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A Third of Valve Is Now Working on VR

296 points by jn1234 10y ago

jn1234 10y ago
The by far most interesting comment from the thread is this one (It's by Alan Yates who works on Vive/SteamVR) https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4osav8/lighthouse_tracked_osvr/d4geko7 https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4osav8/lighthouse_tra.... >Of course. We want AR/VR/MR to be ubiquitous. Over the past four years or so I've seen many companies big and small bring their demos to show and tell. They all have bits and pieces of the larger puzzle. Good eye tracking, interesting haptic techniques, next generation display technologies. But most of them are narrowly focused on their thing, and struggle alone to make a successful product. Partially this was just because the market didn't exist but also many of them were/are just trying to boil the ocean. The minimum viable product is now a pretty high bar and that can stifle innovation. We can offer a running start, the traditionally "hard" parts of HMD technology, the things other than GPUs that kept VR niche for so long. In return we ask that your device leveraging our technology works with our platform. And mostly that is it. We won't ask that it only works on our platform, we won't stop you from targeting other industries. This gives both you and your users freedom of choice and security that isn't dependant on either party's future decisions. It is a pretty good deal really. Our platform has a rapidly growing collection of great content for your end-users so your product won't be an orphan and you don't need to convince anyone to author for it. Day one people can fire up Tilt Brush and have their minds blown by your awesome new hardware. If Valve games are "locked" to SteamVR and won't play on Oculus, then nobody is going to buy an Oculus. Does Facebook really think that people are going to choose Lucky's Tale over Portal 3 or Half-Life 3? Facebook is going to have to capitulate and focus on their hardware advantage.
- ben174 10y ago
  Amazing to hear someone who works for Valve actually mention "Half-Life 3".
  - refulgentis 10y ago
    He didn't, that section is from the OP.
  - publicfig 10y ago
    I don't see where anyone working for Valve mentioned Half-Life 3.
  - bobbles 10y ago
    That paragraph wasn't part of the quote, it ends the sentence before "If Valve..."
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - douche 10y ago
    My god, I need to know what the hell the G-Man was really up to, and for Gordon to smash a few more head-crabs with his trusty crowbar.
- beloch 10y ago
  Exclusivity is a two-edged sword. What will happen to Steam if Valve locks others out of their market, but then one of those others produces the magic ingredient that makes VR really work well for the vast majority of people? For example, what if magic leap's multiple virtual focus planes turns out to be simply that good. This paragraph indicates that Valve seems to appreciate that no one company has really put together the whole package yet. If they know that, then perhaps they will be smart enough to open Steam's VR to the open market, even if that means supporting competitors like Oculus. At this stage, VR could still implode again like it did in the nineties. The smart move is to do what it takes to ensure there is a VR market a few years from now, not hamstring yourself worrying about who gets the biggest slice.
  - lewisl9029 10y ago
    > At this stage, VR could still implode again like it did in the nineties. The smart move is to do what it takes to ensure there is a VR market a few years from now, not hamstring yourself worrying about who gets the biggest slice. Definitely. And this is exactly why Oculus's emphasis on exclusivity has been so disappointing and short-sighted. Fragmenting the already small market consisting of people who believe in VR and are willing to invest in a VR platform at this early stage seems like it might have devastating long-term effects.
- alcari 10y ago
  But Valve hasn't locked out the Oculus. Plug one into a computer with Steam and it'll pop up a prompt to setup SteamVR just the same as plugging in a Vive. It even includes a link to Oculus-specific instructions: you need to set it up with the Oculus app and change a setting there to enable the Oculus device for use outside the Oculus store. (Source: anecdotal experience from plugging a Rift into a computer that didn't have a real GPU; no idea if there are any other issues.)
  - jn1234 10y ago
    True right now they are compatible, however it seems like that Facebook and Valve are on a collision course over what they think the ecosystem should be (and who is going to be the "winner").
    - dimino 10y ago
      Sounds to me more like the Apple Vs. Google "ecosystems". Sure, Google has a Play store and a competing OS, but it's not like you can't find Chrome in the iOS store.
      - dreeko_ 10y ago
        its interesting that you picked chrome as an example, with it being a wrapper around Apple's webkit on the iOS platform
        ewzimm 10y ago
        Chrome has had more than one JavaScript engine. They're all still Chrome to the user, and that's all that really matters. If they decide to rewrite the UI in Lisp and use Servo, it will still be Chrome in the ways that count, just like nobody cares if a game has DirectX and OpenGL versions. Different HMDs are arguably more similar than different GPUs, and they manage to support the same software, but in the early days there were plenty of Glide-only games. That didn't work out so well. Most people will probably just use tools that optimize for any popular HMD with little enough effort that only contracts will make exclusives make sense.
- deleted 10y ago
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- nilkn 10y ago
  It's the opposite. I think you might have misunderstood the quote. SteamVR fully supports the Rift. It even supports the unreleased Touch controllers which likely won't be out until the end of the year. And Valve has made no indication that they're going to change this. In fact, they've suggested that they're very serious about always supporting all HMDs.
  - elementalest 10y ago
    Yeah, there was no mention of locking out other HMD: > In return we ask that your device leveraging our technology works with our platform. And mostly that is it. We won't ask that it only works on our platform, we won't stop you from targeting other industries. This gives both you and your users freedom of choice and security that isn't dependant on either party's future decisions. As long as the HMD supports the steamVR platform requirements, it can play steam/valve games.
  - hobs 10y ago
    Because VR is just another way to sell games. They want you to know you can play your steam games on everything and that is their primary priority, and since things like games from steam can run on your Oculus (or whatever) they can sell you on a thousand experiences instead of one original sale.
    - jn1234 10y ago
      Until Facebook decides that it wants a cut of all the sales on Oculus and locks down the platform, hence Valve's concern. There's only one App store on iOS vs Android. Valve's main bargaining chip would be not allowing their games to run on Oculus. The recent push back on Oculus exclusives and Valve willing to float cash to developers means they are well aware of their situation.
      - elementalest 10y ago
        If Valve lock out the rift from their games, it just reinforces the exclusivity, lockouts and polarisation. Means less sales through steam, less profit for valve. If they lock out the rift, will they lock out all the other HMD that will surface in the next couple years? That will likely stunt the VR industry given how central the steam platform is to games distribution. Thats not what valve want. Valve want it to grow rapidly and sell as many games on their platform as they can. That means supporting as many HMD's as possible. Which entices developers to use the steamVR platform as it will reach the largest audience, which entices HMD makers to support steamVR... etc. So I really don't see how Valve is too concerned about this. If facebook locks down the rift so that it can only play rift games, more fool them. Many people just wont buy a rift. Even if the Vive fails in the long run, there will likely be many other HMD's that will work with steamVR. Valve can still make a nice profit from all the VR games sold on steam.
- JonathonW 10y ago
  The VR market right now feels kind of like the 3D accelerator market in the '90s, before Direct3D really came into its own, hardware manufacturers were still half-assing OpenGL support, and lots of games were programmed against vendor-proprietary APIs like Glide. Would be nice if people had actually learned from that and rallied around a standard API/middleware for VR to start with, rather than trying to "console-ize" VR with hardware-specific exclusives. Maybe Valve/SteamVR will end up being that middleware?
  - optforfon 10y ago
    Since people are still figuring out what makes good VR and good paradigms for programming with VR, I think it'd be likely that any design by committee API would be a disaster
    - ericflo 10y ago
      It doesn't matter much in practice - most people just use Unity or Unreal, which make it easy to target any major VR system. To the credit of these game engines, it's just not that hard to be compatible these days. That's why Oculus has started to use exclusivity contracts to gain an edge.
    - macspoofing 10y ago
      It wouldn't be the final word on VR API for all eternity. It's a starting point for the spec, which will change as the industry grows.
  - jmgrosen 10y ago
    That middleware exists: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr It supports both the Vive and the Rift, though I believe the Rift implementation is just a wrapper around Oculus' own SDK.
- tychuz 10y ago
  >Portal 3 or Half-Life 3? Aren't you overly optimistic. :)
- conceit 10y ago
  That's probably why they have John Carmack on board. Half Life was a mod to his Quake 2. They had a friendly, cooperative relation so far, so I wouldn't worry.
ProAm 10y ago
HL3-D
joezydeco 10y ago
Jeri Ellsworth of CastAR (ex-Valve AR/VR hardware guru) did an interview recently* where she mentioned that Valve was kind of "painting themselves in a corner" by gearing their system's performance to play AAA-title games. Now owners of those consoles will expect every game to be an AAA title. * http://embedded.fm/episodes/156 http://embedded.fm/episodes/156 @ 53:20
- laksjd 10y ago
  I don't quite follow her argument there. Valve's push for a powerful platform will just mean that games that don't aim to be VR-Crysis have plenty of performance to work with, making development much easier. The 'office simulator' example doesn't really seem to be about graphics, though, but about game length/most VR experiences being more tech demo than game. I don't think people are going to be surprised by that. The HMDs are so expensive, and at least right now, so are the GPUs that can drive them, that people won't just impulse buy them. People who are spending that much money on a niche hobby like this will most likely know exactly what they are getting.
  - spaceisballer 10y ago
    If AMD can come through with the RX480 and works with VR for around $199 USD. That makes VR a lot more accessible.
- Joof 10y ago
  Unlikely. Plenty of independent games are very popular on steam. This is more because they are good than because they require high performance.
- kirrent 10y ago
  It's much better to never release your product instead. You can't paint yourself into a corner if you never get out the rollers. Seriously though, I'd disagree with her statement. I play plenty of indie games in VR on a variety of headsets and the higher quality the headset the better the experience no matter what you're playing. It's like saying that people with a 4k monitor won't play games without high res texture options.
kendallpark 10y ago
Of all the gaming companies, Valve makes the most sense to be this heavily invested in VR--given their stake in the PC-industry. Or maybe too many devs thought VR was the coolist project to work on and moved to it. (Valve is known for their flat structure http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...)
- cleeus 10y ago
  > Or maybe too many devs thought VR was the coolist project to work on and moved to it. I think it's this. That's the problem with hype waves in majority-ruled organizations. Or I'm wrong and people will soon be sitting in the subway with a VR headset on and playing Fruit Ninja in VR.
  - gberger 10y ago
    Valve doesn't make games that you can play sitting in the subway.
    - lghh 10y ago
      Valve also doesn't make Fruit Ninja, but they were just trying to make a point.
      - milesokeefe 10y ago
        No, but they do profit from it being sold on their platform: http://store.steampowered.com/app/400760/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/400760/ Well, technically not the brand name, but hey close enough.
- usrusr 10y ago
  I'm quite sure it's a happy overlap of both: strategically, Valve needs to either be on top of VR or it would bet the farm on VR failing. If someone like Oculus managed to become The App Store for VR gaming, it would be "Valve over", just like if Microsoft ever managed to make the Windows app store attractive to gamers (or to anyone, unlikely to happen anywhere this side of 2060). At the same time, key innovations like the lighthouse position tracking system (which seems to be implemented in the Vive) have all the markings of genuine engineering curiosity. Curiosity of the kind that is unlikely to spring from a top-down "let's assign n man-years to VR" decision.
techdragon 10y ago
So one third of Valve is working on VR... absolutely definitely not working on Half Life 3 or Portal 3. Which pushes their possible/probable/hypothetical release dates even further into the future. :-(
- kin 10y ago
  Or... they could be working on Half Life 3 in VR?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    When you think about it, Half Life would actually be a prime setting for a VR game. The reason being that VR FPS work best when you can teleport rather than physically move (or move the camera through a continuous operation). Half Life always has had characters that can teleport, so it's not a big leap.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Additionally, HL3 will have to be big to wow fans, or it will be a disappointment. People have been waiting a long time, and riding the hype-train the whole way. The HL games were revolutionary, and, this would be another revolutionary step for them.
      - douche 10y ago
        Which is too bad. I really just want a conclusion to the story. If they used the old modified Quake Gold engine to deliver that, I would be psyched.
    - duskwuff 10y ago
      That seems like a bit of a stretch. While many of the Half-Life games have involved teleportation as a plot element, the vast majority of their gameplay has used more traditional methods of movement -- either walking or driving small vehicles.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
totoz 10y ago
Valvr
diziet 10y ago
VR is amazing and the opportunity is incredible. However, I am worried worried that the technology to produce high enough resolution displays will take some time to get here. Without smartphones driving the demand, will we get to 5-10k dpi displays for VR tech? We have 800 or so dpi displays rolling out, with current generation devices filling their FOV with about 500 dpi screens. We're driving 1.3-1.8m pixels per eye, but that is not enough if you want to pretend to gaze at something 20 meters away. The pixel density, especially in the center area of the display, should be much higher. Otherwise only abstract low polygon count content will work.
- conception 10y ago
  I'm also worried about the actual effects of motion sickness once it becomes actually mass consumer affordable. Generally, reports are that VR can be particularly rough for most folks.
  - diziet 10y ago
    There is a reason why most current demos or games do not give you full control of movement, and the demos that give you mouse / keyboard controls to move around a space with jerky accelerated motion do cause problems. I think we'll get better in time with control schemes and design that does not cause nausea.
  - woodman 10y ago
    As I understand it, the motion sickness is directly related to rendering lag. Outside of VR there isn't much of an incentive to reduce that lag - as the only people who really care much about it now are the most enthusiastic of PC gamers. There is a lot of buffering and synchronization between the software and our retinas right now, so the hardware advancement needed to enable motion sick free VR (low lag GPU and display) is going to have to come from a drive to specifically deliver motion sick free VR.
    - jobigoud 10y ago
      We already have virtually zero latency in VR at the moment thanks to predictive tracking and rewarping of the frames to the predicted head pose and direct driver support. The motion sickness is mostly coming from vection now, when you move in VR but not in real reality. It's an active area of research, people are experimenting with things like reducing the FOV while moving, using interactive overlaid grid to pull the scene around, etc.
danso 10y ago
The Valve publications page has a few slides and documents relating to Valve presentations regarding VR: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html One of my favorite tidbits comes in the presentation, "Lessons learned porting Team Fortress 2 to Virtual Reality", on preventing VR motion sickness: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/2013/Team_Fortress_in_VR_GDC.pdf http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/2013/Team_Fortress_... > Don’t change the user’s horizon line, ever. You can see here how the camera follows the motion and rotation of the character’s head and so it rolls. Your actual head isn’t going to roll when you get killed by an Eyelander, so the mismatch will make you sick. Here's the presentation's video, bookmarked at the aforementioned insight: https://youtu.be/Gpr0FE2ATaY?t=19m36s https://youtu.be/Gpr0FE2ATaY?t=19m36s For those of you non-TF2 players, the "Eyelander" is the name of a player-wieldable sword, and when it connects, the victim's head flies off and rolls around the ground. Apparently simulating that effect (changing the user's "horizon line") will make people very sick.
- taberiand 10y ago
  To be fair, being decapitated in such a way that your head bounces and rolls around will leave you feeling, at the least, very sick.
  - thekemkid 10y ago
    So what can be learned from this tidbit? Don't get decapitated.
- nabla9 10y ago
  Finally a way to have real punishment in video game.
  - drewrv 10y ago
    I look forward to playing an online game that punishes trolls with nausea!
    - 10y ago
ksec 10y ago
Side observation. So Valve now has an better VR Set then Oculus. And all of a sudden every news on VR seems to flowing in Valve direction. This reminds me a lot of the early days when we move from iD 's Doom to Valve's Half Life. Note: ( John Carmack = CTO of Oculus and Founder of iD )
- croon 10y ago
  I like competition as much as the next guy, but I'm happy as long as the more open platform is more popular. Wish Oculus took a different route.
  - deanCommie 10y ago
    My prediction: Valve VR will be the choice for hardcore games/gamers. Oculus VR will shift focus to more casual gaming (quick, fun, not graphically superior), and more importantly media consumption (think: Facebook live 360 video of major media events like E3, or ComicCon, and eventually paid subscription for viewing of live sporting events like courtside NBA games)
    - majewsky 10y ago
      So SteamVR = PC and Oculus = Console? If so, I need to go and join the glorious SteamVR master race. ;)
    - malchow 10y ago
      This. Facebook is more interested in VR for sports, messaging, telepresence, news, ads, and entertainment media than it is for games. Downside of that strategy is that the Valve/Vive bloc could produce radically superior technology because gaming creates seductive technical barriers to overcome. FB's intended uses do not.
      - fokov 10y ago
        Either Indy or F1 recently had a 360 degree view of the race from the top of the car. I could imagine some fans would love that for all types of racing (NASCAR included). Just turn your head to look left/right.
giskarda 10y ago
And in the meantime no Half Life 3. What about priorities?
- ungzd 10y ago
  They can outsource it to Chinese companies. Gamers nowadays are not choosy and will play anything that has "Half-life" franchise label on it, "Doom" of 2016 confirmed it.
JanneVee 10y ago
Why wouldn't they? The computer industry is stagnating because people can use phones and tablets for most of their computing needs. VR has the potential to drive sales of high-end hardware again. And Valve has skin in that game.
erikb 10y ago
Half Life 3 will have VR confirmed!
alimbada 10y ago
I've come to realise that Valve is no longer a game developer.
vocatus_gate 10y ago
I wish they would get back to what they used to do - make actual computer games. I still can't shake the nagging suspicion that the recent VR hype is just the product of the every-decade-or-so fad cycle (similar to what happened in the 80's with it).
- hew 10y ago
  Have you tried a headset yet? I think this time is different. I thought it sounded like an early adopter money pit myself until I actually tried a Rift. It won me over even while underpowered (MB Air!) in very simple demos.
baldfat 10y ago
Half-Life 3 on VR would be the killer app. It would be this generations Lotus 1 2 3. Though I personally feel VR for video games are a lot like Wii its awesome for a while then its collecting dust throughout the world. I really think the future is Augmented Reality and VR will be for mostly media consumption.
- levesque 10y ago
  I think the locomotion issues will be the end of this round of VR. Teleporting around the virtual space is not immersive by any means. Direct movement (e.g. with a joystick) with current head mounted displays automatically results in motion sickness for the majority of users. No solution in sight, as far as I know.
  - moron4hire 10y ago
    I've ran hundreds of demos on the DK2 over the last two years and in that time one person took the headset off because they felt weird. It's not "the majority of users" by any stretch. I don't know where you're getting your information from. And we're not talking about being pitched over, puking your guts out, either. It's a mild discomfort that only persists if the user tries to push through it. Locomotion is both difficult and overrated. I don't know how many people are going to want to physically run for cover in shooter game. Some will, for sure, but I expect new genres of games to become much more popular. There is also a huge segment of non-game usage that I expect to be the dominant use case for the tech. VR telepresence blows the pants off of Skype, even with cartoon avatars.
    - levesque 10y ago
      There are multiple testimonies on the internet about head mounted displays along with joystick movement inducing motion sickness. It gets worse as the pace of the movements increase. Haven't run any experiments myself, so perhaps you are right. What is the scale of the DK2 demo? If it is a room scale demo you can't infer much from it. The issue would be the addition of the joystick movement with the head movement, resulting in a final movement vector that is in conflict with your inner ear. Any of those two movements taken on their own (e.g. moving your head while standing still, or moving with joystick while keeping your head straight) would not result in any conflicting signal. Other applications of VR still apply, but this I believe will remain a major hinderance for FPS style games.
josefdlange 10y ago
Half-Life 3 Confirmed
partiallypro 10y ago
In all of my experiencing of the new VR products, I am firmly in the position that it's not ready for public consumption yet and won't be for quite some time. The only real reason it's being pushed hard is because people have a fear of missing out. Meanwhile, if I were a company I'd be focusing on AR, because at least there you can push for enterprise customers which won't need the full immersion yet that a general consumer will clamor for. (I also think AR has a much brighter future) I expect a lot of VR units are shown off to friends and thrown into the closet or put on a shelf to collect dust. It's something you show off, but not something you'll (at least 98% of people) use.
- burkaman 10y ago
  I think it's clearly not ready for anything like the adoption levels of consoles, but people who own VR products definitely use them. It's too expensive, too low resolution, and too clunky to conquer the world yet, but it's an excellent first generation. What you're describing sounds more like AR to me. Everyone I know who bought Google Glass showed it off to their friends and then never used it again. I know AR has obviously improved since then, but VR seems to be the more proven technology.
  - AJ007 10y ago
    The interesting thing is consoles aren't even the "big" market for games, mobile is. VR could hop past the console market size pretty quickly - though I suspect general media consumption may surpass the game use. (Gaming may win from a $ standpoint.) Magic Leap is certainly promising, and a more plausible iteration of mass AR than Google Glass. The final form factor on that isn't clear. I had the Dk1 and Dk2, and they both ended up in the closet largely because I don't have time for the game stuff. The Dk1 was especially hard to use and if you didn't get motion sickness you were really super human. The right questions to ask about VR aren't what the current or next gen can and can't do, or that if it's prices too high (seriously, the iPhone6 was like what $2 million of processing power in 1995? Not to mention things that were impossible.) The right question is do consumers want fully immersive media with sensory depravation to the outside world, or do they want some sort of Heads up display? Secondly, some motion sickness issues in VR may not be solvable, like what happens when you are riding in a moving car?
intrasight 10y ago
After reading this thread, I have to comments: 1. Exclusivity on a headset? Replace "headset" with "monitor" and you get how childish, stupid, and impractical that will be. 2. I don't think monitor based games will transition well to headsets.
blastofpast 10y ago
I wish Valve was publicly traded so that I can invest.
- ungzd 10y ago
  Invest in Clash of Clans, not this nostalgic shooter company. New generation never played such quakey games. Even Valve already knows that Half-life and so on has commercial value comparable to Nethack and is building new click-to-pay free-to-play mobile-first responsive disruptive VR-first AI-first isomorphic madness. http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11986712/tencent-supercell-softbank-majority-stake-acquisition http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11986712/tencent-supercell...
  - zelias 10y ago
    Valve would be a fantastic investment. Steam is essentially the app store for PC gamers -- which is an extremely dedicated (albeit smaller) userbase that consistently spends money buying and installing new games that come out on the platform (unlike actual mobile apps, installations of which are on the decline).
- rocky1138 10y ago
  As soon as a gaming developer or publisher becomes publicly traded, the quality of their games drops through the floor. I'm very happy that Valve is private.
  - blastofpast 10y ago
    You might be right, but it would still be interesting to see how a holocracy run company would cope with being public.
contingencies 10y ago
I've just spent a week here in Shenzhen, China. What was the most impressive thing? There are literally entire floors in the electronics markets here filled with VR headsets. Even if it's early stage hardware, someone has to be buying them. As for killer apps, like every other technology it's a fair bet that commercial success #1 will be porn. From a more cognitive standpoint, I've long felt that what segregates spatial awareness from other senses is the sheer volume of data that can be presented, reasoned with and remembered. As old school hunter-gatherer-wanderer primates, it's our highest bandwidth input. This reality will eventually be utilized for problem solving (eg. VR excel spreadsheet visualizations and black box / static code analysis may become a non-gimmick norm).
teslaberry 10y ago
VR is so yesterday. the vr of tomorrow is the matrix.
fnazeeri 10y ago
I have been using an Oculus Rift for a few weeks and the experience is breathtaking. For example, there is an Apollo 11 educational game where you get to experience the mission from the point of view of Neil Armstrong or Michael Collins. I think it is hard to argue that "experiencing" history isn't far superior than reading about it. And the pure games like EVE Valkrie give you a cold sweat they are so immersive. Just my The cost right now are high, but no more than an iPhone. I think mainstream isn't too far away. My $0.02 at least.

296 points by jn1234 10y ago

The by far most interesting comment from the thread is this one (It's by Alan Yates who works on Vive/SteamVR) https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4osav8/lighthouse_tracked_osvr/d4geko7 https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4osav8/lighthouse_tra.... >Of course. We want AR/VR/MR to be ubiquitous. Over the past four years or so I've seen many companies big and small bring their demos to show and tell. They all have bits and pieces of the larger puzzle. Good eye tracking, interesting haptic techniques, next generation display technologies. But most of them are narrowly focused on their thing, and struggle alone to make a successful product. Partially this was just because the market didn't exist but also many of them were/are just trying to boil the ocean. The minimum viable product is now a pretty high bar and that can stifle innovation. We can offer a running start, the traditionally "hard" parts of HMD technology, the things other than GPUs that kept VR niche for so long. In return we ask that your device leveraging our technology works with our platform. And mostly that is it. We won't ask that it only works on our platform, we won't stop you from targeting other industries. This gives both you and your users freedom of choice and security that isn't dependant on either party's future decisions. It is a pretty good deal really. Our platform has a rapidly growing collection of great content for your end-users so your product won't be an orphan and you don't need to convince anyone to author for it. Day one people can fire up Tilt Brush and have their minds blown by your awesome new hardware. If Valve games are "locked" to SteamVR and won't play on Oculus, then nobody is going to buy an Oculus. Does Facebook really think that people are going to choose Lucky's Tale over Portal 3 or Half-Life 3? Facebook is going to have to capitulate and focus on their hardware advantage.

ben174 10y ago
Amazing to hear someone who works for Valve actually mention "Half-Life 3".
- refulgentis 10y ago
  He didn't, that section is from the OP.
- publicfig 10y ago
  I don't see where anyone working for Valve mentioned Half-Life 3.
- bobbles 10y ago
  That paragraph wasn't part of the quote, it ends the sentence before "If Valve..."
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- douche 10y ago
  My god, I need to know what the hell the G-Man was really up to, and for Gordon to smash a few more head-crabs with his trusty crowbar.
beloch 10y ago
Exclusivity is a two-edged sword. What will happen to Steam if Valve locks others out of their market, but then one of those others produces the magic ingredient that makes VR really work well for the vast majority of people? For example, what if magic leap's multiple virtual focus planes turns out to be simply that good. This paragraph indicates that Valve seems to appreciate that no one company has really put together the whole package yet. If they know that, then perhaps they will be smart enough to open Steam's VR to the open market, even if that means supporting competitors like Oculus. At this stage, VR could still implode again like it did in the nineties. The smart move is to do what it takes to ensure there is a VR market a few years from now, not hamstring yourself worrying about who gets the biggest slice.
- lewisl9029 10y ago
  > At this stage, VR could still implode again like it did in the nineties. The smart move is to do what it takes to ensure there is a VR market a few years from now, not hamstring yourself worrying about who gets the biggest slice. Definitely. And this is exactly why Oculus's emphasis on exclusivity has been so disappointing and short-sighted. Fragmenting the already small market consisting of people who believe in VR and are willing to invest in a VR platform at this early stage seems like it might have devastating long-term effects.
alcari 10y ago
But Valve hasn't locked out the Oculus. Plug one into a computer with Steam and it'll pop up a prompt to setup SteamVR just the same as plugging in a Vive. It even includes a link to Oculus-specific instructions: you need to set it up with the Oculus app and change a setting there to enable the Oculus device for use outside the Oculus store. (Source: anecdotal experience from plugging a Rift into a computer that didn't have a real GPU; no idea if there are any other issues.)
- jn1234 10y ago
  True right now they are compatible, however it seems like that Facebook and Valve are on a collision course over what they think the ecosystem should be (and who is going to be the "winner").
  - dimino 10y ago
    Sounds to me more like the Apple Vs. Google "ecosystems". Sure, Google has a Play store and a competing OS, but it's not like you can't find Chrome in the iOS store.
    - dreeko_ 10y ago
      its interesting that you picked chrome as an example, with it being a wrapper around Apple's webkit on the iOS platform
      - ewzimm 10y ago
        Chrome has had more than one JavaScript engine. They're all still Chrome to the user, and that's all that really matters. If they decide to rewrite the UI in Lisp and use Servo, it will still be Chrome in the ways that count, just like nobody cares if a game has DirectX and OpenGL versions. Different HMDs are arguably more similar than different GPUs, and they manage to support the same software, but in the early days there were plenty of Glide-only games. That didn't work out so well. Most people will probably just use tools that optimize for any popular HMD with little enough effort that only contracts will make exclusives make sense.
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nilkn 10y ago
It's the opposite. I think you might have misunderstood the quote. SteamVR fully supports the Rift. It even supports the unreleased Touch controllers which likely won't be out until the end of the year. And Valve has made no indication that they're going to change this. In fact, they've suggested that they're very serious about always supporting all HMDs.
- elementalest 10y ago
  Yeah, there was no mention of locking out other HMD: > In return we ask that your device leveraging our technology works with our platform. And mostly that is it. We won't ask that it only works on our platform, we won't stop you from targeting other industries. This gives both you and your users freedom of choice and security that isn't dependant on either party's future decisions. As long as the HMD supports the steamVR platform requirements, it can play steam/valve games.
- hobs 10y ago
  Because VR is just another way to sell games. They want you to know you can play your steam games on everything and that is their primary priority, and since things like games from steam can run on your Oculus (or whatever) they can sell you on a thousand experiences instead of one original sale.
  - jn1234 10y ago
    Until Facebook decides that it wants a cut of all the sales on Oculus and locks down the platform, hence Valve's concern. There's only one App store on iOS vs Android. Valve's main bargaining chip would be not allowing their games to run on Oculus. The recent push back on Oculus exclusives and Valve willing to float cash to developers means they are well aware of their situation.
    - elementalest 10y ago
      If Valve lock out the rift from their games, it just reinforces the exclusivity, lockouts and polarisation. Means less sales through steam, less profit for valve. If they lock out the rift, will they lock out all the other HMD that will surface in the next couple years? That will likely stunt the VR industry given how central the steam platform is to games distribution. Thats not what valve want. Valve want it to grow rapidly and sell as many games on their platform as they can. That means supporting as many HMD's as possible. Which entices developers to use the steamVR platform as it will reach the largest audience, which entices HMD makers to support steamVR... etc. So I really don't see how Valve is too concerned about this. If facebook locks down the rift so that it can only play rift games, more fool them. Many people just wont buy a rift. Even if the Vive fails in the long run, there will likely be many other HMD's that will work with steamVR. Valve can still make a nice profit from all the VR games sold on steam.
JonathonW 10y ago
The VR market right now feels kind of like the 3D accelerator market in the '90s, before Direct3D really came into its own, hardware manufacturers were still half-assing OpenGL support, and lots of games were programmed against vendor-proprietary APIs like Glide. Would be nice if people had actually learned from that and rallied around a standard API/middleware for VR to start with, rather than trying to "console-ize" VR with hardware-specific exclusives. Maybe Valve/SteamVR will end up being that middleware?
- optforfon 10y ago
  Since people are still figuring out what makes good VR and good paradigms for programming with VR, I think it'd be likely that any design by committee API would be a disaster
  - ericflo 10y ago
    It doesn't matter much in practice - most people just use Unity or Unreal, which make it easy to target any major VR system. To the credit of these game engines, it's just not that hard to be compatible these days. That's why Oculus has started to use exclusivity contracts to gain an edge.
  - macspoofing 10y ago
    It wouldn't be the final word on VR API for all eternity. It's a starting point for the spec, which will change as the industry grows.
- jmgrosen 10y ago
  That middleware exists: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr It supports both the Vive and the Rift, though I believe the Rift implementation is just a wrapper around Oculus' own SDK.
tychuz 10y ago
>Portal 3 or Half-Life 3? Aren't you overly optimistic. :)
conceit 10y ago
That's probably why they have John Carmack on board. Half Life was a mod to his Quake 2. They had a friendly, cooperative relation so far, so I wouldn't worry.

ProAm 10y ago

HL3-D

joezydeco 10y ago

Jeri Ellsworth of CastAR (ex-Valve AR/VR hardware guru) did an interview recently* where she mentioned that Valve was kind of "painting themselves in a corner" by gearing their system's performance to play AAA-title games. Now owners of those consoles will expect every game to be an AAA title. * http://embedded.fm/episodes/156 http://embedded.fm/episodes/156 @ 53:20

laksjd 10y ago
I don't quite follow her argument there. Valve's push for a powerful platform will just mean that games that don't aim to be VR-Crysis have plenty of performance to work with, making development much easier. The 'office simulator' example doesn't really seem to be about graphics, though, but about game length/most VR experiences being more tech demo than game. I don't think people are going to be surprised by that. The HMDs are so expensive, and at least right now, so are the GPUs that can drive them, that people won't just impulse buy them. People who are spending that much money on a niche hobby like this will most likely know exactly what they are getting.
- spaceisballer 10y ago
  If AMD can come through with the RX480 and works with VR for around $199 USD. That makes VR a lot more accessible.
Joof 10y ago
Unlikely. Plenty of independent games are very popular on steam. This is more because they are good than because they require high performance.
kirrent 10y ago
It's much better to never release your product instead. You can't paint yourself into a corner if you never get out the rollers. Seriously though, I'd disagree with her statement. I play plenty of indie games in VR on a variety of headsets and the higher quality the headset the better the experience no matter what you're playing. It's like saying that people with a 4k monitor won't play games without high res texture options.

kendallpark 10y ago

Of all the gaming companies, Valve makes the most sense to be this heavily invested in VR--given their stake in the PC-industry. Or maybe too many devs thought VR was the coolist project to work on and moved to it. (Valve is known for their flat structure http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...)

cleeus 10y ago
> Or maybe too many devs thought VR was the coolist project to work on and moved to it. I think it's this. That's the problem with hype waves in majority-ruled organizations. Or I'm wrong and people will soon be sitting in the subway with a VR headset on and playing Fruit Ninja in VR.
- gberger 10y ago
  Valve doesn't make games that you can play sitting in the subway.
  - lghh 10y ago
    Valve also doesn't make Fruit Ninja, but they were just trying to make a point.
    - milesokeefe 10y ago
      No, but they do profit from it being sold on their platform: http://store.steampowered.com/app/400760/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/400760/ Well, technically not the brand name, but hey close enough.
usrusr 10y ago
I'm quite sure it's a happy overlap of both: strategically, Valve needs to either be on top of VR or it would bet the farm on VR failing. If someone like Oculus managed to become The App Store for VR gaming, it would be "Valve over", just like if Microsoft ever managed to make the Windows app store attractive to gamers (or to anyone, unlikely to happen anywhere this side of 2060). At the same time, key innovations like the lighthouse position tracking system (which seems to be implemented in the Vive) have all the markings of genuine engineering curiosity. Curiosity of the kind that is unlikely to spring from a top-down "let's assign n man-years to VR" decision.

techdragon 10y ago

So one third of Valve is working on VR... absolutely definitely not working on Half Life 3 or Portal 3. Which pushes their possible/probable/hypothetical release dates even further into the future. :-(

kin 10y ago
Or... they could be working on Half Life 3 in VR?
- deleted 10y ago
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- m_mueller 10y ago
  When you think about it, Half Life would actually be a prime setting for a VR game. The reason being that VR FPS work best when you can teleport rather than physically move (or move the camera through a continuous operation). Half Life always has had characters that can teleport, so it's not a big leap.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Additionally, HL3 will have to be big to wow fans, or it will be a disappointment. People have been waiting a long time, and riding the hype-train the whole way. The HL games were revolutionary, and, this would be another revolutionary step for them.
    - douche 10y ago
      Which is too bad. I really just want a conclusion to the story. If they used the old modified Quake Gold engine to deliver that, I would be psyched.
  - duskwuff 10y ago
    That seems like a bit of a stretch. While many of the Half-Life games have involved teleportation as a plot element, the vast majority of their gameplay has used more traditional methods of movement -- either walking or driving small vehicles.

deleted 10y ago

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totoz 10y ago

Valvr

diziet 10y ago

VR is amazing and the opportunity is incredible. However, I am worried worried that the technology to produce high enough resolution displays will take some time to get here. Without smartphones driving the demand, will we get to 5-10k dpi displays for VR tech? We have 800 or so dpi displays rolling out, with current generation devices filling their FOV with about 500 dpi screens. We're driving 1.3-1.8m pixels per eye, but that is not enough if you want to pretend to gaze at something 20 meters away. The pixel density, especially in the center area of the display, should be much higher. Otherwise only abstract low polygon count content will work.

conception 10y ago
I'm also worried about the actual effects of motion sickness once it becomes actually mass consumer affordable. Generally, reports are that VR can be particularly rough for most folks.
- diziet 10y ago
  There is a reason why most current demos or games do not give you full control of movement, and the demos that give you mouse / keyboard controls to move around a space with jerky accelerated motion do cause problems. I think we'll get better in time with control schemes and design that does not cause nausea.
- woodman 10y ago
  As I understand it, the motion sickness is directly related to rendering lag. Outside of VR there isn't much of an incentive to reduce that lag - as the only people who really care much about it now are the most enthusiastic of PC gamers. There is a lot of buffering and synchronization between the software and our retinas right now, so the hardware advancement needed to enable motion sick free VR (low lag GPU and display) is going to have to come from a drive to specifically deliver motion sick free VR.
  - jobigoud 10y ago
    We already have virtually zero latency in VR at the moment thanks to predictive tracking and rewarping of the frames to the predicted head pose and direct driver support. The motion sickness is mostly coming from vection now, when you move in VR but not in real reality. It's an active area of research, people are experimenting with things like reducing the FOV while moving, using interactive overlaid grid to pull the scene around, etc.

danso 10y ago

The Valve publications page has a few slides and documents relating to Valve presentations regarding VR: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html One of my favorite tidbits comes in the presentation, "Lessons learned porting Team Fortress 2 to Virtual Reality", on preventing VR motion sickness: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/2013/Team_Fortress_in_VR_GDC.pdf http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/2013/Team_Fortress_... > Don’t change the user’s horizon line, ever. You can see here how the camera follows the motion and rotation of the character’s head and so it rolls. Your actual head isn’t going to roll when you get killed by an Eyelander, so the mismatch will make you sick. Here's the presentation's video, bookmarked at the aforementioned insight: https://youtu.be/Gpr0FE2ATaY?t=19m36s https://youtu.be/Gpr0FE2ATaY?t=19m36s For those of you non-TF2 players, the "Eyelander" is the name of a player-wieldable sword, and when it connects, the victim's head flies off and rolls around the ground. Apparently simulating that effect (changing the user's "horizon line") will make people very sick.

taberiand 10y ago
To be fair, being decapitated in such a way that your head bounces and rolls around will leave you feeling, at the least, very sick.
- thekemkid 10y ago
  So what can be learned from this tidbit? Don't get decapitated.
nabla9 10y ago
Finally a way to have real punishment in video game.
- drewrv 10y ago
  I look forward to playing an online game that punishes trolls with nausea!
  - 10y ago

ksec 10y ago

Side observation. So Valve now has an better VR Set then Oculus. And all of a sudden every news on VR seems to flowing in Valve direction. This reminds me a lot of the early days when we move from iD 's Doom to Valve's Half Life. Note: ( John Carmack = CTO of Oculus and Founder of iD )

croon 10y ago
I like competition as much as the next guy, but I'm happy as long as the more open platform is more popular. Wish Oculus took a different route.
- deanCommie 10y ago
  My prediction: Valve VR will be the choice for hardcore games/gamers. Oculus VR will shift focus to more casual gaming (quick, fun, not graphically superior), and more importantly media consumption (think: Facebook live 360 video of major media events like E3, or ComicCon, and eventually paid subscription for viewing of live sporting events like courtside NBA games)
  - majewsky 10y ago
    So SteamVR = PC and Oculus = Console? If so, I need to go and join the glorious SteamVR master race. ;)
  - malchow 10y ago
    This. Facebook is more interested in VR for sports, messaging, telepresence, news, ads, and entertainment media than it is for games. Downside of that strategy is that the Valve/Vive bloc could produce radically superior technology because gaming creates seductive technical barriers to overcome. FB's intended uses do not.
    - fokov 10y ago
      Either Indy or F1 recently had a 360 degree view of the race from the top of the car. I could imagine some fans would love that for all types of racing (NASCAR included). Just turn your head to look left/right.

giskarda 10y ago

And in the meantime no Half Life 3. What about priorities?

ungzd 10y ago
They can outsource it to Chinese companies. Gamers nowadays are not choosy and will play anything that has "Half-life" franchise label on it, "Doom" of 2016 confirmed it.

JanneVee 10y ago

Why wouldn't they? The computer industry is stagnating because people can use phones and tablets for most of their computing needs. VR has the potential to drive sales of high-end hardware again. And Valve has skin in that game.

erikb 10y ago

Half Life 3 will have VR confirmed!

alimbada 10y ago

I've come to realise that Valve is no longer a game developer.

vocatus_gate 10y ago

I wish they would get back to what they used to do - make actual computer games. I still can't shake the nagging suspicion that the recent VR hype is just the product of the every-decade-or-so fad cycle (similar to what happened in the 80's with it).

hew 10y ago
Have you tried a headset yet? I think this time is different. I thought it sounded like an early adopter money pit myself until I actually tried a Rift. It won me over even while underpowered (MB Air!) in very simple demos.

baldfat 10y ago

Half-Life 3 on VR would be the killer app. It would be this generations Lotus 1 2 3. Though I personally feel VR for video games are a lot like Wii its awesome for a while then its collecting dust throughout the world. I really think the future is Augmented Reality and VR will be for mostly media consumption.

levesque 10y ago
I think the locomotion issues will be the end of this round of VR. Teleporting around the virtual space is not immersive by any means. Direct movement (e.g. with a joystick) with current head mounted displays automatically results in motion sickness for the majority of users. No solution in sight, as far as I know.
- moron4hire 10y ago
  I've ran hundreds of demos on the DK2 over the last two years and in that time one person took the headset off because they felt weird. It's not "the majority of users" by any stretch. I don't know where you're getting your information from. And we're not talking about being pitched over, puking your guts out, either. It's a mild discomfort that only persists if the user tries to push through it. Locomotion is both difficult and overrated. I don't know how many people are going to want to physically run for cover in shooter game. Some will, for sure, but I expect new genres of games to become much more popular. There is also a huge segment of non-game usage that I expect to be the dominant use case for the tech. VR telepresence blows the pants off of Skype, even with cartoon avatars.
  - levesque 10y ago
    There are multiple testimonies on the internet about head mounted displays along with joystick movement inducing motion sickness. It gets worse as the pace of the movements increase. Haven't run any experiments myself, so perhaps you are right. What is the scale of the DK2 demo? If it is a room scale demo you can't infer much from it. The issue would be the addition of the joystick movement with the head movement, resulting in a final movement vector that is in conflict with your inner ear. Any of those two movements taken on their own (e.g. moving your head while standing still, or moving with joystick while keeping your head straight) would not result in any conflicting signal. Other applications of VR still apply, but this I believe will remain a major hinderance for FPS style games.

josefdlange 10y ago

Half-Life 3 Confirmed

partiallypro 10y ago

In all of my experiencing of the new VR products, I am firmly in the position that it's not ready for public consumption yet and won't be for quite some time. The only real reason it's being pushed hard is because people have a fear of missing out. Meanwhile, if I were a company I'd be focusing on AR, because at least there you can push for enterprise customers which won't need the full immersion yet that a general consumer will clamor for. (I also think AR has a much brighter future) I expect a lot of VR units are shown off to friends and thrown into the closet or put on a shelf to collect dust. It's something you show off, but not something you'll (at least 98% of people) use.

burkaman 10y ago
I think it's clearly not ready for anything like the adoption levels of consoles, but people who own VR products definitely use them. It's too expensive, too low resolution, and too clunky to conquer the world yet, but it's an excellent first generation. What you're describing sounds more like AR to me. Everyone I know who bought Google Glass showed it off to their friends and then never used it again. I know AR has obviously improved since then, but VR seems to be the more proven technology.
- AJ007 10y ago
  The interesting thing is consoles aren't even the "big" market for games, mobile is. VR could hop past the console market size pretty quickly - though I suspect general media consumption may surpass the game use. (Gaming may win from a $ standpoint.) Magic Leap is certainly promising, and a more plausible iteration of mass AR than Google Glass. The final form factor on that isn't clear. I had the Dk1 and Dk2, and they both ended up in the closet largely because I don't have time for the game stuff. The Dk1 was especially hard to use and if you didn't get motion sickness you were really super human. The right questions to ask about VR aren't what the current or next gen can and can't do, or that if it's prices too high (seriously, the iPhone6 was like what $2 million of processing power in 1995? Not to mention things that were impossible.) The right question is do consumers want fully immersive media with sensory depravation to the outside world, or do they want some sort of Heads up display? Secondly, some motion sickness issues in VR may not be solvable, like what happens when you are riding in a moving car?

intrasight 10y ago

After reading this thread, I have to comments: 1. Exclusivity on a headset? Replace "headset" with "monitor" and you get how childish, stupid, and impractical that will be. 2. I don't think monitor based games will transition well to headsets.

blastofpast 10y ago

I wish Valve was publicly traded so that I can invest.

ungzd 10y ago
Invest in Clash of Clans, not this nostalgic shooter company. New generation never played such quakey games. Even Valve already knows that Half-life and so on has commercial value comparable to Nethack and is building new click-to-pay free-to-play mobile-first responsive disruptive VR-first AI-first isomorphic madness. http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11986712/tencent-supercell-softbank-majority-stake-acquisition http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11986712/tencent-supercell...
- zelias 10y ago
  Valve would be a fantastic investment. Steam is essentially the app store for PC gamers -- which is an extremely dedicated (albeit smaller) userbase that consistently spends money buying and installing new games that come out on the platform (unlike actual mobile apps, installations of which are on the decline).
rocky1138 10y ago
As soon as a gaming developer or publisher becomes publicly traded, the quality of their games drops through the floor. I'm very happy that Valve is private.
- blastofpast 10y ago
  You might be right, but it would still be interesting to see how a holocracy run company would cope with being public.

contingencies 10y ago

I've just spent a week here in Shenzhen, China. What was the most impressive thing? There are literally entire floors in the electronics markets here filled with VR headsets. Even if it's early stage hardware, someone has to be buying them. As for killer apps, like every other technology it's a fair bet that commercial success #1 will be porn. From a more cognitive standpoint, I've long felt that what segregates spatial awareness from other senses is the sheer volume of data that can be presented, reasoned with and remembered. As old school hunter-gatherer-wanderer primates, it's our highest bandwidth input. This reality will eventually be utilized for problem solving (eg. VR excel spreadsheet visualizations and black box / static code analysis may become a non-gimmick norm).

teslaberry 10y ago

VR is so yesterday. the vr of tomorrow is the matrix.

fnazeeri 10y ago

I have been using an Oculus Rift for a few weeks and the experience is breathtaking. For example, there is an Apollo 11 educational game where you get to experience the mission from the point of view of Neil Armstrong or Michael Collins. I think it is hard to argue that "experiencing" history isn't far superior than reading about it. And the pure games like EVE Valkrie give you a cold sweat they are so immersive. Just my The cost right now are high, but no more than an iPhone. I think mainstream isn't too far away. My $0.02 at least.