Special Report
The Future of VR Dominates GDC 2017
A quick walk through at GDC 2017 and one is quick to notice how VR is the talk of the town.
Walk around the expo floor at the 2017 Game Devlopers Conference and the first thing one will notice is domination of the industries optimism in Virtual Reality technology.
Just by entering the Moscone Center North Hall, guests are welcomed to sample Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul. This 10 minute demo gives players a chance to exsperince a new vision of the franchise through the medium of VR.
Once you enter the expo floor, attendees are greeted by the massive show of force by Facebook with their Occulus booth to the left and Sony with their PlayStation VR setups a few steps to the right. Behind them are several more booths hosted by industry leaders like Nvidia and Google that are promoting VR gaming.
This is not just limited to major players in the gaming industry as there are a good number of VR titles at the Independent Game Festival. While PC and mobile phones is still the system of choice, a good number of indie developers have embraced the emergence of VR technology.
Talking with developers and programmers, one gets a good idea of what the possibilities are with VR technology. At the same time, many of the media professionals that were encountered are from publications that focus on VR gaming and technology. By now it will become obvious that the future of VR is the talk GDC.
Even though the technology is still in its infancy, the industry is highly optimistic about its future. From indie developers to major studios and third party developers, they see the future in VR gaming.
Not everyone I spoke with shared this optimism as a few did recognize its potential but don’t see it replacing traditional gaming. Other developers better potential with augmented reality, despite the technology being under-represented. Finally there were those who felt a lot of the ethical and moral issues with VR need to be addressed before the technology could progress.
The 2017 Game Developers Conference will be taking place February 27 until March 3rd at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco. 8Bit/Digi is currently here reporting on the event.
Stan Rezaee
Stan Rezaee is the founder and Editor of 8Bit/Digi. He is a journalist and gamer from the Bay Area who has been writing about the medium for over five years.
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