CCP Games Explains Why Virtual Reality First Person Shooters Still Don't Work

An anonymous reader writes Icelandic studio CCP is better known for EVE Online, but its first foray into virtual reality with space shooter Valkyrie has caused a stir, and is widely seen as a flagship game for the Oculus Rift headset. In a new interview, Valkyrie executive producer Owen O'Brien explains what advantages the game will have when played with a headset — and gives his view on why a dogfighter is better suited to VR than a first person shooter: "People have hacked it together, but it doesn't really work," he says. "The basic problem is Simulator Sickness. In Valkyrie or any cockpit game or driving game, what you're doing in the real world, assuming you're sitting down, more or less mimics what your brain is telling you you're doing in the game. So you don't get that disconnect, and it's that disconnect that causes sickness. So, the problem with first-person shooters is that you're running or crouching or jumping in the game but not in the real world, and because it's so realistic it can make some people (not everybody) feel nauseated if they start doing it for extended periods of time."

"You ate the poison mushroom!" reflex.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The human body has three systems for balance - Inner ears (3-axis accellerometers and "rate gyros"), visual modeling, and muscle/tendon position & stress sensors - and needs any two to balance, stand, and walk properly.

It also has a reflex: When two of them disagree (particularly visual vs. ear), it is interpreted as "You just ate a neurotoxin! Get it out NOW and we MIGHT survive it!"

Thus nausea, projectile vomiting, explosive diahrrea, and clothes-soaking sweating if the mismatch is strong. If it's smaller - nausea. ("Whatever you just ate may have been toxic or spoiled. So you're not going to like it anymore.")

Of course other things than being poisoned can trigger it:

Diseases that temporarily incapacitate or permanently damage the inner ear are one class. (For instance, Meniere's Disease, where the pressure-relef valve for the inner ear sticks, the pressure rises, and the membranes with the sensory nerves tear. Result: Sudden extremem vertigo attack - hours on the floor - followed by days or weeks of gradually reduced incapacity until the brain maps out the change to the ear - followed by another tear and repeat indefinitely. Very high suicide rate.)

Vechicles, where you may visually fixate on the accellerating inside rather than the surroundings, are another: Cars, boats, ariplanes (and the corresponding car/sea/air sicknesses) are notorious, as are carnival rides and trains. For relief, make a point of looking at the horizon or otherwise the exterior. Eventually the brain may learn "I'm in a vehicle. Ignore the weird signals from the ears. (That's why vertigo sufferers may NOT have attacks in MOVING vehicles...)

And, of course, VR mismatches - to the point that there is a term of art: "Barfogenisis" (I hear the lengths of some of the rides at Disneyland are calibrated so they end and the crowd is out into the hall just BEFORE the effect would become pronounced.)