Much of what he was talking about in 2014 has come true now. If we see the same rate of progress VR will actually be in a pretty good spot to be successful in 2020. Many of the complaints about VR now are solvable problems, specifically:
- It's too bulky or uncomfortable
- It's too expensive
- There isn't enough good content
- There aren't any killer apps
- Resolution is too low (and relative optics, screen quality and FOV issues)
- Its not wireless
All of these problems are actively being worked on. I'd argue that there is core tech missing from the current round of VR headsets that will come later and enable exciting applications.
My future concerns with the VR market are consumer perception, which might cause people to reject VR or AR even if a killer device with a killer app comes to market, and the larger existential issue of people will never want to interact with software in 3D space, and something about 2D (or text, or speech\audio) is inherently more convenient or easier to grasp. The former issue can be solved by good marketing, word of mouth, but the later can't.
On HN the most commonly mentioned "killer app" for VR is infinite 2D screens, which is one of the most boring and unimaginative thing you can do with VR. AR "killer apps" tend to be equally boring, floating notifications and maps. Occasionally people mention telepresence, but its largely still straightforward applications like live event streaming or teleconferencing.
A high quality AR\VR device with the proper infrastructure could essentially give people limited super powers, think time travel, teleportation, conjuring\illusion, being in multiply places at the same time, reality remix, etc.
Compare with this "Valve CEO: 'We're comfortable with the idea that VR will turn out to be a complete failure'" as it was titled on reddit which is much less clickbaity but still cuts off important part of the full quote...
It's not so much that either cuts off the quote. It's a quotable soundbite within the context of a longer discussion about how many VR predictions are overhyped, especially in the short term.
Headlines are always "clickbaity" whether they're online or in a dead tree newspaper. They exist to grab your attention and make you read. If I were writing a headline based on this topic, I'd choose something along the same lines. It's not nuanced but it's not misleading either.
I guess I don't see the problem. Articles are not scientific papers. Opinions can differ but "Gabe Newell gives his views on VR" as a headline will be rewritten by approximately every editor on the planet.
Maybe it's because I'm not a native speaker, but for me the quote was all about Valve and was not giving bleak predictions about whole market as the headline implies.
Here, for comparison, the way I parse the quote:
A) "We're optimistic. We think VR is going great" - overall assessment of the situation, WE think = Valve perspective
B) "It's going in a way that's consistent with our expectations," - OUR expectations were realistic and not overhyped, it's going as planned
C) "we're also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure." - because A and B we expect VR to do well, but as a company Valve is ready to face the risk of VR being failure
D) "Some people have got attention by going out and saying there'll be millions of [VR unit sales] and we're like, wow, I don't think so," - slow initial growth is within Valve's expectation
Later some issues with current state of the technology as well lack of killer app are mentioned, but [B] Valve expected VR to be not perfect at the start and [A] it's doing well by their criteria. [C] is for me only about Valve the company being OK if VR fails not about VR actually failing.
Here's the quote for people who read comments first:
"We're optimistic. We think VR is going great. It's going in a way that's consistent with our expectations," says Newell. That said, "we're also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure.
"Some people have got attention by going out and saying there'll be millions of [VR unit sales] and we're like, wow, I don't think so," Newell continued.
The thing about valve, and I don't mean this as a criticism, but I have to imagine Steam is basically their business now. The games and the VR stuff are fun side projects that hopefully turn out well, but they're pretty much just printing money by being the publisher of almost every game.
The reason SteamVR exists is because if VR is successful, then it could have been a point where customers could have jumped to another storefront.
By establishing SteamVR, and attempting to make SteamVR work with any headset, valve has basically ensured that if VR does turn out to be successsful, Steam will still be the shop you use to buy the games for it.
They managed to cut off a possible existential threat to their steam business model that could have come in the future.
If you watch the interview, Valve is still pretty damn optimistic about it.
It's just that they see it as an ongoing experiment so they're okay with this iteration of it failing probably because they haven't bet the farm on it.
I understand your perspective, but don't agree with the underlying message. Optimism is what encourages people to take risks. Ultimately, all progress depends on those who are hopelessly optimistic - even if they end up failing in their endeavors.
VR is bulky, expensive, technologically still very rough, and there is currently no content that makes anyone excited to get home to get a few more hours of it every night.
These are all issues that can be solved by technology - a lightweight wireless HMD with 8k per eye that requires no other device for full body tracking would tell a much more compelling story, but we are probably many many years away from that.
But that doesn't solve the core problems with such a device: it is inherently antisocial (who wants to watch a movie with their boyfriend with the two of you having a HMD strapped to your head, even if it gives you an amazing IMAX like experience?) and would be dangerous to wear anywhere but in the comfort of your couch. This guarantees that there'd never be any consumer use for it beyond hardcore movie/video game enthusiasts. Some interesting niche industrial applications are emerging, and that is likely to continue, but my mom won't buy one like she bought a Nintendo DS.
The usual counter argument to this is "well AR solves all of that!" - but then the required technology puts us decades away from any realistic product.
It's not inherently antisocial. It's just easier to make "experiences" that are passive and singular, so it's going to take a while for developers to adapt more complex interactions. There are early examples though: http://elevr.com/some-rather-different-social-vr-experiments...
The problems with VR can be solved of course, but does VR itself solve any problems? (other than niches like flight simulators). I'm not writing it off just yet, but being myself a huge nerd that could program VR stuff, all I can think is like "ok but what do I use this for?" and I keep drawing a blank.
VR is inherently antisocial in the same way that the internet and websites are. There is a small amount of value to local social interactions (watching youtube together, playing VR game while friends watch what you're seeing on the TV).
The enormous social benefit is remote. You can have a social interaction with any of the BILLIONS of people throughout the world that are connected via the internet. You can connect with friends and relatives that live thousands of miles away.
I'm not going to be in VR 24 hours a day, but if I can hang out with a friend twice a week that lives in England, how is that anything but "social"?
> VR is inherently antisocial in the same way that the internet and websites are.
I don't agree with this. It's much easier to be aware of your surroundings when you're just looking at a monitor versus having a full helmet strapped onto your head; you can't even notice someone walking into the room, let alone acknowledge them.
> The enormous social benefit is remote. [...] You can connect with friends and relatives that live thousands of miles away.
I don't agree with this either. A video call is much more interactive, since you can actually see their face to read their reactions to things or even show them what you're currently doing. With VR, at best all you get is a rough interpretation of them presented as an avatar in a virtual environment. You'll never get a video of their face, since it's covered by the gear, nor can you quickly pan around to show your surroundings, new car/baby, etc.
> But that doesn't solve the core problems with such a device: it is inherently antisocial
Have you tried VR before? I've played paintball and gone on quests with people all over the world with my Vive. VR is the complete opposite of anti-social.
> VR is bulky, expensive, technologically still very rough, and there is currently no content that makes anyone excited to get home to get a few more hours of it every night.
Not only that, we had "VR" (with shutter goggles) 20 years ago that you could have said exactly the same thing about, and exactly the same thing happened. The hype train failed to stop at reality station, jumped the tracks, rolled down an embankment, and burst into flames. VR lived on in niche applications. Just like it's going to this time.
Yup, I bought my first 3d gaming setup in the early 90s. The sega master system. It took 20 years just to get back there, maybe we can at least get another good port of Zaxxon.
> a lightweight wireless HMD with 8k per eye that requires no other device for full body tracking would tell a much more compelling story, but we are probably many many years away from that.
It doesn't need to be that fancy. Current resolution with perfect positional tracking on a mobile device with 2hr battery life, finger tracking, and photogrammetric passthrough could tell 90% of the "compelling story" your 8k device is for. And you could definitely make experiences in it worth a $400 price point.
We could be as little as 2-3 years from a device like that? At at a premium price point at least.
Remember that people had no problem staring at 320x240 screens, as long as you didn't make them jump around in a pukey way.
I'm pretty sure that, apart from niche applications like NSFW stuff and 3D work done while sitting, VR will be replaced by advanced AR. Main reason: people bumping into walls, tripping over things...
> I'm pretty sure that, apart from niche applications like NSFW stuff and 3D work done while sitting, VR will be replaced by advanced AR.
I'm not sure 3D work done while sittings really a particularly niche application, unless you interpret "work" narrowly (in which case, I just think it's wrong.)
And, in any case, advanced AR is many years behind VR and mostly builds on top of it (it requires solving a super of the problems required for successful VR) so VR could be quite successful even if that was true in the long term.
> I'm not sure 3D work done while sittings really a particularly niche application
Makes me wonder if programming could benefit from the 3D screen that a VR headset effectively provides. (And I mean this in a completely neutral way: I really wonder, and need to think about it.)
I invested a lot in VR in 2016. I got both a Vive and a Rift (with Touch too when it launched late last year).
It was a lot of fun at first. I don't use it at all anymore and am selling all my equipment. Not even the potential of upcoming VR titles is enough to tempt me to keep it.
None of my friends even ask to demo any of it. They lost interest faster than they did for Wii Sports years ago.
* Image quality is bad.
* Hardware requirements are still very high. I have a very high-end machine and VR titles like Raw Data still do not run very well.
* The locomotion problem is not being solved. It's been a year. I never adapted to it either.
* The headsets are not comfortable. Both of them are painful for me to wear after ~30 minutes.
* Rift+Touch tracking is bad and more or less completely broken for many users.
* The front-facing configuration championed by Oculus is not enough. You'll instantly want more.
* Clearing out space for room-scale is a big pain. I'm looking at new apartments and am facing up to the reality that the Vive is a huge constraint.
* It's very anti-social. Honestly my SO does not like it when I use a VR device because it completely shuts her out.
* The base equipment is still far too expensive for the quality of the experience.
* There's very little worthwhile content. People are still talking about Space Pirate Trainer. That's a little demo that has been available for a year, but it's still considered one of the main titles.
* I was most excited about Budget Cuts when I got the Vive. It was heavily hyped months before the Vive was even available for preorder. It's still not out with no announced release date either. That'll be an amazing title for sure, and I will regret not being able to play the finished version whenever it does finally come out.
I encourage everyone to try it. It's a ton of fun at first. But think hard about whether you'll stay interested after a few months and whether it's worth the effort of setting up, clearing out space, keeping your gaming machine up-to-date with the latest hardware, etc.
Your second to last point seems to be the biggest problem right now, and that's not going to change until requirements have come down to what the average pc gamer can reasonably be expected to have available. No one wants to make games for a platform with such a low adoption rate.
Your comment got killed for some reason, so I vouched for it. I completely agree. VR seems to be a gimmick right now. Too many technical challenges and not fast enough adoption.
I think his first three points are the main problem. Image quality, latency and systems requirements. They are all linked.
VR hardware is great step-up from the common gaming setups, where you only have to render a single scene @ 30-60 FPS and display it on a monitor @ >1080p. VR is much more involved than that. Not only do you need to render the scene twice, but you have to do it at a resolution >4k per eye (which probably isn't even enough to satisfy all users), and on top of you should do it in <20ms or something in that order, to be sure nobody gets sick. _including_ position tracking.
The rest of your points can be solved, once we can mass-produce hardware that meets the specs.
I'm sure there's someone working on a headset that tracks eye movements and adjusts the rendered resolution of the image on the fly. The human eye has something like 4-5 megapixels worth of photo receptors, but the absolute majority of them are located in a relatively tiny area of your FOV where your eyes focus on.
On the other hand, I've also seen forum threads about blockbuster games like FFXV that are getting VR support, and many of the comments are "why bother? 3D wouldn't add anything to this sort of game anyway."
Which is complementary to the point about it being anti-social. If everyone got into it, it'd be worth it and wouldn't be so anti-social, within certain aggregates (like a family that games together). Whether those aggregates are worth it or not to the individuals depends on the quality, or aesthetic, of the experience.
This is what I'm waiting for. Easy bar to set for any new gaming tech.
I thought maybe some existing games like War Thunder would be best for taking advantage of VR: a plane simulation where being able to easily look around you would be exhilarating and useful. Here's one guy's experience with a Vive:
So, beautiful but flawed. I've played and burned out on War Thunder already, so it's not a selling point, but I was hoping there would be more by now. Doesn't seem like there is, and it sounds like the resolution and refined experience isn't quite there yet.
Perhaps there's something wrong with me, but even if the image quality was great I can't really see why looking at sex in VR is all that much different to watching a video. Are we imagining some kind of scary tactile peripherals?
For a number of reasons, VR arguably works best today (and maybe tomorrow) if you're basically sitting in a chair and looking around. (Otherwise, you need a lot of space and still lack the sort of physical feedback that a fully immersive experience would ideally have.) But then, are you really improving much over a good multi-monitor setup?
Interesting though that in War Thunder the reviewer said it didn't give you an overall advantage, and it was probably a detriment. Maybe it's different with Elite dangerous; I guess vertical threats are more likely when climbing against gravity isn't an issue?
I'm an experienced player using HOTAS setup and its not enough. You need eye/head tracking if you are doing complex manouvers, I run sometimes out of fingers/buttons :D
Yeah - well you can find multiple videos on YT that show you how it helps to position your ship against an enemy that tries to get on your tail using all the vectors that are not possible for planes :-)
You don't play Onward? Everyone should play Onward.
I don't get sick from movement because the ground textures are plain. Running in place while moving is also wonderful for acclimation to artificial movement.
If Onward was the only VR game in existence, I would pay roughly half of the Vive's sticker price for just that. I am very excited for later iterations of that game, as well as higher budget knockoffs that may come in the future. But I could play the current version for years if necessary.
With you on most of your points though. I wish the built in camera wasn't attached to the virtual controller - it makes it hard to use and thus very antisocial.
It occurs to me that "prosumer" military sims will probably prop up continued VR development even if the consumer-gaming market stops caring. Just like the US Interstate is mostly there to be a military logistics system, and smart-phone GPS is a pure "side-effect" of ICBM guidance systems, I could imagine that we get cheap VR mostly as a side-effect of the military demanding cheaper and higher-fidelity training simulation software. Stuff like http://www.prepar3d.com fits VR so well it's crazy.
>US Interstate is mostly there to be a military logistics system
Eisenhower certainly played the military need card. It's unclear to what degree that was actually his primary motivation.
>smart-phone GPS is a pure "side-effect" of ICBM guidance systems
Military, yes, to a large degree but not ICBMs specifically. If ICBMs are going off you can't depend on GPS still being operational. ICBMs rely primarily on inertial guidance with a star sight around apogee to provide any corrections.
>It's very anti-social. Honestly my SO does not like it when I use a VR device because it completely shuts her out.
I considered getting a VR headset just to stay current with technology but decided not to largely for this reason. With a wife and kid it's hard enough to occasionally play games but at least if I do I can still have a casual conversation while I play.
> Rift+Touch tracking is bad and more or less completely broken for many users
Interesting. Admittedly I've only had the opportunity to try the Rift/Vive for around an hour or so total, but I've never really experienced either of these issues, at least in the games I tried (Fantastic Contraption and The Unspoken). The tracking was flawless (except during the one or two times I got outside the range of cameras/lighthouses, but that only happened because the demos were using a 2-sensor configuration, so my body could block the line-of-sight if I turned the wrong way), and image quality was good enough to not be noticeable. Did you only start noticing these problems after using the headsets for a long time, or was it an issue for you right out of the gate?
> The locomotion problem is not being solved.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the big issue with that that it's easy to get motion sick if you move around at all in VR? Don't most games solve the problem by letting you teleport instead? How do you feel about the titles which don't require you to move around at all in-game?
> It's very anti-social.
This has been true in my experience, but only to the extent that any other type of video game is. Are there no good local multiplayer experiences in VR yet?
Personally I'm still thinking of getting myself a Vive or Rift, but probably not for a year or so. My plan is to wait and see what the second-generation devices look like.
There's a chicken and the egg situation with content and the sets. They haven't sold enough to make it worth it financially to build AAA game titles. Part of the recent Valve news is them announcing that they're going to try and fix that situation by releasing 3 games of their own for VR (and not caring necessarily if they are "failures").
Two incredible things to look at with respect to the promise of VR:
1. Multiplayer Climbey - multiple people in VR jumping and trying to grab each others hands, not fall off the building, etc. hilarious and very social. Should also mention, that's a user created building.
2. Google Earth VR - this video is from the Giant Bomb crew who are typically a little cynical and have been fairly underwhelmed with VR in general for games. But they all LOVED this: "...it might not work for the folks at home, but this shit is profound and crazy."
Most of the points brought up are things that I am particularly watching the "Windows Holographic" efforts for, in the hopes they pull it off as well as they seem to be implying that they can. Microsoft seems to be prioritizing social and locomotion and room-scale issues, both for HoloLens AR and also the opaque MR headsets expected to release soon.
As you point out, it can be tough to clear out entire rooms for room-scale, so recognition of real world obstacles seems paramount to proper enjoyment (regardless of how much you think that is immersion breaking).
Socially sharing the same spaces together with friends/family I think is more important than a lot of people at first realize. It's especially important for business applications and things that aren't games, but even in games, cooperative sharing of spaces may be the defining difference between good games and great games.
Even projects like "Spectator Mode" allowing cameras to share in the spaces seems like important baby steps to breaking VR/AR/MR out of its shell and more to something that enriches the spaces around us rather than locks us in and closes us out.
I for one think that's the direction all of this needs to go in order to be more than just a toy, more than just the flavor of the month ViewMaster for adults with big enough budgets.
To me, make VR available as the primary "desktop" for a system and you might have a better market. Why buy more monitors when you can just look sideways?
Nearly zero people get motion sickness in VR if there is no locomotion involved. Sitting still, looking side to side at virtual monitors in front of you will feel great for pretty much everyone.
In terms of actually having a viable workstation, you'll need to wait until the resolution of these headsets gets high enough for easy text reading, which is 2-3 years out at this point.
>> Nearly zero people get motion sickness in VR if there is no locomotion involved.
I probably used the wrong term. Substitute `nauseated` in place of `motion sickness`. When you say "locomotion" do you mean the player physically moving, or movement in the virtual space?
I get nauseated just watching a first person shooter on a normal monitor. I also tried one of those VR goggles that you stick a phone in and wanted to hurl after about a minute of watching a roller coaster simulation.
Also, a lot of people are having trouble wearing the current generation of headsets for more than an hour or so. Now imagine an 8-hour workday. So in addition to more pixels, the weight and bulkiness also needs to come down. The HoloLens is going in the right direction there, but weight could still be less.
The iPad was and is one of the most successful electronic products ever. It's growth has absolutely slowed down, and is in a slight contraction right now, but it's still selling over 40 million units per year (from a peak of ~70M per year). To compare, Apple sells about 19M Macs per year.
The iPad can only be claimed as a failure compared to investors' expectations, or compared to the iPhone. In the most recent quarter (Q1 2017), Apple sold 13.1 MILLION of them. Over 6 billion dollars of product sold in one quarter sounds pretty great to me.
Sure, from a capitalist perspective it was a great product. It created an entire market and earned lots of revenue.
However, ownership more than doubled and internet usage stayed flat/declined. We succeeded at making people want something, but it was not something they needed.
I know that everyone wants to dump on Valve because of the HL3 situation, but these kinds of interviews always end up bringing me back around to Valve's side. If there's one thing I really respect about Gabe Newell, it's his Steve Jobs-ian dedication to making sure that he doesn't release something until it's good enough for him. I also happen to think that he's totally right, in this particular case.
I probably spent about $5k+ on VR between the Oculus, Vive, my PC hardware, and a few games. I was lucky enough to be able to get in early so I got discounted pricing on a lot of the stuff and made some money back selling old dev kits and whatnot. VR is absolutely not within reach of the average consumer in any kind of palatable way. Sony VR, IMO, is just not compelling for users when you factor in that you have to buy a PS4, the camera, some move controllers (potentially) and all for a pretty cool but ultimately short-lived experience. Until we get some games, apps, and experiences that are repeatable and re-usable, VR is just going to be this niche thing. I can see exactly where Gabe is coming from and, like some other comments have said, I think he's going to be ready to sing the success of VR when there's a very low barrier of entry - wireless HMD, body tracking, prop tracking, and, most of all, when it's comfortable and an actual experience.
As a developer a killer app for this would be telepresence.
I envision a time where I can just put on a headset and I'm in the companies virtual coding room. Other developers join in whatever timezone they are in. You could have developers who are in company HQ and remote all over the world.
Each developer could be locked into what ambient sound they are in and then can connect to 1 or more people in the room to talk.
Want to screen share between 1 or 2 people, then a screen pops up virtually and these people could debug code, diagrams, whatever it may be.
When I'm coding, it's on my laptop but simultaneously coding on the VR one as well. I could share that screen and a coder in another country in real-time could collaborate or have a fresh pair of eyes immediately.
Imagine being on a viral IRC with coders all over the world, working on an open-source project as if they were right there next to you?
When I say this, everyone is connected to the virtual world. Not as a floating orb, but an actual body. They can see your face, emotions, hear your voice.
I think it would be a game changer!
------------
Other uses could be 360 degree concerts. Where you can choose whatever vantage you want.
The possibilities are endless for VR, it really just takes someone to keep polishing that use-case. It's not going to be a home run for another few iterations at least!
What resolution is necessary to read standard text with VR? I'd imagine it would start to become usable for this at 4k per eye, and even then I suspect it would be limited.
4k per eye would definitely be good enough. Text still wouldn't be crisp and clean, but it would be very readable.
VR headsets don't distribute pixels evenly across the entire view-space, the lenses concentrate the pixels toward the middle of your vision. So if for example you had a display that took up the center 25% of your vision in VR, it might have 50% of the actual display pixels. 50% of 4k is 1080p.
So you'd end up with a display that looks pretty large, but is only 1080p. Not optimal, but definitely usable.
I'm skeptical... what problem does telepresense solve that IM/slack/email doesn't? Generally speaking if I'm working remotely it's either because I want to be left alone (IE: I don't want to be in a room with people, virtually or otherwise), or for some reason I need to be disconnected in time and space. The only thing I can think of telepresense saving is maybe commute time. That's not nothing, but I'm probably not spending thousands on it either.
That was my thought exactly. To have a meeting in 3D space (maybe more domain of Hololens than Vive or Oculus) would be awesome. Kind of like the Jedi Council meetings in the prequel trilogy - http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/6f/Cou...
Who knows. IMO, VR needs a huge technological advance (or multiple of) and low price in order to start making advances. Content potential is great, technology still isn't and is expensive. It won't replace all media, it has it's own content scheme. People talking about watching movies in VR doesn't make sense. Some will, yeah. Some new types of movies will be there, but VR has it's own thing content-wise.
There's this other thing though. Augmented reality. Technology is kind of here and inexpensive. If you have a relatively modern phone you have AR access, maybe not the latest and greatest, but it's there. Yet, I think that one is a complete failure so far. So many false starts! Content is gimmicky at best and it seems people don't care at all about the technology or potential about it. It's commodity now. When AR happens, it's great (see Pokemon Go, Eyetoy, etc.), but it doesn't live for long (see Pokemon Go, Eyetoy, etc.). Where's AR headed?
While I agree VR isn't the be all end all for cinema, I kind of hope you are down playing the medium of VR film. Being present in a scene rather than being forced a perspective has some very cool possibilities.
It may turn out to be a novelty, but it may be an important one.
I do agree that AR is a huge gimmick that probably won't be solved until VR is firmly established
I'm not downplaying VR film at all. I just think it is (will be) its own thing. In fact, it will be a new type of theatrical expression in its own right. Somewhat more akin to theatre, street theatre and probably interactive. It will not supplant film at all, it's a different thing. Camera placement and lens choice is one of THE tools director has at his disposal. For example, well at least to the one school of film (to which I belong to), when you direct a scene, one of the first question you ask is whose scene is it and depending on that you decide on the placement of the camera, height, lens, movement. You can then, due to conflict/drama, in the same scene change the fulcrum point to tip the scene to be someone else's and change the camera angle and lens... all in the same scene. This is one of the examples where, due to directing, camera placement with lens plays a significant and key role in storytelling. With VR, in described manner, you lose that. However, you have other things at your disposal. So, you see, it's not really a film, it's something else. Which is exciting! We're still a long way from there though.
I recently got a PlayStation VR. I was completely thrilled by the possibilities of games like Eve: Valkyrie. So far I find the games awesome save 1 thing: motion sickness. When I got the VR I expected to spend the weekend with the headset on playing Eve... nope. I can only go 30 or so minutes without the motion sickness kicking in. I am trying to build a tolerance up.
I find the more I look around the scene vs direction of travel the worse it gets. Have the same issue with Battlezone and Scavengers Odyssey. Driveclub and some of the others haven't caused it yet.
Honestly, having experimented extensively with VR, I highly doubt its best applications will be in gaming. At its core, gaming draws people for at least one of the following reasons:
1. engaging story-line
2. flow-inducing gameplay
3. social involvement
4. sheer boredom while on public transit
Because VR is so new, no artist has yet created the "epic" story or "flow" game-play that requires VR. Social with VR is potentially revolutionary, but currently, the multi-camera setup required to full mo-cap yourself properly and the lack of tactile output means social interaction in VR is not quite there yet. And because of the setup required, one can't exactly play VR while in public transit.
On the other hand, I do see VR having a lot of work-related applications like 3D modeling and architecture... it's just that no one has written those programs yet.
I really, really, really hope VR doesn't fail if only for the artistic applications of it. I used to play Tilt Brush for hours every day, but don't have the space for the equipment anymore so I just watch people play Tilt Brush on YouTube. IMO, it's a legitimate "next generation" for artists that's still almost entirely undiscovered (and unfortunately out of reach from most).
I've been saying this for about a year, and getting angry replies. The problem is not the clunky headgear, poor resolution, and dangling cables. It's the lack of a killer app for VR. The hardware has been available for years now, yet there's still no killer app.
There are FPS games for VR. They're OK. VR gear may just be an optional accessory for hardcore FPS gamers. Virtual worlds? Well, you can connect into High Fidelity right now. Few people do, and it's boring in there anyway. Teleconferencing? Get real.
(And yes, fanboys, I've tried the things. I've used an HTC Vibe, a Microsoft HoloLens, and most of the earlier VR gear back to Jaron Lanier's original demo rig. The resolution has improved, and the head tracking is far better. But there's not much compelling to do in there.)
In this same interview, Gabe says Valve is working on three full length titles for VR. Valve has an amazing track record so far, so I'm confident we'll get some killer apps eventually.
Well, IMO, the poor resolution is a real show stopper for me. Nothing breaks immersion like seeing something in the "distance" and being unable to identify it. It's like wearing terrible glasses and gives me a headache (before the VR sickness even kicks in).
What constitutes as a killer app is debatable, but the very first AAA title VR game (Resident Evil 7) was recently released with great reviews. This is just the beginning.
But I agree with other posters about low resolution being an issue.
Also: the Facebook factor. Oculus has been a couple orders of magnitude less interesting since it was acquired by Facebook. I don't give a crap about avatars and VR chat, and I don't think anyone I know does, either.
I disagree that's any more accurate. It doesn't capture his other comments about the irrationality of over-optimistic forecasts or his acknowledgment that VR could be a dead-end. I read that (overly long for a headline) quote as VR is going gangbusters--which I don't think really distills his opinion.
ADDED: It's also not especially newsworthy that the CEO of a company developing VR says VR is doing great. It is far more newsworthy for him to acknowledge that VR might not succeed.
I would argue: a lot of them! Need for the feeling of accomplishment and mastery, need for social interaction, need for learning. VR is undeniably really cool, but, all these needs can be filled without it.
I'm not hating on VR, I just am skeptical that wearing a face helmet and ignoring your surroundings is going to be a mainstay in our culture.
As somebody with extensive ties to both Tech and Content Creation spheres, I can tell you right away the killer app for VR is in Episodic Entertainment Experiences.
Not games. Not business applications. Not practicing open heart surgery or bomb defusing.
No, the intersection of VR and Mass Interest will be something a lot closer to YouTube-Meets-Network-TV-Meets-James-Cameron. "Hardcore Henry" for other genres like Comedy, Drama, Romance...There's a big problem though. The Tech Industry and Content Creation Industry fight each other like petulant, smart-ass, greedy siblings.
So it ain't going to happen any time soon. AR will, in the meantime, become extremely compelling through Content Creation Applications. Microsoft is screaming ahead in this realm, with the Surface Pro platform edging into Education and the Surface Desktop likely a contender for studios worldwide in all sorts of areas (Visual, Film, Music). Microsoft, unless their compass is totally out of whack, will eventually have a compelling reason to add AR into a high power workstation.
the killer app for me on this will be telepresence at music or sport events - without the planning/travel/parking etc. also ability to control volume and possibly even stadium/venue position
The military and other industries that rely on expensive training simulators are where the market for this stuff is at right now. Going for the consumers first is / was a mistake. VR will make it, but it's going to take longer than the "next big thing" crowd anticipated (like most hings do).
> The military and other industries that rely on expensive training simulators are where the market for this stuff is at right now.
I dunno, I think that consumer sit-and-consume is more viable than most "expensive simulator" applications: VR isn't useful for things where either more-than-audiovisual interaction is important, and it's arguably lower quality than a high-rise little physical mock-up with a flat 2D display for most vehicle, etc., simulators.
Now, if we were talking AR, I'd agree that the military and other expensive simulator market is where AR's big initial market is, because AR can layer on top of and enhance the best-available conventional training systems.
Accusations of astroturfing without evidence are particularly not allowed. If you think you see astroturfing happening, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can take a look—it's a concern we take seriously, but no one is allowed to sling the accusation around as a rhetorical device.
Many more HN comments are critical of VCs than defensive of them. I think you might be off by an order of magnitude there.
I've been kind of negative to VR until I worked on the Microsoft HoloLens for some clients, and now I'm convinced that Mixed Reality(MR) is the way of the future and not VR. Sure, the current HoloLens has some disadvantages like a small field-of-view and a high price tag, but I'm sure that these things will be improved in future editions. This video shows someone playing Portal using the HoloLens, which also shows off its spatial awareness capabilities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk-_4yIE6Cs
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 264 ms ] thread- It's too bulky or uncomfortable - It's too expensive - There isn't enough good content - There aren't any killer apps - Resolution is too low (and relative optics, screen quality and FOV issues) - Its not wireless
All of these problems are actively being worked on. I'd argue that there is core tech missing from the current round of VR headsets that will come later and enable exciting applications.
My future concerns with the VR market are consumer perception, which might cause people to reject VR or AR even if a killer device with a killer app comes to market, and the larger existential issue of people will never want to interact with software in 3D space, and something about 2D (or text, or speech\audio) is inherently more convenient or easier to grasp. The former issue can be solved by good marketing, word of mouth, but the later can't.
On HN the most commonly mentioned "killer app" for VR is infinite 2D screens, which is one of the most boring and unimaginative thing you can do with VR. AR "killer apps" tend to be equally boring, floating notifications and maps. Occasionally people mention telepresence, but its largely still straightforward applications like live event streaming or teleconferencing.
A high quality AR\VR device with the proper infrastructure could essentially give people limited super powers, think time travel, teleportation, conjuring\illusion, being in multiply places at the same time, reality remix, etc.
Headlines are always "clickbaity" whether they're online or in a dead tree newspaper. They exist to grab your attention and make you read. If I were writing a headline based on this topic, I'd choose something along the same lines. It's not nuanced but it's not misleading either.
Here, for comparison, the way I parse the quote:
Later some issues with current state of the technology as well lack of killer app are mentioned, but [B] Valve expected VR to be not perfect at the start and [A] it's doing well by their criteria. [C] is for me only about Valve the company being OK if VR fails not about VR actually failing.Here's the quote for people who read comments first:
"We're optimistic. We think VR is going great. It's going in a way that's consistent with our expectations," says Newell. That said, "we're also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure.
"Some people have got attention by going out and saying there'll be millions of [VR unit sales] and we're like, wow, I don't think so," Newell continued.
By establishing SteamVR, and attempting to make SteamVR work with any headset, valve has basically ensured that if VR does turn out to be successsful, Steam will still be the shop you use to buy the games for it.
They managed to cut off a possible existential threat to their steam business model that could have come in the future.
It's just that they see it as an ongoing experiment so they're okay with this iteration of it failing probably because they haven't bet the farm on it.
These are all issues that can be solved by technology - a lightweight wireless HMD with 8k per eye that requires no other device for full body tracking would tell a much more compelling story, but we are probably many many years away from that.
But that doesn't solve the core problems with such a device: it is inherently antisocial (who wants to watch a movie with their boyfriend with the two of you having a HMD strapped to your head, even if it gives you an amazing IMAX like experience?) and would be dangerous to wear anywhere but in the comfort of your couch. This guarantees that there'd never be any consumer use for it beyond hardcore movie/video game enthusiasts. Some interesting niche industrial applications are emerging, and that is likely to continue, but my mom won't buy one like she bought a Nintendo DS.
The usual counter argument to this is "well AR solves all of that!" - but then the required technology puts us decades away from any realistic product.
If you spend a lot of time thinking about this question and can come up with a few compelling answers, there might be a lot of money in it for you :)
The enormous social benefit is remote. You can have a social interaction with any of the BILLIONS of people throughout the world that are connected via the internet. You can connect with friends and relatives that live thousands of miles away.
I'm not going to be in VR 24 hours a day, but if I can hang out with a friend twice a week that lives in England, how is that anything but "social"?
I don't agree with this. It's much easier to be aware of your surroundings when you're just looking at a monitor versus having a full helmet strapped onto your head; you can't even notice someone walking into the room, let alone acknowledge them.
> The enormous social benefit is remote. [...] You can connect with friends and relatives that live thousands of miles away.
I don't agree with this either. A video call is much more interactive, since you can actually see their face to read their reactions to things or even show them what you're currently doing. With VR, at best all you get is a rough interpretation of them presented as an avatar in a virtual environment. You'll never get a video of their face, since it's covered by the gear, nor can you quickly pan around to show your surroundings, new car/baby, etc.
Have you tried VR before? I've played paintball and gone on quests with people all over the world with my Vive. VR is the complete opposite of anti-social.
Not only that, we had "VR" (with shutter goggles) 20 years ago that you could have said exactly the same thing about, and exactly the same thing happened. The hype train failed to stop at reality station, jumped the tracks, rolled down an embankment, and burst into flames. VR lived on in niche applications. Just like it's going to this time.
It doesn't need to be that fancy. Current resolution with perfect positional tracking on a mobile device with 2hr battery life, finger tracking, and photogrammetric passthrough could tell 90% of the "compelling story" your 8k device is for. And you could definitely make experiences in it worth a $400 price point.
We could be as little as 2-3 years from a device like that? At at a premium price point at least.
Remember that people had no problem staring at 320x240 screens, as long as you didn't make them jump around in a pukey way.
I'm not sure 3D work done while sittings really a particularly niche application, unless you interpret "work" narrowly (in which case, I just think it's wrong.)
And, in any case, advanced AR is many years behind VR and mostly builds on top of it (it requires solving a super of the problems required for successful VR) so VR could be quite successful even if that was true in the long term.
Makes me wonder if programming could benefit from the 3D screen that a VR headset effectively provides. (And I mean this in a completely neutral way: I really wonder, and need to think about it.)
Then, you just make sure the space you are in is empty.
Aka, don't be dumb. Just put the VR system in an open space, and you'll be fine.
It was a lot of fun at first. I don't use it at all anymore and am selling all my equipment. Not even the potential of upcoming VR titles is enough to tempt me to keep it.
None of my friends even ask to demo any of it. They lost interest faster than they did for Wii Sports years ago.
* Image quality is bad.
* Hardware requirements are still very high. I have a very high-end machine and VR titles like Raw Data still do not run very well.
* The locomotion problem is not being solved. It's been a year. I never adapted to it either.
* The headsets are not comfortable. Both of them are painful for me to wear after ~30 minutes.
* Rift+Touch tracking is bad and more or less completely broken for many users.
* The front-facing configuration championed by Oculus is not enough. You'll instantly want more.
* Clearing out space for room-scale is a big pain. I'm looking at new apartments and am facing up to the reality that the Vive is a huge constraint.
* It's very anti-social. Honestly my SO does not like it when I use a VR device because it completely shuts her out.
* The base equipment is still far too expensive for the quality of the experience.
* There's very little worthwhile content. People are still talking about Space Pirate Trainer. That's a little demo that has been available for a year, but it's still considered one of the main titles.
* I was most excited about Budget Cuts when I got the Vive. It was heavily hyped months before the Vive was even available for preorder. It's still not out with no announced release date either. That'll be an amazing title for sure, and I will regret not being able to play the finished version whenever it does finally come out.
I encourage everyone to try it. It's a ton of fun at first. But think hard about whether you'll stay interested after a few months and whether it's worth the effort of setting up, clearing out space, keeping your gaming machine up-to-date with the latest hardware, etc.
VR hardware is great step-up from the common gaming setups, where you only have to render a single scene @ 30-60 FPS and display it on a monitor @ >1080p. VR is much more involved than that. Not only do you need to render the scene twice, but you have to do it at a resolution >4k per eye (which probably isn't even enough to satisfy all users), and on top of you should do it in <20ms or something in that order, to be sure nobody gets sick. _including_ position tracking.
The rest of your points can be solved, once we can mass-produce hardware that meets the specs.
I've heard perfection needs less than 7ms latency. That's over 140 FPS, possibly higher if you have any kind of double buffering.
I'm sure there's someone working on a headset that tracks eye movements and adjusts the rendered resolution of the image on the fly. The human eye has something like 4-5 megapixels worth of photo receptors, but the absolute majority of them are located in a relatively tiny area of your FOV where your eyes focus on.
This is what I'm waiting for. Easy bar to set for any new gaming tech.
I thought maybe some existing games like War Thunder would be best for taking advantage of VR: a plane simulation where being able to easily look around you would be exhilarating and useful. Here's one guy's experience with a Vive:
https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/336758-a-user-...
So, beautiful but flawed. I've played and burned out on War Thunder already, so it's not a selling point, but I was hoping there would be more by now. Doesn't seem like there is, and it sounds like the resolution and refined experience isn't quite there yet.
You can do that with FSX, X Plane, Elite Dangerous.
The hardware requirements are just ridiculous.
You don't play Onward? Everyone should play Onward.
I don't get sick from movement because the ground textures are plain. Running in place while moving is also wonderful for acclimation to artificial movement.
If Onward was the only VR game in existence, I would pay roughly half of the Vive's sticker price for just that. I am very excited for later iterations of that game, as well as higher budget knockoffs that may come in the future. But I could play the current version for years if necessary.
With you on most of your points though. I wish the built in camera wasn't attached to the virtual controller - it makes it hard to use and thus very antisocial.
I agree though that I unfairly overlooked Onward due to my personal lack of interest in it.
Eisenhower certainly played the military need card. It's unclear to what degree that was actually his primary motivation.
>smart-phone GPS is a pure "side-effect" of ICBM guidance systems
Military, yes, to a large degree but not ICBMs specifically. If ICBMs are going off you can't depend on GPS still being operational. ICBMs rely primarily on inertial guidance with a star sight around apogee to provide any corrections.
I considered getting a VR headset just to stay current with technology but decided not to largely for this reason. With a wife and kid it's hard enough to occasionally play games but at least if I do I can still have a casual conversation while I play.
> Rift+Touch tracking is bad and more or less completely broken for many users
Interesting. Admittedly I've only had the opportunity to try the Rift/Vive for around an hour or so total, but I've never really experienced either of these issues, at least in the games I tried (Fantastic Contraption and The Unspoken). The tracking was flawless (except during the one or two times I got outside the range of cameras/lighthouses, but that only happened because the demos were using a 2-sensor configuration, so my body could block the line-of-sight if I turned the wrong way), and image quality was good enough to not be noticeable. Did you only start noticing these problems after using the headsets for a long time, or was it an issue for you right out of the gate?
> The locomotion problem is not being solved.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the big issue with that that it's easy to get motion sick if you move around at all in VR? Don't most games solve the problem by letting you teleport instead? How do you feel about the titles which don't require you to move around at all in-game?
> It's very anti-social.
This has been true in my experience, but only to the extent that any other type of video game is. Are there no good local multiplayer experiences in VR yet?
Personally I'm still thinking of getting myself a Vive or Rift, but probably not for a year or so. My plan is to wait and see what the second-generation devices look like.
Two incredible things to look at with respect to the promise of VR:
1. Multiplayer Climbey - multiple people in VR jumping and trying to grab each others hands, not fall off the building, etc. hilarious and very social. Should also mention, that's a user created building.
https://youtu.be/extNh3Z-ikk?t=294
2. Google Earth VR - this video is from the Giant Bomb crew who are typically a little cynical and have been fairly underwhelmed with VR in general for games. But they all LOVED this: "...it might not work for the folks at home, but this shit is profound and crazy."
https://youtu.be/X_zEHzZern8?t=253
VR right now is the worst it's every going to be, a year from now it'll be better and cheaper and in 5 to 10 unrecognizably better.
It's very similar, you tap the screen (or you can plug a computer mouse into your phone) to start flying in the direction you're looking.
https://i.imgur.com/0NUacn2h.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.sam...
As you point out, it can be tough to clear out entire rooms for room-scale, so recognition of real world obstacles seems paramount to proper enjoyment (regardless of how much you think that is immersion breaking).
Socially sharing the same spaces together with friends/family I think is more important than a lot of people at first realize. It's especially important for business applications and things that aren't games, but even in games, cooperative sharing of spaces may be the defining difference between good games and great games.
Even projects like "Spectator Mode" allowing cameras to share in the spaces seems like important baby steps to breaking VR/AR/MR out of its shell and more to something that enriches the spaces around us rather than locks us in and closes us out.
I for one think that's the direction all of this needs to go in order to be more than just a toy, more than just the flavor of the month ViewMaster for adults with big enough budgets.
The only caveat is that the implementation doesn't give me any motion sickness.
In terms of actually having a viable workstation, you'll need to wait until the resolution of these headsets gets high enough for easy text reading, which is 2-3 years out at this point.
I probably used the wrong term. Substitute `nauseated` in place of `motion sickness`. When you say "locomotion" do you mean the player physically moving, or movement in the virtual space?
I get nauseated just watching a first person shooter on a normal monitor. I also tried one of those VR goggles that you stick a phone in and wanted to hurl after about a minute of watching a roller coaster simulation.
Tons of sales because it's cool, then people realize they have no idea what do with it.
People do know what to do with an iPad.
I think the iPad's current problem is that the trend towards using larger phones made them less useful as a device between a phone and a laptop.
The iPad can only be claimed as a failure compared to investors' expectations, or compared to the iPhone. In the most recent quarter (Q1 2017), Apple sold 13.1 MILLION of them. Over 6 billion dollars of product sold in one quarter sounds pretty great to me.
Significant US Ownership Growth: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-owne...
Minutes spent using tablets: https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2016/03/death-desktop-65-d...
Sure, from a capitalist perspective it was a great product. It created an entire market and earned lots of revenue.
However, ownership more than doubled and internet usage stayed flat/declined. We succeeded at making people want something, but it was not something they needed.
I probably spent about $5k+ on VR between the Oculus, Vive, my PC hardware, and a few games. I was lucky enough to be able to get in early so I got discounted pricing on a lot of the stuff and made some money back selling old dev kits and whatnot. VR is absolutely not within reach of the average consumer in any kind of palatable way. Sony VR, IMO, is just not compelling for users when you factor in that you have to buy a PS4, the camera, some move controllers (potentially) and all for a pretty cool but ultimately short-lived experience. Until we get some games, apps, and experiences that are repeatable and re-usable, VR is just going to be this niche thing. I can see exactly where Gabe is coming from and, like some other comments have said, I think he's going to be ready to sing the success of VR when there's a very low barrier of entry - wireless HMD, body tracking, prop tracking, and, most of all, when it's comfortable and an actual experience.
I envision a time where I can just put on a headset and I'm in the companies virtual coding room. Other developers join in whatever timezone they are in. You could have developers who are in company HQ and remote all over the world.
Each developer could be locked into what ambient sound they are in and then can connect to 1 or more people in the room to talk.
Want to screen share between 1 or 2 people, then a screen pops up virtually and these people could debug code, diagrams, whatever it may be.
When I'm coding, it's on my laptop but simultaneously coding on the VR one as well. I could share that screen and a coder in another country in real-time could collaborate or have a fresh pair of eyes immediately.
Imagine being on a viral IRC with coders all over the world, working on an open-source project as if they were right there next to you?
When I say this, everyone is connected to the virtual world. Not as a floating orb, but an actual body. They can see your face, emotions, hear your voice.
I think it would be a game changer!
------------
Other uses could be 360 degree concerts. Where you can choose whatever vantage you want.
The possibilities are endless for VR, it really just takes someone to keep polishing that use-case. It's not going to be a home run for another few iterations at least!
This would be pretty cool, and you'd probably be able to lower the videocard requirements as well.
VR headsets don't distribute pixels evenly across the entire view-space, the lenses concentrate the pixels toward the middle of your vision. So if for example you had a display that took up the center 25% of your vision in VR, it might have 50% of the actual display pixels. 50% of 4k is 1080p.
So you'd end up with a display that looks pretty large, but is only 1080p. Not optimal, but definitely usable.
That's something.
the headset would need to capture your expressions somehow and translate into your avatar doing the same. if not, you'll get Second Life level crap.
it will take a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d59O6cfaM0
Ki-Adi-Mundi working from home here.
There's this other thing though. Augmented reality. Technology is kind of here and inexpensive. If you have a relatively modern phone you have AR access, maybe not the latest and greatest, but it's there. Yet, I think that one is a complete failure so far. So many false starts! Content is gimmicky at best and it seems people don't care at all about the technology or potential about it. It's commodity now. When AR happens, it's great (see Pokemon Go, Eyetoy, etc.), but it doesn't live for long (see Pokemon Go, Eyetoy, etc.). Where's AR headed?
It may turn out to be a novelty, but it may be an important one.
I do agree that AR is a huge gimmick that probably won't be solved until VR is firmly established
Locomotion methods are also a big problem, but Eve is a cockpit game which usually doesn't trigger people.
1. engaging story-line
2. flow-inducing gameplay
3. social involvement
4. sheer boredom while on public transit
Because VR is so new, no artist has yet created the "epic" story or "flow" game-play that requires VR. Social with VR is potentially revolutionary, but currently, the multi-camera setup required to full mo-cap yourself properly and the lack of tactile output means social interaction in VR is not quite there yet. And because of the setup required, one can't exactly play VR while in public transit.
On the other hand, I do see VR having a lot of work-related applications like 3D modeling and architecture... it's just that no one has written those programs yet.
There are FPS games for VR. They're OK. VR gear may just be an optional accessory for hardcore FPS gamers. Virtual worlds? Well, you can connect into High Fidelity right now. Few people do, and it's boring in there anyway. Teleconferencing? Get real.
(And yes, fanboys, I've tried the things. I've used an HTC Vibe, a Microsoft HoloLens, and most of the earlier VR gear back to Jaron Lanier's original demo rig. The resolution has improved, and the head tracking is far better. But there's not much compelling to do in there.)
But I agree with other posters about low resolution being an issue.
Also: the Facebook factor. Oculus has been a couple orders of magnitude less interesting since it was acquired by Facebook. I don't give a crap about avatars and VR chat, and I don't think anyone I know does, either.
"Gabe Newell on VR: "We're optimistic. We think VR is going great. It's going in a way that's consistent with our expectations"
That's a direct quote from the same story that more accurately reflects his position.
ADDED: It's also not especially newsworthy that the CEO of a company developing VR says VR is doing great. It is far more newsworthy for him to acknowledge that VR might not succeed.
It's:
- Inconvenient
- Expensive
- Doesn't solve a direct need
I don't think VR is going to disappear or anything, but I can't think of anything with the above three traits that has been a mainstream success
I'm not hating on VR, I just am skeptical that wearing a face helmet and ignoring your surroundings is going to be a mainstay in our culture.
Not games. Not business applications. Not practicing open heart surgery or bomb defusing.
No, the intersection of VR and Mass Interest will be something a lot closer to YouTube-Meets-Network-TV-Meets-James-Cameron. "Hardcore Henry" for other genres like Comedy, Drama, Romance...There's a big problem though. The Tech Industry and Content Creation Industry fight each other like petulant, smart-ass, greedy siblings.
So it ain't going to happen any time soon. AR will, in the meantime, become extremely compelling through Content Creation Applications. Microsoft is screaming ahead in this realm, with the Surface Pro platform edging into Education and the Surface Desktop likely a contender for studios worldwide in all sorts of areas (Visual, Film, Music). Microsoft, unless their compass is totally out of whack, will eventually have a compelling reason to add AR into a high power workstation.
I dunno, I think that consumer sit-and-consume is more viable than most "expensive simulator" applications: VR isn't useful for things where either more-than-audiovisual interaction is important, and it's arguably lower quality than a high-rise little physical mock-up with a flat 2D display for most vehicle, etc., simulators.
Now, if we were talking AR, I'd agree that the military and other expensive simulator market is where AR's big initial market is, because AR can layer on top of and enhance the best-available conventional training systems.
Accusations of astroturfing without evidence are particularly not allowed. If you think you see astroturfing happening, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can take a look—it's a concern we take seriously, but no one is allowed to sling the accusation around as a rhetorical device.
Many more HN comments are critical of VCs than defensive of them. I think you might be off by an order of magnitude there.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13662610 and marked it off-topic.