Think of it this way (Off-Topic)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, February 08, 2016, 15:51 (2997 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Cody Miller, Monday, February 08, 2016, 15:54

Think not about whether the technology will get better and create better experiences, but rather about it conceptually.

How do you interact with a video game right now? Through a controller, or a mouse and keyboard. If you are playing a racing game, this creates a disconnect because you don't drive with a controller. In real life, you interact with a car by:

Using your hands to turn a wheel and pull /push the gear shifter.
Using your eyes to look around.
Moving your head to see out the sides or back.

You do only one of those things - moving your eyes, when playing a racing game. But add a VR headset and a steering wheel, and now you are interacting exactly as you would a real car. Immersion is much higher! So a VR headset can fundamentally change the way you interact with a racing game.

But when you look at it conceptually, a VR headset does not change the way you interact with a film at all. How do you interact with a film? By choosing what to look at, or if to look at all. You move your eyes to see what you want, and if the theatre and screen is big enough you also move your head a bit. You might choose NOT to look, for instance if something gross or scary is about to happen.

Now do you see? A VR headset doesn't change those modes of interaction at all! You are still just moving your eyes and head. There is no fundamental change. Yet, as the article begins to point out, you give up so much and create so many problems. It is just a matter of degree.

Panoramic photography has been around for a while. You can do it on your phone. So why are pretty much all pictures you see still traditional pictures, and not immersive 360 degree panoramas? The answer if because the frame is something important and fundamental to moviemaking and photography. The boundary to your image is just as important as the image itself.

I predict that the first "VR Movies" that end up working will be those that are essentially FMV video games which trigger different sets of clips based on where you look, etc. But those aren't movies anymore: they are FMV video games.

This is also why things like racing games and flight sims are already great for VR, but things like FPS games will possibly never be with current tech. There are few interactions while racing, namely looking and manipulating a steering wheel and gear shifter. All easily replicated. But an FPS game is more complex. You walk and run around the environment, climb ladders, open and close doors, pick up items, fire guns, etc. None of that is going to move from a controller any time soon. If ever. If I see a gun on the ground and want to pick it up, how exactly would I do that when I'm in my living room and there's just carpet?

Not until we get a holodeck anyway.

Many people simply look at deficiencies in the tech and assume it will get better which will solve current problems, instead of examining the problem on a conceptual level. Even if head tracking is perfect, and we have 256K VR cameras, VR movies will still be awful.