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 TitleCLIENT 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 ComparedOur 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/

http://www.statista.com/statistics/426486/virtual-reality-software-revenue-worldwide/


Want to see what our VR development experts can do for your business? Schedule a capabilities overview today.

Matt SuitsNEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

[email protected]+1.513.766.1084

game on! the new reality of virtual reality at the gdc16

Software