The Isolation of Virtual Reality
The recent release of PlayStation VR has made me excited concerning the prospect of more people trying virtual reality. However, it has also made me confront a difficult fact: it makes certainly one of my favorite ways to play video games almost not possible.
Sharing the Gaming Experience
A number of months ago, I moved in with my husband, and we now have been having fun with playing video games together. We don’t all the time play cooperative or competitive games, but we regularly sit on the couch and play long single-player games in shifts. One of us will play for some time, after which the opposite will take over. We’re not exactly playing games together, but we’re not ignoring one another either. We look up on occasion to critique a boss fight design or compliment a pleasant takedown. We speak about politics, other games, or what we would like for dinner. It’s a shared experience that does not force us to drop the whole lot else to interact with one another.
The Limitations of Virtual Reality
I’ve never found a method to capture this type of experience in VR. It’s not that VR cannot be social, or that you could’t spectate it. But it takes effort. Unless you are playing a celebration game like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, you slip into an odd alone-together state. One of you may only see what the opposite is doing through a mirrored TV feed, which will be difficult to follow. The other cannot tell if anyone is there in any respect. I’ve tried to play VR games in the identical room as my husband, and it appears like being on the fallacious side of a one-way mirror.
The Future of Virtual Reality
Maybe someday, a VR headset won’t feel more isolating than a pair of headphones. Perhaps we’ll have "augmented virtual reality" glasses that may allow us to effortlessly tune in to what the opposite is doing. But for now, it’s certainly one of the largest things that keeps me from spending more time in virtual reality. It often makes it feel more like work than play.
The Importance of Shared Experiences
For many individuals, with the ability to play games without intruding on an uninterested partner’s space is an excellent thing. However, our culture has never really needed to take care of a medium as private as VR. The dark cinema is likely to be our closest point of comparison, but even that involves an entire group of individuals watching the identical screen. What happens when certainly one of you desires to learn a cooking technique in a VR simulation, while the opposite desires to do some sketches in a VR paint program? If you’ve got passed through great effort to be closer to someone, and you could have loads of space for other solitary pursuits, sometimes the most dear things are those that anchor you to reality.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while virtual reality is an exciting and immersive technology, it may possibly even be isolating. It’s difficult to share the experience with others, even in the event that they’re in the identical room. As VR becomes more prevalent, it’s essential to think about the importance of shared experiences and the way we are able to make VR more social and inclusive. By doing so, we are able to create a more enjoyable and interesting experience for everybody involved.
