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It's been a week and I still can't get my experience with the latest Oculus Rift prototype at CES 2014 out of my mind. The Oculus Rift, which made its debut at CES 2013 and then further enchanted reporters at E3 2013, is undoubtedly one of the coolest pieces of technology I've ever seen.
A lot has been written about the Oculus Rift and its virtual reality (VR) experience and what it means for the future of gaming and, after using the latest prototype, dubbed Crystal Cove, I can see why. Putting on the Oculus Rift helmet didn't just take me into a new game experience; it took me into an entirely new world.
See also: Oculus Rift: Hands On With the Future of Gaming
OculusVR, the company behind the Oculus Rift, has raised nearly $100 million towards its efforts in bringing VR to the living room. What the team has managed to achieve since launching its demo (apparently held together with duct tape) at CES 2013 is nothing short of spectacular. Over 50,000 developers have ordered $300 developer kits and are building games, demos and experiences around the head-mounted display (HMD), edging closer to a commercial release.
The most impressive game demo I played was for EVE: Valkyrie, a multiplayer dogfight shooter that is set in the EVE role-playing universe. The developer of the game, CCP, originally built it as a demo for E3. It turned out, however, that there is a lot more to the game than just a demo, and the company says it's "coming in 2014."
The game puts the player in the cockpit of a space fighter, replete with missiles and a full dashboard. The goggles of the VR headset work really well to create the sense-of-view of a cockpit. Moving up or down, as well as turning behind you, creates an incredibly realistic virtual world.
This is the sort of game that could truly revolutionize flight sims, first-person shooters and strategy games. That's not was has me so excited about the Oculus Rift, however. In the time I spent with the Rift — and in the days after — it struck me that this type of technology could be used to create not just incredible new games, but full-blown interactive experiences.
For years, game companies and movie studios have been trying to find a way to fuse the worlds of movies and high-end games. Yes, I'm talking about the loaded — and sometimes derided — term "transmedia." We're getting closer. The quality of storytelling in games is on the upswing and the cinematic visuals and voice acting (think Grand Theft Auto V and Beyond: Two Souls) is arguably as good as any mid-budget feature film. Even so, we've yet to have a gaming experience that really helps catapult it to the next level.
The Oculus Rift could change that. While wearing it, my mind wandered to the Hunger Games franchise. How cool would a Hunger Games-themed game in a VR world be? A multiplayer survivor death bowl? I'm in. Moreover, it might even benefit the film industry if some of its extensive CGI assets were repurposed into a game or 3D world.
"[CGI and effects teams] spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours creating intricate 3D sets and worlds for a film and after it's over, those assets are useless," Joe Chen, the product lead at OculusVR, the company behind the Oculus Rift, pointed out before I got my demo. "We offer a pretty interesting medium to have a second take at those assets," he says, speaking of the non-game potential of the Rift.
"I think that's why games are leading with usage of VR, at least for us," says Aaron Davies, OculusVR's director of developer relations. "It's not that games is the only right answer, but it's more about the fact that the interactive nature of games and the fact that we have 3D space as a firm concept within games lends itself well to a lot of other usage models."
Bringing VR into the world of film and media will require developers and directors to figure out how items and story parts are queued, how environments are handled, what the user perspective is and so on.
Even with those challenges in place, however, the concept of using VR to tell more interactive types of stories with game elements is exciting. When I think about the renaissance of 3D games in the mid-1990s, titles such as Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, helped usher in a new wave of storytelling in games that persists to this day. With VR, it has the potential to persist in a way that is truly cinematic.
What would be really incredible is if whole new stories could be told utilizing VR. I'm a big proponent of the second screen, especially when it comes to creating new ways of telling stories. VR is the ultimate second screen — because it's its own world.
VR and the Oculus Rift could also have an impact in the medical field. I'm not talking about virtual surgeries (although that would be cool for med students) but instead the burgeoning world of virtual reality immersion therapy (VRIT).
VRIT is a type of psychotherapy that is used as a way to treat patients who suffer from anxiety disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Clinical researchers such as Emory School of Medicine's Dr. Barbara Rothbaum and USC Keck School of Medicine's Dr. Skip Rizzo are actively involved in using VR as a way to treat traumatic brain injuries and PTSD. USC's Institute for Creative Technologies has used Virtual Iraq/Afghanistan exposure therapy to treat service members and veterans who are suffering from PTSD and other post-war stresses.
Dr. Rizzo, in fact, was among the first to receive the Oculus Rift developer kit. He told The Verge last year that "[the Oculus Rift] has the capacity to turn virtual reality into a mass-market treatment."
If I have any complaint about my limited time with the Oculus Rift, it's that it's still just a headset. Yes, Oculus Rift Crystal Cove adds support for a wider array of body movements, but the system is limited to your head and shoulder area.
After spending 20 minutes with the Rift, I was ready to take the VR experience to the next stage — full-body immersion, Kinect-style. Because the world inside the Rift's head-mounted display is so incredibly immersive, it begs to be taken to that next level.
The Oculus Rift and its ilk of VR headsets will change the way we engage with stories, play games and even approached medicine. I'm fully convinced that we will reach that level — sooner rather than later.
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