VR is simpler than most suppose.

I am going on about 2000 hours now spent cumulatively in a VR headset. Most of that has been in a Valve Index in VRChat, but I have also had great experiences in a wide number of games.

What has really stood out to me reflecting back on all my time in VR is what I ended up spending the most amount of time doing is not what I expected I would have done. Before VR I was primarily a fan of first-person shooter games. So, I imagined that VR shooter games would be what I spent the most time doing. But they weren't.

Something I think most people don't take into account is how much VR can psychologically affect you, and what those effects are. This is something I didn't anticipate until I put on the headset. Really, I didn't get a good sense of this until a I bought a Valve Index and paired it with a gaming PC that could sustain 144 Hz, the refresh rate of the Valve Index. All headsets prior to the Index ran at lower Hz. The Vive ran at 90 Hz, the Oculus Quest 1 ran at 72 Hz, the Rift S runs at 80 Hz, the Quest 2 can now run at 120 Hz but most of the time runs at 90 Hz. The Index was the first headset to run at high enough Hz to get rid of the visual discomfort from long time use, so my eyes could relax, my brain could relax. The Index also has one of the widest Field of Views which helps with immersion, it also has the best built-in audio. This is really what did it for me, the 144 Hz of the Index, paired with its higher Field of View, paired with its better audio, also paired with the Index fitting my head really well, created a scenario where the first time I could sit in VR for long period of times, 4+ hours, with no discomfort and absorb into it.

When you can just sit in VR and it doesn't create nausea, it doesn't create eye strain, it doesn't create uncomfortable pressure on your face, that ultimately there is no difference in comfort levels with the headset on or off. That is when your mind can really drift into VR and be absorbed by it. Where you forget your wearing a headset and you are just in an experience.

Once my mind could really drift into VR, what did I spend most of the time doing? Well, nothing. Really. I spend most of the time just sitting in worlds in VRChat with friends.

Some people I think periodically see screenshots or videos of VRChat and may think some of the worlds look cool, or maybe they look horrible. But one thing you miss is the experience of it in VR is different. A screenshot of a serene forest world in VRChat could look visually appealing. But when you sit in it in VR, in a headset that doesn't cause discomfort, you absorb into it. The world affects your whole mood. It is not that dis-similar to how listening to a song can change your entire mood, but it's even more pervasive and consuming.

This generally became my primary use of VR, simply changing my mood. I most often go into VR before bed just to simply calm down and relax. It works well. I put on the headset, forget about everything else and relax.

To me this is a very interesting quality of VR, one which makes me very intrigued about its commercial future. Because I really don't believe you need gameplay in VR. You just need atmosphere, experience, mood. For the first time the skillset of video game world design can actually be marketed, and utilized, in a very similar vein to music. Where a person would just buy a song to put on in the background to affect their mood. I can easily see a primary economic model in VR being people just paying for access to worlds to sit in to affect their mood. That is it. Nothing more than that. VR used in the same manner as background music.

I know much of the VR industry is preoccupied with, "But what will people do in VR!?" Really, probably nothing. Probably just sit there. The even more counter-intuitive thing that developed for me the longer I spent in VR was, I actually came to not like shooter games in VR at all. The medium of VR is just too immersive, which makes shooter games more stressful. I can easily play a shooter game on a console to relax and take my mind off of things. But if I jump into Pavlov VR, it's fun, but it's also very stressful.

I think the reason many people miss this is they just haven't spent enough time in a truly high-end VR setup that fits their head and eyes really well to fully relax into. To fully feel how immersive it can be. When your brain is fully absorbed into an immersive experience running around a battlefield being shot at becomes a lot less enjoyable. Conversely sitting in a forest, or on a beach, with nice ambient sounds, some nice background music, pretty visuals, and a few friends becomes far more desirable.

This is something I don't think the industry, nor the consumer base, has yet fully adapted to. Most consumers are using Quest 2's, which are really good, but it is behind the Index in some necessary technical specs. Still for a lot of people headsets aren't physically comfortable enough. The Quest 2 and Index have great ergonomics, but it's still only a certain percentage which they fit well enough to let the user truly forget they are wearing a headset. Further still some people's eyes and brains can't fully accept only the convergence depth cue that current headsets provide, some people also need the accommodation depth cue to fully absorb into the experience and such a headset has not been released.

I think it's only a few years away before the level of experience I get from an Index will be available to potentially a mainstream audience due to superior hardware. I think once that happens, you're going to see a change in the types of content that ends up being most popular in VR. I would put my bets on calmer experiences, less stressful experiences, content which simply confers a good emotional state similar to what a good song can do, that is the type of content I would bet on becoming the most predominant content.

Of course, this is all based on my anecdotal experience, but I also talk to many people in VR and know I am not alone in this perspective. But don't take my word on it, if you are trying to extrapolate forward the future of VR I would really urge you to spend the money on a top-of-the-line PC VR setup and make a point of spending at least four hours in it multiple times per week until you have accumulated at least a few hundred hours. Try to discover what naturally hooks you, what makes you want to actually come back to it. As what you think you will end up most preferring in VR may not be what you actually end up preferring in the long-term once you are absorbed into it. It certainly wasn't for myself. We don't have data about the future, so to anticipate this, it is necessary participate, to experience it firsthand, observe and document. I think the appropriate way to approach VR right now is to think much more like a cartographer than a data analyst.