The XR Week Peek (2021.06.28): Blaston retreats on ads, Vive Focus 3 ships with positive reviews, and more!
It’s that time of the week where you can read about the most important news of the past week in AR and VR again! Are you ready?
Before starting, my friends at FXG and at Leenzee Games are promoting the Chinese mystery VR game A.D. 2047 and are offering to my readers an exclusive giveaway of 3 keys! Subscribe to my newsletter, then write me an e-mail to tonyvt AT skarredghost DOT com and I will give you one so that you can play this game for free! First come, first served, so don’t hesitate too much…
Top news of the week
Resolution Games steps back from implementing ads inside Blaston
After the big backlash of the community against the ads that Facebook is going to implement in VR, the first partner studio that should have implemented it is taking a little step back.
Blaston by Resolution Games had been announced as the first game that should have implemented VR ads, but after the riots of the VR communities and the 1-star-review bombing on the game page on the various stores, the studio has changed its mind. Blaston, a paid game, won’t feature VR ads inside it. A little win of the VR community, that has managed to make its voice heard. But I think that it’s not as good as it seems.
First of all, Resolution Games has not stepped back from being a partner of Facebook’s: 3 hours after announcing its retreat from the use of VR ads, Resolution games had made another tweet announcing that probably ads will be implemented in “Bait!”, which is a free game. Of course ads in a free game are much more acceptable, so this is a good decision, but this shows that VR ads are here to stay.
And this is confirmed by the fact that Facebook has actually never changed its mind, not even a little, after the backlash of the community. As it always has happened during these years, they have made a step forward, defended their position, just to make another step forward when waters have cooled down.
So it’s just a little win for the community. Still a win, but almost nothing is going to change in the future.
More info (Blaston won’t feature VR ads)
More info (My editorial on Facebook and ads in VR)
Other relevant news
HTC is shipping the Vive Focus 3
HTC has started shipping the Vive Focus 3, so we have started reading the first reviews about it. In my case, also writing, because I have got a review unit and I have written one of the most detailed reviews about it that you can find out there.
Here below I am giving you the links to my review, plus other two ones that I have found on the web, so that you can have many different opinions about it.
As a TL;DR, what I can say is that it is a very interesting standalone headset. Yes, it is truly expensive (around €1400), but it features great comfort, an amazing display, fantastic audio, wired/wireless streaming from PC, and good tracking. It is not perfect, though, and it has its shares of problems: apart from some software glitches (that will be fixed in the future), the most annoying thing is that the lenses have a tiny sweet spot and are prone to glares. Plus the fan is a bit noisy.
If you are an enterprise customer, my suggestion is that you should give it a look, because this is a good device.
More info (My review of the headset)
More info (CNET’s hands on)
More info (MRTV’s first impressions)
Varjo announces Varjo Reality Cloud
Finnish company Varjo has announced Varjo Reality Cloud, a platform that according to them is able to create a “true-to-life metaverse”.
Varjo Reality Cloud is a system to share spaces in augmented virtuality. A user that wears a Varjo XR-3 is able to scan his/her environment using the high-quality cameras of the device, and then this environment can be shared via Varjo Cloud and seen by other people that are remotely connected with the user. That is, it is possible for multiple people to meet in XR inside a perfect reconstruction of the real environment where the XR-3 user is in. And this reconstruction would be constantly updated in real-time, so the virtual version of the environment is always coherent with the real one. The XR-3 user can also see the people he’s meeting with, in augmented virtuality, there with him/her.
This is very cool and futuristic. Of course, currently, this system is at a prototype stage and doesn’t work exactly as advertised, but Varjo is very confident that it can make it work pretty well in the future. And since Varjo is a very smart company, I’m confident as well that this is going to happen.
The problem with all of this is that it is not clear its use case. I mean, why should I buy a $5000 Varjo XR-3 to scan my environment, when I could do that pretty well even with a $1000 iPhone? Then, what is the advantage of seeing a constantly updated environment? In 95% of the cases, a static reconstruction would be fine (e.g. to visit a newly constructed house). And in the end, why this should matter for the “metaverse”? It’s just an environment reconstruction…
The community is asking these and many other questions. I think that if Varjo considers this “its biggest announcement it has ever made”, either they are crazy, or we are all missing some pieces of the puzzle. Probably they have a roadmap for this system that now seems useless to us, but that it will show its true value in the next months or years. I’m intrigued, and also very patient, so I will wait before expressing my judgment.
More info (Varjo Reality Cloud launch post)
More info (Road To VR’s hands-on the system)
ENGAGE and VRChat raise big investments
It’s a very positive moment for all social VR ecosystems.
This week we had the news that ENGAGE has just raised $10M to develop further its ecosystem. The company has just announced ENGAGE Oasis, a place that should become “The LinkedIn of VR”: something like a citadel full of offices, where you can meet and work with people of your company, but also create collaborations with people of other companies. This is a different beast from what ENGAGE is today, but the potential of this vision is of sure great (even if… another reference to Ready Player One… so much fantasy…). Compliments to my friend Chris, to the CEO David, and all the team for the result!
After a few days, we also discovered that VRChat has got a new investment of $80M. VRChat is one of the most popular social VR ecosystems, and this money will be useful to create new features, expand further its reach, and also to explore new monetization options. Compliments to Graham and Jason for it!
These two pieces of news together show me that there is some hype around the “Metaverse”. Rec Room has got $100M and become a unicorn, Epic has got $1B to develop its metaverse, and now it’s the turn of ENGAGE and VRChat. It seems that it is the right moment to get money from investors excited by a new buzzword. We are probably at the peak of inflated expectations of the Gartner Hype Cycle, so I envision in some months someone saying that “metaverse is dead” when we’ll reach the trough of disappointment, and companies will realize that building a mainstream metaverse is more difficult than they think. Also going out from lockdown, there will be less interest in these digital solutions, that so will require more time to become popular. So please… let’s all keep our feet on the ground.
A little curiosity: VRChat and ENGAGE are the platforms that I have personally used the most… does this mean that is my seal of approval that brings money? 😉
More info (ENGAGE raises $10M)
More info (VRChat raises $80M)
News worth a mention
Unity CEO predicts in 2030 XR headsets will be as popular as gaming consoles
Unity CEO John Riccitiello has made new predictions on AR and VR, and this time he talked about the projections for XR headsets in 2030.
I take into great consideration what Mr.Riccitiello says because his predictions made in 2017 turned out to be true: he forecasted the “VR is dead” period and also the come back of XR in 2019. Until now he has been so much better than many of the so-called “market analysts”.
Speaking with The Information, Unity CEO has said that he envisions VR headsets to reach 20M sales per year, and so it’s easy to predict that before 2030, the number of houses with a VR headset will be superior to the 250M of households that have a gaming console today. Speaking about AR, he sees it as growing faster than VR, but he also added that AR is less predictable because of the fact that it requires companies to solve some problems related to electronics, optics, etc… about which we have not a solution today. He also added that “real-time 3D content” will make up nearly half of all visual digital content by 2030, up from only ~3% now.
His words are very conservative: when speaking between us, we all say that by 2030, AR/VR will already be mainstream, with AR glasses already superseding smartphones. But considering that he’s very connected in the XR field, I take his predictions seriously. What is sure, is that in any case, XR will take more than we hope for to become widespread as today’s smartphones.
More info (Article on John Riccitiello’s words / 1)
More info (Article on John Riccitiello’s words / 2)
Adobe evolves Medium into a product in Adobe Suite
We all wondered what Adobe was thinking to do with Oculus Medium, after its acquisition from Facebook some years ago. Now we have an answer: while there will still be a free Medium around on the Oculus Store, Adobe has also evolved it to become Substance 3D Modeler, a product in the new Adobe Substance 3D Suite that lets you sculpt 3D objects. Substance 3D Modeler has many differences with Medium, for instance, it can also be used without VR, but it still gives you the sensation of sculpting clay like the original software.
The product is of course devoted to professionals: Substance 3D Collection is currently priced starting at $39.99 per month.
More info (Substance 3D Modeler on Road To VR)
More info (Substance 3D Modeler on Upload VR)
LIV now lets you shoot mixed reality videos with just a phone
The popular video recording service LIV has just updated its app, and now it is possible to use the LIV app on an iOS device to shoot a mixed reality video of someone playing in VR without the use of a green screen or a complex setup! The results are not perfect as the videos shot in the traditional way, but they are pretty good anyway.
Facebook patent shows an “augmented reality hat”
A patent filed by Facebook is the WTF news of the week. In this patent you can see a hat with attached an augmented reality glasses, so you can wear a baseball hat while enjoying AR at the same time. It looks like a weird Japanese gadget and I think it will never succeed, but who knows, for sure the idea of mixing traditional clothes with XR gadgets has potential…
Icosa Gallery is the new Google Poly
Google Poly has recently shut down, leaving creators without an open and free place where to share their 3D creations with the other members of the community. Now the community has created Icosa Gallery, which should be an open replacement of Google Poly, that will soon be integrated inside OpenBrush, the opensource replacement of Tilt Brush. It’s cool to see these initiatives from the community!
Two interesting research projects
Let’s talk about two cool research projects I have seen this week.
The first one is a little device that you put in your nose and thanks to electrical stimulation, lets you feel some basic scents, like the stingy perfume of the vinegar. It needs no spray, no scent particles, it just uses electrical stimulations of the nerves inside the nose.
The second one is a project presented at SIGGRAPH by people from Facebook Reality Labs that is a display that you put on your headset that shows there the live stream of your eyes so that people that look at you can still see a realistic representation of your eyes even if you have a headset on. Cool, isn’t it?
(Thanks for the first tip to Pedro Ferreira, and for the second one to Davy from Holoplant Co)
More info (Smell Simulation)
More info (Eyes’ display)
Try how your application looks for colorblind people
You know that I like to advocate for accessibility in the XR applications. That’s why I want to advise you to read this old but gold article by Alan Zucconi that provides a plugin to let you experience how colorblind people see your VR Unity applicationss so that you can modify them if you notice they are not playable by everyone. A quick test that can be useful to make sure that the biggest number possible of people enjoy your creations
Jump opens pre-sales for its virtual skydiving attraction
JUMP is a location-based entertainment attraction that wants to give you the same sensations of wingsuit skydiving but in a safe and controlled environment. The system employs virtual reality plus wind emitters to give you the real sensations of falling through the sky. It is opening soon and it has already started the preorders for its first locations. If you are in the US, you should check it out.
Steam Summer Sale lets you buy many VR titles at a discounted price
For two weeks, you can give your money to Lord Gaben to buy VR titles at a discounted price. Among the current sales on Steam, we have Boneworks at $23.99, Star Wars: Squadrons at $14.79, and No Man’s Sky at $29.99. If you have some PCVR titles that you have always wanted to buy, now it’s time to check them out on Steam!
Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual to release on July, 8th for $29.99
Finally, we have a release date for Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual, one of the most awaited VR games of the moment! The game will be released for Oculus Quest on July, 8th for $29.99. The store page is already up, if you want to give it a look…
Some news on content
- The VR mod of the popular game Valheim now correctly supports motion controllers;
- Steel Crew is an interesting co-op VR game where multiple people control together a tank, like in real life;
- Joyway is launching a multiplayer version of Stride on Steam;
- Sentenced is a very interesting psychological game on Steam where you are an executioner. Upload VR has tried it and found it interesting and original.
More info (Valheim VR)
More info (Steel Crew)
More info (Stride multiplayer)
More info (Sentenced review)
News from partners (and friends)
Beers And Boomerangs is an upcoming VR game that already looks super cool. This is its description “A VR game where you throw boomerangs at kangaroos that are trying to steal your beer! Cook and bring drinks to your mates, but don’t forget to defend your BBQ from those pesky kangaroos!”. Some GIFs about the game are already very popular on Reddit, and we all can’t wait for it to be released in some months (you can already wishlist it on Steam, if you want).
Learn more
UNICEF, together with the IT Ukraine Association, has created the world’s first virtual reality (VR) product to educate children in eastern Ukraine about explosive ordnance and promote safe behaviors. This is another application in which virtual reality can save real lives and so I am a big fan of it.
Learn more
Some XR fun
Hitting a real wall when you are in VR always hurts
Funny link
SteamVR is “psychological horror” according to Steam. Considering all the problems I have with it and the Oculus Link, I completely agree.
Funny link
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