Game On! The New Reality of Virtual Reality at the GDC16

Confidential Copyright © 2016 May 10, 2016 1
Transforming business through Purpose Driven Innovation™
Deck Title
CLIENT NAME
The State Of Virtual Reality at the
Game Developers Conference 2016

Background
#GDC16
• The Game Developers Conference (GDC)
has brought together professionals for
over 30 years
• A new Virtual Reality Developers
Conference (VRDC) was a two day
summit within the event
• Over 27,000 industry professionals
attended
• It was the epicenter of the industry with
announcements from leaders like Crytek,
Mozilla and Sony
• The show seemed to be VR and
Augmented Reality (AR) focused,
more than simply gaming

Designing
Virtual Reality
• It was a theme at the show that User
Experience (UX) Design as we know it is
changing dramatically
• When immersed in a virtual environment
it feels more natural to interact with objects
than a screen. Therefore it was discussed in
talks that VR has greater overlap with
Industrial Design than UX
• It is predicted that business-to-business
products will dominate the VR space in 2016
• Revenues from virtual reality products (both
hardware and software) are projected to
increase from 90 million U.S. dollars in 2014
to 5.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2018*

VR Devices Compared
Our assessment of 3 new VR devices being shown at GDC16

PlayStation VR
• Made by Sony but requires you to also
own PlayStation 4, which retails for about
$299 – $349
• The more affordable option of the ones
reviewed, as it is set to retail for an
additional $399 and scheduled to hit
stores in October 2016
• Available with motion-tracked controllers
• Limited: Allows less than 180 degrees of
movement

Oculus Rift
• Backed by Facebook and rolled out to
several Best Buy locations across the
country on May 7, with further
expansions planned for summer 2016
• Excellent quality
• Not yet available with tracked controllers
• Limited: Allows less than 180 degrees
of movement

HTC Vive
• Built with Steam VR, which is
open source
• Excellent quality and it is usable
with eye glasses
• Available with tracked controllers
• Not limited in interactions to 180
degrees of movement, as the user
can turn all the way around, plus also
navigate about a room-sized space
• The most expensive option of those
reviewed at about $799

Augmented Reality (AR)

AR Sees
Progress
• At the conference, 2016 is the certainly
the year for VR, but AR was also a hot
topic
• With the Microsoft HoloLens and
Google’s Project Tango, it feels like
we are on the verge of a new era of AR
where the application has knowledge
of your surroundings
• Tango is scheduled to be released in
the form of a phone later this year

Buzzword of the show:
Presence

Understanding “Presence”
In Virtual Reality
• “Presence” is the term for a type of immersion that occurs when a user is in Virtual
Reality and the low functioning part of their brain thinks they are in a real place.
• It is a very real phenomenon that is difficult to describe to anyone who has not
experienced it firsthand.
• Common occurrences caused by this phenomenon include things like users attempting
to lean on objects that are not there (and falling over) or attempting to set controllers
down on a virtual desk and dropping them on the floor.
• Most developers agree that you get presence; the hard part is maintaining it.
• Most design problems in VR ask the question: “How can we enable the user to do
X while maintaining presence?”

The Dangers of Presence
• The level of immersion granted by VR results in stricter guidelines for developers. We
have to be careful and establish trust with our users or they will not use our applications.
• The most important limitations are maintaining a frame-rate above 90, avoiding virtual
motion of the camera, avoiding acceleration and keeping the horizon level.
• Some are more sensitive than others, but ignoring the guidelines is a sure way to make
your user sick.
• Having the ability to make users physically ill places on us a greater obligation to test
our applications thoroughly, and to respond to even small issues with interactions.

Unity, Unreal and
Our Conclusions

Unity and
Unreal
• Unity and Unreal have both been working
on an editor in VR so that developers can
start to create games in a virtual space
• Unreal has already released their editor
in VR, and Unity is not far behind
• Both engines have been heavily focusing
on providing immense support for VR
and have made performance increases
in their engines to make things easier
for VR development

VR User
Interface Design
• User Interface (UI) Design is completely
changing with the emergence of VR
• UI that sticks to the viewport is
disorienting because it’s not normal
in the real world
• There are no standards yet and designers
are currently “writing the book” on how
to do UI in VR
• Using the real world as the UI has worked
well to date

Conclusions:
Game On!
• VR is here to stay and only growing. This
year may not be the year for consumers,
but it is most definitely the year for
developers and experimentation
• AR is not far behind and will open up
even more possibilities once it is viable
• Presence is key, and as developers we
have to build trust with our users
• We are on the verge of a huge shift in
Design. Fasten your seat belts

Thank You
& Sources
• Thank you for reading our Game
Developers Conference review. Please
reach out to us if you have any questions
• Our Kaleidoscope Authors:
Arthur Littlefield, Unity Developer;
Brendan Dickinson, Unity Developer
• *Sources: VR market projection statistics:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/42648
6/virtual-reality-software-revenue-
worldwide/

Want to see what our VR development
experts can do for your business?
Schedule a capabilities overview today.
Matt Suits
NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
msuits@kascope.com
+1.513.766.1084

Game On! The New Reality of Virtual Reality at the GDC16

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