Steam Hardware & Software Survey: February 2023
Steam users with VR Headsets

2.07%
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

This just means “30% of people who play video games sometimes play games on VR headsets”, right? Not “… mostly play games in VR” and not “30% of all video game time is spent in VR”, right?

If a load of people end up having VR headsets but not using them for the majority of their gaming, I think it should resolve no. The question seems to carry this as an assumption.

@makoyass My intuition is that it should be judged as a device, comparable to a console or a phone or a PC. If you play it once and then put it away forever, then that shouldn’t count. If you do most of your gaming elsewhere, but you return to VR regularly (say, >10% of gaming time) then I think you should count as someone who “uses a VR headset”.

Does an AR headset that can't do full immersion count?

@MartinRandall Yes

@DanielKilian Was not expecting that. Thanks for replying!

@MartinRandall Uh I don't think there exist designs for AR headsets that couldn't do immersion, you can turn any AR into a VR by putting a blanket over your head

@makoyass Google Glass, for example.

Also, I don't think 30% of video game players will have a blanket over their heads.

Also, I wouldn't call this phone a vr headset even though there's a cardboard-based adapter for it.

I don't expect to see things like google glass. I wouldn't call a phone a VR headset because they're damned awful VR headsets (they tend to lack 6dof)

Today most game players use phones, and I expect in the future it will continue to be small, cheap, multiuse devices that the masses use. Maybe if there are really light AR glasses that become an indispensable part of everyday life?

@Multicore yeah, they'd be much better than phones in a huge number of ways and way better for integrating ai deeply into society. they're absolutely going to be the default.

it will probably get ridiculously easy to make every computer a VR headset, to the point that it beats cell phones for price.

whatever capability level you want, the same capability is cheaper in a vr headset, for the simple reason that it can be bulkier. up to a point, of course. laptops are still promising. and none of this takes into account the coming biological computing transition.

There are many poor people on the world. As they grow richer, more will play video games, but not all will afford VR headsets.

There will also be growth in augmented reality of various sorts.

There is some chance of a fast takeoff but in that case VR headsets may well be old technology by 2030.

VR is going to end up being important for remote work, so the global poor are going to have a strong incentive to get one.
Considering that they wont cost substantially more than 5x the cost of whatever cell phones they would have otherwise been gaming on, and considering how much of a substantial improvement in quality of life they bring, I think this overturns your argument?

@makoyass Then you should buy some YES.

@MartinRandall thank you for the advice my friend, I have done so

@makoyass Nice bet. Most of my NO is just a bet on gaming trends being hard to predict, and there being many possible platforms that could be dominant in 2030.

Your narrative makes sense, but I see a lot of ways it could go differently.