomenon.
Paluba envisions the future of the default interface of digital media as a “combination of augmented reality,” where you aren’t completely sealed off from your natural environment. Right now, we look at everything from text to photos to film on a two-dimensional screen. But 20 years from now? Paluba predicts we might be so advanced that we won’t need screens anymore. “I could be wrong,” he said, “but that could be the next big breakthrough.”