VR still makes 40-70% of players want to throw up, and that's a huge problem for the companies behind it

When the camera movies without me physically moving, I am throwing up immediately. Do you mean a virtual nose would fix that?

I wonder if that is why Voldemort is so angry all the time. It's because he's nauseous.

First time I logged into the corvette and looked down the ship, it completely changed the game.

Just wish headsets weren't so heavy.

Absolutely, ED in VR is indescribably breath taking. Basically an entirely different game

I'm usually fine with motion sickness while playing VR, but Elite man...

Ms flight simulator is quite clunky and hard to get good frame rates, but damn if you can put up with that it's an awesome experience in VR. Also beat saber.

For quite awhile now those have been the reasons for VR. Sad really. Still these two things are compelling.

Racing games in VR are excellent. It’s all I’ve played in vr for quite some time now.

there are quite a few games out there that aren't specifically VR games but are still very well suited for it because they put you in the cockpit of a vehicle. I haven't really used my VR headset much for VR specific games, but I've been putting a lot of hours in Assetto Corsa Competizione because with VR and a wheel, I'm completely immersed. Same goes for people who like flight or space simulators

I had the same thought when I had a Vive. I ended up just buying the Index Knuckles controllers so I could play HL: Alyx. It really is the only AAA game available that makes it worth it IMO.

That seems high to me as well. Obviously this is anecdotal, but I've introduced probably 20 friends/family members to VR and none of them have had issues with motion sickness.

All those who get sick obviously stop playing. So if you ask the users, basically no one gets sick. Because those who get sick are not users any more.

I started by playing while standing and moving smoothly in game and I couldn't last long before getting sick. Now I play seated with snapping in game movement and I can play for hours without issue. Depending on how you define it, I don't think it's surprising to see so many people say VR makes them sick.

The statistic quoted is for "users", so presumably the measurement was made against randomly selected individuals of the general population (though the article frustratingly fails to cite a source). This is important because the effect is not evenly distributed among demographics, per the article:

What’s more, we don’t know why some people are so much more susceptible to it than others, but we know that there are numerous markers that make us more likely to experience it. Women, as mentioned previously, are more likely than men to get VR sick. Asian people are more likely than other ethnicities to experience motion sickness in general. Age is another factor—we’re more likely to experience it between the ages of 12 and 21 than in our adulthood... until we reach our 50s, upon which the likelihood increases again.

40-70% seems reasonable if it includes the people who eventually get used to it.

Nah, it's quite real and quite accurate (even though the range is high).

The one I want to play is HL:Alyx

It’s well suited for anything where you’re seated, eg racing sims, flight sims, euro truck sim etc.

If you’ve got any interest at all in those genres give it another try and it’ll be hard if not possible to go back. Digital Combat Sim in VR is a whole nother game.

Other than that I agree. Just a gimmick and I don’t see the way forward.

I'm just trying to chill out with a game though, not slowly build up tolerance to cyberspace

As this is my personal strategy as well, I would like to add that your sample size is now 2, with a 100% success rate :3

Although for me personally I don't have to retrain that quickly. My resistance to motion sickness certainly gets weaker over time, but I seem to have reached some kind of baseline, compared to my previous state, where about five minutes could give me an awful headache, while now I can take it for a bit longer, even after not being in VR for a month or two.

Speaking of, we need more VR games. I'd love to play more of them, but nothing new is really big and exciting or anything, which is how these long breaks even happen.

My sample size is much larger and indeed that has been the case. I've been hosting VR demos for 10 years now, since DK2. DK1 was bad news for people even slightly prone to motion sickness. 3dof is only viable for motion sick prone people if they can keep their head exactly where the game expects it to be, which you can't.

With each new generation of headset, there has been so much less prep for getting random people into it and making sure they wouldn't even get mildly nauseous. More software options without translational movement and much less obvious safety nets in games that do. You can always find at least one game/experience that is right up someone's alley that won't cause motion sickness even if it turns out they would otherwise have been really sensitive to it.

But I always let them know that when they do want to start branching out from the "safe" choices, that they should treat it like sea sickness, limit exposure at first and build up sea legs. Ideally never get to the point where you would throw up, try to stay as far away from it as possible while still having fun. You will eventually notice one day that you haven't thought about it in a long time.

I take an off-brand Dramamine then hop in. Best if I know 20 minutes in advance that I'll be playing since it takes a little time to digest, but I'm not doing chores.

Yea it's like getting your sea legs. I could only play bone works on the valve index for about ~10 min before the nausea got to the "oh shit I might actually puke" level.

Just playing for 10 - 30 minutes a day basically cured the nausea within 2 weeks. After that I could play till the controllers died.

I remember in the heyday of the N64 3D games would make people nauseous. Especially watching someone play, I remember my mother just couldn't be in the room while I was playing Shadows of the Empire. She's a BOTW veteran now. I think there's definitely some getting used to it.

For me, I seem to be one of the lucky people that don't get motion sickness. I still don't like VR. Why? Because the stupidly low resolutions they run at in order to achieve better frames makes it hard to even tell what's going on. You can forget about being able to read any text. It's like playing the game with a wire mesh separating you and the screen it's so bad. Last time I used a VR headset was HTC vive though.

Yeah, I would say there are definitely specific experiences you could make that make 80+% nauseous(I have pretty good VR legs but moving platforms can still disorient me). But a well designed VR game accounts for that, see something like Beat Saber.

I tried a vr headset at a convention where they had it just giving you a virtual tour of a farm to show off what the headset could do.

I had to take it off in less than 30 seconds because it was giving me a migraine and making me feel sick.

Although with most games, the accessibility options need to be there (even when they sometimes aren't), some games incorporate their movement mechanics into gameplay heavily. Take BONELAB for example. Great game, but simply impossible to play for some people due to the movement. Adding teleporting (or really any accessibility movement option) would simply ruin it though, as the entire game is based around physics based interactions, walking, running, jumping, climbing, etc.

Did you play Alex with the free movement or the jump to location? I can't do the free movement modes but jump works fine. Similar to beat saber in that you are stationary.

I got super sick the first few times I played. I could only manage 20 mins at most and I would be in bed for the rest of the day due to terrible headache which goes away the next morning.

After a couple of times of experiencing that, I could play for 1-2 hours and without a hint of headache. I understand how everyone is different but I'm kinda amazed how the body works sometimes.

Which headset did you use? I had the same experience with my old Rift. Got a used Quest 2 recently and all my problems just vanished. I can even do smooth locomotion now which was impossible before.

Might be worth checking out some newer tech in case your HMD was first gen

VR continues to make more sense as an arcade-like attraction than as a consumer product.

Except for the part where I would have to wear a headset that 5000 other people have also worn. (And except for the VR sickness that, it turns out, I'm very sensitive to).

But there are people who think VR is worthwhile. If 40% of those people get sick from it, then that's 40% of the users gone

I’m in a similar boat. The use case where I really would use it regularly, simming, is hamstrung by two things. One, it’s so damn fiddly and laborious doing settings non stop to make it playable, and two, even if I get the settings right—I start noticing weird crap with my eyes after a couple sessions. Like you end up basically crossing your eyes all the time inside the visor, and I’ll notice fatigue/trouble focusing after using it a lot, what I would imagine it feels like to have a bad prescription or something (don’t personally have glasses).

And as you say, it’s bloody uncomfortable. Something like big screen beyond with good AR/passthrough would go a long way to fixing that I guess.

Bigscreen Beyond is a new vr headset that is a little bigger than pool goggles. It's manufactured based off of a lidar scan of your face, and is supposed to be very comfortable.

Additionally full color passthrough is becoming more of a common feature so you can see the real world in good definition while wearing the headset. Also some models hinge the display upwards off of your face.

We are getting there. Personally I play for hours a day. Sometimes multiple 4 hour sessions if it's a free weekend for me. I agree we need more experiences. But it will come.

Yeah I've been interested in replacing my index eventually, this headset looks pretty promising:

https://store.bigscreenvr.com/products/bigscreen-beyond

Each one is custom to your face, and it's extremely light. I'm sure the future will bring more headsets like this

Summed up my feelings 100%. I love VR and almost every experience I've had with it have been great, but I've touched my Index probably 5 times in the past two years (and probably 3 of them were to watch VR porn). There's just a big setup and time commitment required to VR game that a lot of people don't have time for.

That's a factor but there's many and they can vary from person to person. For some the lens type is an issue, for some people it's simply inability to get it to fit your face properly.

The frame rate doesn't matter if I start moving with a controller while I am sitting down IRL. I don't get the motion sickness if I have to actually walk to move in the game, but the disconnect between moving in the game not matching the movement of my body is what really causes motion sickness for me.

The Fresnel lenses give me eye fatigue.

For me it's the way the motion trackers map head movements, somewhat depends on how it's implemented in the game, but there's a way I can move my head that will give me instant nausea in any VR game. I'm not predisposed to motion sickness either, fine on rollercoasters etc.

Usually when numbers are presented that way it's because there are many studies they looked at. So I presume there was one study showing a rate of 40%, another showing 70% and the rest of the studies fell somewhere in between those two extremes, with differences likely due to types of games, types of systems, and any number of other factors, including chance. They could have just averaged all the studies and quoted a number like 55% for example, but I think the other way actually paints a better picture of the data. It's still possible they're full of shit, but just presenting the numbers like that doesn't mean they're pulling it out of their ass.

This isn't even lies, damned lies, and statistics territory - it's just nothing. I know VR motion sickness exists (I still get it even after an uncomfortable amount of time in SteamVR sometimes) but that's... that's not anything

Yeah, if those numbers are anywhere near accurate I have had a significant outlier in my demos to the public so far. I have had less than 5% of the hundreds of people even get mildly nauseous. To get numbers like they are, I would have to cherry pick the worst possible experiences and not prep anyone at all.

"VR" doesn't make most people throw up, being a terrible host might, but honestly even in that scenario I find their numbers hard to believe. Considering at least 30% of people are completely immune to it and don't even need to be eased in at all. And another 30% would take a few hours of worst case scenario to get to a point where throwing up is even on the table. So unless they are specifically trying to provoke the worst possible response, their numbers aren't even possible.

I wish more people who thought they couldn't handle VR had come to me first. Or any responsible host.

It's almost as if we shouldn't listen to the marketing types that are trying to sell a product, but rather what the end users say.

I remember trying VR in the 90s: from the VirtualBoy to expensive and bulky setups in malls. I've tried 3D TV, google cardboard, and the range of consumer VR across the decades. They were all fundamentally flawed and like everyone else I was jaded. Then I tried what the 2020s had to offer.

My take away is that the technology available has finally reached the point where consumer VR is starting to become viable. We're seeing the first real prototypes that have the capacity to evolve into something practical. It's still expensive, bulky, and limited -- but the fundamental issues that plagued previous generations of VR have mostly been addressed.

They really really want to sell us new trinkets.

In my mind they look like little Goblins or Ferengi who dream about all the other VR related stuff people can start buying when finally VR headsets become common.

Yup, just gotta get used to it and the feeling goes away after a session or two

I see VR arcades in suburban malls fairly often, maybe give that a shot first. The VOID experiences were great but they went out of business during the pandemic.

You just need a bit of knowledge that is tough to get without knowing it exists.

The main component of VR games that causes problems for people is when the motion in game doesn't match the motion you are really doing. There are plenty of games that don't have any of that. And even when you are ready to start trying games with that, you can overcome it if you experience it bit by bit. Just play until you start to get a warm/sweaty face or a bit dizzy feeling, then go do something else for a bit. You will build up the time it takes to trigger that feeling and it will be more mild as you keep training out of it.

I've been demoing to people for 10 years and have had less than 5% of people even get mildly nauseous during a demo, even fewer recently. The methodology of the test in the article can't have been anything other than them picking the worst possible experience and having people endure it for an hour or until they felt sick with no explanation of what to look out for. Since 30% of people are literally completely immune no matter how bad their test could have possible been.

Even back with the DK2 and the crappy choices for software back then it was still pretty uncommon to make someone sick, and usually it was either my fault or a hardware issue rather than something that could be attributed to VR as a whole.

I am never sick when doing roller coasters or reading in a moving car, but I was really nauseous after my first 15-min VR session. I was pretty scared I fucked up buying a Valve Index only to get that much sick playing... But I had a feeling (hope?) that I could get used to it: After about 2 weeks of playing a bit every night I was no longer getting sick at all. I can go until the controllers run out of battery now.

To me the effort was worth it, but I have a friend that was the opposite and didn't enjoy experiencing virtual worlds that way...

My advice: If you ever try it then try to ignore the sickness -as you can get used to it- and focus on how much you enjoy being immersed in virtual worlds.

First person games also make me motion sick, for lack of a better word, because I’ve got permanently screwed proprioception (so less “sick,” more “horribly dizzy”), so I’ve never even dared try VR. I feel like the market is a lot more limited than companies might think it is.

Just FYI, I can't play FPS games without puking, but VR games work for me. The fact that my inner ear matches what I'm seeing in the game makes the difference.

I couldn't play portal 2 either (never tried 1). Made me sad knowing how awesome it's supposed to be.

Chad dad

Look for sea sickness remedies, you should find ginger chewing gum. Chewing gum itself reduces motion sickness and at least if you follow this study peppermint is actually more effective -- though ginger itself (without the chewing part) is known to be effective so have you salt shaker ready to sprinkle on their sample size.

Try stuff and see what works for you, it's not like you're injecting chemotherapy meds.

As you get older, ginger is basically a cure for most things, and I've gone from hating it to craving ginger whenever I feel down.

Ginger candy and ginger beer are fantastic, as long as you're using the stuff without sweeteners. Sadly, some brands load their stuff with lots of additives and artificial sweeteners to save costs/reduce sugar.

I see a ton of people shitting on VR because they get sick, saying that it's just a gimmick and it'll pass.

And that's such a weird take for them to have, which I have also seen. I get sick real easy from VR and it doesn't make me mad at VR, it bums me out that I'll have to wait for something slightly more accommodating to come out first.

The Quest is really easy to use since you don't need external sensors, but it's underpowered and also from Facebook.

We need wider FOV and better screens. The controllers are okay I think. Hopefully with apple stepping in we get more desperately needed content.

The OG Vive is a really horrible experience compared to modern VR headsets already. There are incredible technological advancements being made and to say all VR is doing is waiting for some Star Trek technology is incredibly ignorant. And frankly an insult to those super talented engineers that are breaking new ground on a yearly basis.

I think most people could break it in, but are reluctant to keep playing or play again once they feel sick doing it.

The article author reports trying twice: first a rollercoaster, and then a racing game. Then cites a study about people getting sick in their first 15 minutes of use.

I think you're right, but some people just aren't going to give it another try. I think this tech is likely to be one of those big generational dividers that old people just won't tolerate (like computers or cell phones, or the thousands of prior things).

Also idk if it plays a role, but I now know that it's absolutely necessary to have your contact lenses or at least glasses on when playing.

"Metaverse" is not equivalent to VR. VR is its own thing independent of Meta-shit.

I am a victim of this. It sucks.

I'm not sold on the gaming side of it but I loved my quest for movies. I'm planning to buy another one one day and it's something that I'll consider essential for old age retirement.

Ikr? Lmao

Haven't heard about the game "Hexen" in years!!!

Being in a car or aeroplane is totally different from playing a game, VR or otherwise. The motion sickness is a result of a mismatch between the sense of your own motion from what you are seeing, and the sense of your own motion from your inner-ear (which is basically an accelerometer).

In a car or an aeroplane, as long as you are looking at the window then there is no problem. (But often people get car-sick if they try to read a book or something, because then they can't see the motion - they can only feel it.) But in a game, you can see the motion but not feel it - so that can also give motion sickness.

Many modern first-person games have an option for 'mouse smoothing' (or something similar), and that generally help reduce or eliminate motion sickness.

The problem is in a car, your body is actually moving and your sense of movement aligns with what your eyes are seeing. I'm not an expert but there's something about fluid in your ears moving?

When it comes to gaming on a flat screen, your eyes are interpreting movement but you are not moving. This, from my understanding is what causes the motion sickness.

I can't use these VR headsets because they make me sick and give me migraines. I'm just fine playing on a TV or monitor though.

I would get so incredibly sick when playing the original wolfenstein and Doom. But I could play halo for hours. Really weird

Some people don't. That's why air sickness bags exist.

They could market it to anorexic people and make a profit. Puking while having fun.

Sorry, I'll let myself out.

the developers don't do it because they know barely anyone will buy the game just because it also supports VR. it's just not worth the money.

plus, people will eventually make a mod anyways, and they are completely fine with benefiting from random people's unpaid work. Who wouldn't take all the upsides without any of the downsides?

if mods can do it, why can't the developer?

Because it's not worth it to waste budget and time on a feature used by 0.01% of your playerbase.

In the case of Star Citizen, they used to support it, but since the game is still being actively developed in the alpha stage it kept breaking. Not worth the time and money to keep fixing it, so they put it on hold. As far as I know, they still plan to support it after the main feature set is stabilized and they go into polishing mode.

But I agree, it would be great if it still/already had native support.

Some best buy stores have demos in the US where you can try it out for a bit. I honestly find the social aspects to be the most interesting part of VR (and I'm not a people person). A 10 minute demo isn't probably going to completely sell you on VR but they can answer questions etc.

VR has been around since the 20th Century. It is still here, and the market is expanding with more options as time goes on.

I wanted to play VR games since I saw the first VR stuff in the 90s. Finally got a Valve Index set this year, and it's fuckin' awesome. For all the Quest and Vive users on here saying VR sucks - it's your gear that sucks.

Here's a list of VR games that are fuckin' awesome:

HL Alyx  (as everyone already mentioned)

Into the Radius  (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in VR)

Grapple Tournament  (UT2004 with grappling hooks in VR)

Dragon Fist Kung Fu  (kung fu fighting in VR duh)

Blade and Sorcery  (swords and sorcery)

Battle Talent  (ripoff of Blade and Sorcery that is also cool)

Assetto Corsa  (racing sim)

DCS World  (flight sim)

Beat Saber  (music chopping)

I don't know man. Feels like the whole damn field of medicine does just that. It fixes body problems with (medical) technology.

I would not at all be surprised if later we find a certain framerate or fov reduces motion sickness. Or maybe there's some device that will go over our ears to trick our equilibrium from getting confused. Or maybe really good head tracking fixes it...

I think it's more likely than not that we do "tech" our way out of it - just in some unforeseen way.

Good for you, I could do all that on a ship out at sea using a laptop with a 1070 and a wired headsetand and could also not get sick.

Doesn't change the fact that literally like half the people I ever tried to introduce to VR have immediately felt violently sick to their stomach within minutes and some did try to get over it. With multiple attempts.

You think people forming personal connections with AIs instead of real people is a good thing?

I think it's more likely they made a game that was just poorly designed for VR, moving players when they don't expect it a lot and the like.

Uh Quest is better than the Vive 😅

The science is vestibular mismatch and your personal sensitivity to it. There are plenty of options for VR activities with no mis-matched movement. And there are plenty of people that can handle a mismatch without any problems.

Basically your inner ear and your eyes are disagreeing about what is happening, and historically when that happened to humans, it was because they ate the poisonous berries. So eventually the people who randomly had the gene where that mismatch leads to throwing up were more likely to live to procreate.

But the brain can be trained, if you are susceptible to VR sickness, play until you start to feel the first minimal symptoms (varies per person, but commonly; warm face, inexplicably sweaty face, or mild dizziness) then immediately take a break. As you continue to do so successfully you'll notice the response takes longer to come into play and is milder when it does. And if "the berries" keep not killing you, your brain will assume you know what you are doing and don't need to be protected. But every time it does get too bad, or worse does lead to throwing up, it will reinforce that your brain saved you and it will start coming on more quickly and strongly. Still totally reversible, but best to avoid it if possible.

There are some people who don't have the response to start with, in my experience it has a surprisingly strong corellation to people with autism, which was nice for us autistics in early VR. We had the whole place to ourselves, hehe. But hopefully we never have to actually worry about poison berries.

I'm just as surprised when people say they don't get it. Locomotion is the thing that makes me sick. 1:1 room scale walking? No prob. Teleporting, cool. Joystick movement? Taking a ride on the Vomit express.

I almost got motion sickness just trying to read your comment.

Have you ever tried VR?

I had to Google what this even was, and I've been into VR since the beginning...

Real talk: Apple's fans aren't into this... They just want the same shit as last year (a phone) with a higher model number.

Apple stopped selling to people interested in innovation around a decade ago. We moved on, and let me tell you... We were BIG fans after the first iPhone. They sold out. It's that simple.

I think the challenge is that with transportation, there are approaches to reduce the impact such as looking at the horizon, sitting in the front where the motion impact isn't as severe, etc. With VR there's less way around it, and fewer ways to redirect your perception (yet). Which is why the percentages are higher than car users