We all know that superbowl ads aren’t cheap. So picture this, I’m watching the super bowl, and an ad comes on for a mobile game app bearing the headline “Free to play”. I didn’t think much of it, until another “free-to-play” game app was advertised and my son told he me loves it.
Everywhere you look, people are walking around town, holding up their phones. They walk for a bit, then stop, They swipe up once or twice, then get a happy look on their faces. They walk along a little more, and do the same thing. In some places, people gather randomly to sit and hold up their phones, sometimes turning around, then swiping up, then smiling – or frowning – and smiling again. Nine times out of ten, that guy you just walked past is playing Pokemon Go. You overhear conversations about Zubats and Jigglypuffs and Meowths, You strike up a casual conversations with the server in the restaurant about how he caught over 50 by now, and he recommends going to to mall, its a great “attraction point”
Finally got a good, long session with the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive today and I can tell you that without a shadow of a doubt that virtual reality is the (near) future of gaming. The ability of these devices to provide a fully immersive experience is now real. The interesting thing about the two devices is that they are for completely different use cases. The Oculus Rift is perfect for seated gaming; it’s a direct successor to sitting in your chair and playing Call of Duty, while using your controller to walk around, duck behind stuff, shoot things and blow things up. It is a truly fully immersive experience, with no lag. The VR of today is definitely ready for prime time.
Even though I enjoy gaming – I haven’t had a chance to play anything for the longest time (used to be a huge World of Warcraft player – still have a level 66 Paladin I haven’t seen in a while) – I just find that spending time doing something which ultimately does not actually generate anything at the end, other than really just kill time (I know some of you out there are going – what do you mean – that’s the whole point of games!). I suppose if I was the kind of person who could spend hours entertaining myself with no result other that the amusement during play, then I’d be playing more often.