[HN Gopher] Will walled gardens rule VR?
___________________________________________________________________
Will walled gardens rule VR?
Author : davidburt
Score : 23 points
Date : 2023-02-02 15:32 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (worldish.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (worldish.substack.com)
| User23 wrote:
| Walled gardens rule all other gaming. It's not like I can take my
| rocket launcher from DOOM Eternal to Fortnite.
| johnday wrote:
| That's not what a walled garden is.
|
| You can't take the background from The Starry Night into the
| Mona Lisa either.
| User23 wrote:
| Yes you can[1].
|
| [1] https://i.etsystatic.com/25738870/r/il/992d57/2742618280/
| il_...
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| A better example is Epic creating exclusivity contracts
| preventing you from playing a game with your friends because
| they don't want to use a launcher outside of steam and won't be
| able to play it for another 12 months (BORDERLANDS WHY?)
| rektide wrote:
| Reciprocally, how much likelier a chance of success, how much
| greater would the building be & how much larger the audience, if
| this industry had open standards & joint efforts? "Create more
| value than you capture" talks to knowing that you have to give
| over significant control; "if you love it set it free."
| criddell wrote:
| Chance of success? VR is here now and it's successful. The
| Quest alone has sold something like 15 million units. What more
| do you want?
| BizarroLand wrote:
| That's about $600 million dollars in sales that Zuck spent
| $30 billion for. That is not a success.
|
| Aside from that, there's still no killer app in VR. It's all
| amusing toys that lose their luster. Superhot VR was fun,
| sure. Beatsaber is cool. VR Chat has its ups and downs.
|
| But nothing I think I could live in.
| criddell wrote:
| It's not a success for Meta, but it is for Superhot and
| Beat Games and some other studios. It's a success for
| consumers who have been using VR headsets for the past 30
| years and benefit from Meta's investment.
|
| VR will continue to get incrementally better and cheaper
| year-after-year. I think VR has established itself as the
| fourth big wave in gaming (after mobile games, console
| games, and PC games). I'm not sure why that isn't enough to
| be considered a great success.
| davidburt wrote:
| Agreed that we're still waiting for the killer app. The
| barriers to buying a headset is so large that social
| virality can't really take hold, even if people like a
| game.
|
| The first true VR hit might be something that integrates
| really well with mobile. Then VR power users can tell their
| friends, and they'll have an easy way to try it out.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| For a while; after some time probably an alternative store will
| appear that is full of crap.
| goldenchrome wrote:
| Of course it will. Mark Zuckerberg is pouring billions into VR in
| order to put up walls before anyone else. He has outlined plans
| to do so numerous times. They even changed the company name to
| signal their commitment! Meta faces a constant existential threat
| from MS and Apple since they don't own any desktop OS market
| share, a threat from Google and Apple since they don't own any
| browser market share, and a threat from Google and Apple since
| they don't own any mobile OS market share. That's why they're all
| in on VR/AR. It's the supposed next platform and they must win
| it.
|
| The only question is if it will actually become the next
| platform. I have no interest in VR or AR. I prefer the real
| world, thanks. There are already too many physical billboards.
| ilovecaching wrote:
| Absolutely. Tech companies already learned their lesson with the
| transition from the personal PC to the phone. VR will be even
| worse.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Yes VR will be all walled gardens. Juts look at Smart Phones for
| how this will go.
| trzy wrote:
| Yes, they will. The computer industry doesn't want to repeat
| IBM's loss of platform control. Mobile phones are walled gardens
| with very restrictive app models and one should expect VR and AR
| devices to be even more so.
|
| As an example, camera access is available on smart phones
| (cameras on phones being an established killer feature even
| before iOS and Android) but are completely off limits on all
| standalone VR headsets (Meta, Pico, HTC) for "privacy reasons".
|
| Expect other big players to lean into this.
| malermeister wrote:
| The EU will break this wide open with the Digital Markets Act.
| Even Apple is preparing to open their walled garden.
|
| Big players would do as you predicted if not for regulatory
| measures, that have thankfully been taken.
| trzy wrote:
| Color me skeptical. What will they open up? Even side-loading
| of apps doesn't necessarily remove the platform vendor's
| advantage in being able to control the system experience. For
| example, consider the way the app model itself has been
| designed: apps are standalone experiences (this is a
| simplification because there are some integration hooks into
| other parts of the system UX). I can think of several use
| cases where I might like a background "camera app" that
| monitors the system camera feed for certain objects/scene
| features and suggests an action when detected.
|
| It's hard to argue that Apple should have to permit such
| functionality but then if the debate shifts towards what
| first party OS level features Apple is and is not allowed to
| provide, we get into undesirable regulatory overreach.
|
| Ideally the OS would be open source and replaceable but
| that's a pipe dream. The reality remains that platforms are
| intentionally crafted to heavily favor the vendor's services
| and there's little that regulation will do to change that.
| nomel wrote:
| > but are completely off limits on all standalone VR headsets
| (Meta, Pico, HTC) for "privacy reasons".
|
| I think a headset that has the capability of exposing live
| video feed to apps is a headset that will be incompatible with
| business environments, and definitely incompatible with my
| home. The consideration of "private reasons" are extremely
| real. I don't see why this has to be "walled" though, since a
| standard could be used to expose object/hand/passthrough
| textures/whatever tracking, via an API.
|
| I think Meta's approach is what the majority will end up using:
| some AR API, with passthrough regions direct to the user, but
| the video feed of those outlines inaccessible to the app.
|
| The alternative is a NYT article about how "There are over a
| dozen cameras, in your bedroom, and hackers are watching!"
| articles. For reference, Quest pro has 16 cameras: 6 for the
| controllers, four for HMD tracking, one for color passthrough,
| 3 for the eyes, and 2 for the mouth. Considering giving apps
| access seems ludicrous, to someone who sometimes plays
| "Puzzling Place", in their underwear.
| chamwislothe2nd wrote:
| [dead]
| davidburt wrote:
| Even so, I do think we can expect a strong open web to emerge
| in VR. Some publishers & businesses will want to control the
| content & data they publish, which will push them to the open
| web. It's the same reason publishers don't publish all their
| content on Facebook.
|
| That said, it will certainly take a while for an open web to
| emerge. And in any case, it seems likely that walled gardens
| will always have a powerful place in the ecosystem.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| My Valve Index exposes the cameras seemingly as standard
| Windows USB webcams. It will accidentally show up in video
| calls sometimes.
| trzy wrote:
| Not a standalone headset and not really trying to be a
| platform :)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It depends on whether the EU etc force side loading to be an
| option
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Eventually, but if it explodes in popularity I'll abandon it in a
| flash. I don't want ads directly beamed into my eyes. If the
| internet is any example, it will be muddled and sullied by
| business types.
| mlindner wrote:
| I at least personally refuse to use any walled garden VR system.
| Importantly no one should be using any Facebook VR system.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I'm glad that Meta is making the Metaverse look bad, it should
| give us a few more years of fun before VR gets ruined.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-02-02 23:02 UTC)