Steam: Virtual Reality's Biggest-Ever Jump In Users Happened Last Month (arstechnica.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Valve's gaming marketplace Steam includes an opt-in hardware survey feature, and the results are published as percentages of surveyed users on a monthly basis. You'll find all kinds of data about Steam-connected computers every month, and this includes operating systems, video cards, VR systems, and more. In the latter case, that figure is counted out of all Steam users -- as opposed to a less-helpful stat like "70 percent of VR fans prefer Product A, 30 percent Product B." We were intrigued (but not surprised) to see a jump in connected VR devices for the reported month of December 2019. That's the holiday season, after all, and it's reasonable to expect Santa's deliveries of headsets to affect data.
What surprised us was the continued growth of that metric through the following month -- and a statistically significant one, at that. The latest survey, taken during January 2020, says that 1.31 percent of all surveyed Steam users own a VR system, up from 1.09 percent the month prior. By pure percentage points, this is the largest one-month jump in pure percentage since Valve began tracking VR use in 2016 -- by a long shot. (For perspective, the same survey indicated that 0.9 percent of Steam computers run on Linux, while 3.0 percent use MacOS or OSX.) Based on Valve's conservative January 2019 estimate of 90 million "monthly active users," Ars Technica estimates there are "1.17 million PC-VR users connecting to Steam."
"Drawing an exponential trend line of Steam's MAU between August 2017 and January 2019 would get us closer to a count of 1.6 million active VR hardware owners on Steam, and that doesn't include any estimate of Steam-ignorant Oculus users. However you slice it, the juiciest detail can't be argued: a 20.2% jump within a major PC-VR ecosystem in 30 days."
What surprised us was the continued growth of that metric through the following month -- and a statistically significant one, at that. The latest survey, taken during January 2020, says that 1.31 percent of all surveyed Steam users own a VR system, up from 1.09 percent the month prior. By pure percentage points, this is the largest one-month jump in pure percentage since Valve began tracking VR use in 2016 -- by a long shot. (For perspective, the same survey indicated that 0.9 percent of Steam computers run on Linux, while 3.0 percent use MacOS or OSX.) Based on Valve's conservative January 2019 estimate of 90 million "monthly active users," Ars Technica estimates there are "1.17 million PC-VR users connecting to Steam."
"Drawing an exponential trend line of Steam's MAU between August 2017 and January 2019 would get us closer to a count of 1.6 million active VR hardware owners on Steam, and that doesn't include any estimate of Steam-ignorant Oculus users. However you slice it, the juiciest detail can't be argued: a 20.2% jump within a major PC-VR ecosystem in 30 days."
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Can I get a cent from 1% of the Steam users?
In other words, yes. You have to look at absolute values. Or, in other words, yes, the market is much smaller than for, say, desktop games. But on the other hand, the quality you have to produce is also way lower, as is competition. This is a new medium and you can essentially crank out the same games that are popular, just give it a VR spin and you're set. Make a good tower-defense VR game and you have a seller.
I don't think so (Score:2)
Oculus was sold out for Christmas (Score:3)
The Quest became a hot item after Link became a thing (allowing the Quest to act as a Rift S and play SteamVR and Rift games through a single USB-C cable).
This is a game changer... I find it far more convenient to use the Quest than my PCVR headsets, both for the standalone stuff (Beat Saber in 360 mode is great) and PCVR games. It's also more accessible for many people.
It also helps that developers are figuring out how to create better VR experiences, and the underlying hardware/software is getting better at smoothing things out.
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The Quest became a hot item after Link became a thing....
The Quest became a hot item well before the Link became a thing.
This is a game changer....
The Link is a bizarre product, as it eliminates the main benefit of the Quest. If you want to be tethered to your PC through a Windows-only cabling system so you can play PCVR games, then just get a Rift S.
There is the argument that there are the occasional Windows-only games that would be nice to play on the Quest, but that otherwise you want to be free of the cable, but I think that's a VERY weak argument. There is absolutely no tethered ga
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I bought a Quest in early December. Link was what sold it for me. I prefer the standalone mode, but there are a lot of games that are still PC only. Having the option to use all that content without buying another headset is great.
Also, the Quest's internal graphics capabilities are good, but nowhere near what a PC with a high end graphics card is capable of. If you've played the same game through link and directly on the Quest the difference is very noticeable. So having that capability without buying anot
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The Link is a bizarre product, as it eliminates the main benefit of the Quest. If you want to be tethered to your PC through a Windows-only cabling system so you can play PCVR games, then just get a Rift S.
Is the main benefit of the Quest being limited in games and putting up with well and truly sub par graphical performance of games which are tethered? The Link brings some of the benefits of the Rift S to the Quest. Buying a Rift is not an alternative. It's like suggesting someone they should buy a desktop instead of a laptop because they wanted to use more RAM, completely ignoring that the person may also want the ability to pickup their laptop and walk away.
The Link eliminates nothing from the Quest. The R
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Not just the Quest. The Index was having shipping problems. And then there were people waiting for Oculus Link cables before buying a Quest as well.
I know I am old. (Score:2)
But I just don't think VR for gaming is going to be the next big thing. It seems fun for a novelty, but for the current set of popular games that use VR. I expect it could lead to trauma for long term usage. As the game Universes are excessively dangerous to keep the action up, even more so then most war zones or the most violent cities.
Interacting on screen is fun, as there is a good degree of separation in the universe. Hence why you can jump up a rocky cliff face in a video game, with confidence and sk
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If you can't tell reality from a game world, turn off the computer and seek professional help. If you are so detached from reality that you do not KNOW that you are wearing a VR helmet, you need help that we can't provide here.
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This has nothing to do with knowing you are wearing a VR headset or not. I guess you don't react to jump scares in movies since you obviously know you are just sitting in a theater or more likely your Mom's basement and watching a video.
Consciously you know you are safe, but your subconscious is screaming that there's danger. Try watching reaction videos of people using VR to rescue the cat from the sky scrapper, or the VR roller-coaster. Or better yet try them yourself. Which would mean purchasing a VR sys
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I am guessing you can walk perfectly straight after you spin around in circles too. Because you know the room isn't spinning.
I am not saying you can't but it takes a lot of conscious effort to do a task, that we normally do instinctively.
Our Ancestors for millions of years have evolved to interact in a world where they can trust their senses. Only for the past few generations we as the human animal are being placed in environments where our senses are being tricked. We get motion sickness because we are be
Re:I know I am old. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever dreamed and realise you were dreaming? You know, decided to try flying, or do similar things not possible in real life? (No this isn't an ad spot for Inception, look up lucid dreaming). Most people have. Those same people didn't wake up and then jump out of their windows.
Your argument is an extension of the violent video games argument, something which has been statistically proven false time and time again. I highly doubt the argument will suddenly become true simply because it looks more immersive.
Separation of universes is a massive flaw in gaming. Sure it's okay to play Elite Dangerous in front of a screen maneuvering a spacecraft. But holy crap is it incredible to actually feel like you're sitting in the cockpit, to wonder where the other craft is not by staring at a dot on the radar, but by leaning forward and actually looking up out of your cockpit canopy.
I also like playing "The Climb" and likewise like actual rock climbing. Just because The Climb forces you to make dangerous jumps doesn't translate that into the real world. Give the human brain a bit more credit.
Or perhaps... (Score:2, Interesting)
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... there was a big drop in the number of non-VR-owning Steam users?
a) in what world do you think that is a credible scenario
b) that would instantly be evident in a large number of other statistics that Steam publishes, such as their total number of active monthly users.
Nah (Score:2)
This is just Valve trying to gin up hype for their Half-Life:Alyx title. Making it VR-only was a huge mistake. Sales will be decent (for a VR game), but nothing special.
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Making it VR-only was a huge mistake.
They sold out on Index headsets. Oculus sold out on Quests. The Rift experienced an almost sellout surge in sales. You don't need to drum up hype. Alyx created all the hype it needed to and it did exactly what Valve wanted it to: drive sales of their VR platform to a point where even they couldn't keep up.
No making Alyx VR-only has already been a massive success, even if the game itself flops.
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Yup, and beyond all that, Valve KNOWS how the VR games are doing (after all, they SELL VR games in their Steam store), and they made the decision to go ahead with a VR-only game.
Why would they do that if they thought it was going to tank? Two years ago, it might have been a valid question, but not any longer.
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Two years ago, it might have been a valid question
This is something very core to all the negativity. If you have not used a VR headset or played a VR game in the past 6 months then your experience is woefully out of date.
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They've been trying and failing to make a non-VR Half-Life game for 13 years. What they're making with Alyx wouldn't really be possible or make sense on a flat screen in terms of game mechanics and gameplay. Maybe it'll suck, but we'll see soon enough.
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As a small percentage of their current market, it seems that way, but for the future of Steam it is important that they invest in the VR market, as it has potential for growth.
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Try again, with less of a wall-of-text approach and maybe a paragraph or two in there somewhere. It makes reading this so much easier. Or, in my case, would encourage reading it in the first place.
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People don't want
I stopped reading after 3 words, that must be a new record. If there's one thing that is almost universally true it's the fact that people who say "people don't want" actually mean "I don't want ..." and "I can't understand other people".
You're not alone in that. I for one can't understand people who don't use the enter key (the other reason I didn't read the rest of your post). People don't want to read walls of text.
See what I did there?
Occulus Quest (Score:2)
For anyone who didnt get the memo this is due entirely to one product, the Occulus Quest. Furthermore, the jump in tethered users happened even before the official link cable shipped which means that these were only the users adventurous enough to gamble with suspicious/crap USB 3 active extension cables and adapters.
The Quest for all its awesomeness is unfortunately quite hindered by gatekeeping in its store. So tethering it is really the only viable option at the moment if you want to do something other t
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For anyone who didnt get the memo this is due entirely to one product, the Occulus Quest.
Is the Oculus Quest the reason the Index was sold out twice over the holiday period, and the reason for it's jump in the percentages? I don't think stats work like that.
There's multiple things at play:
- Oculus Quest + Link was released pushing untethered VR to the RiftS stats on Steam
- A major game announcement (Alyx) caused sellouts during the holiday period and people were buying HMDs when they were back in stock.
- A major sequel was released in January (The Walking Dead - Saints and Sinners), as well as
Upgrading to VR (Score:3)
Re:Upgrading to VR (Score:4, Informative)
I can only talk for myself, granted but: Because it's fun.
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A few things:
a) you don't even need a PC for VR anymore.
b) what do you mean VR headsets aren't widely supported? There are literally 1000s of VR games, 100s which a good, and thanks to 2019 many worthy of the title AAA release, to say nothing of the games which have been ported to VR.
c) Resolution is an important thing when you look at something stationary. 1280x1440 is actually pretty damn awesome when strapped to something as mobile as your head. Comparing resolutions between your computer monitor and a H
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You don't have to upgrade to Windows 10. I play VR on my Windows 7 install and VR itself supports Linux.
The reality is... (Score:1)
Correlation: Zero Punctuation. (Score:2)
Yahtzee also talked surprisingly favorably about VR in the last two weeks.
Apparently it's because there are finally two games that he thinks feel like a *game* game. As opposed to a tech demo game.
Is this the tipping point?
Not a surprise, multiple things led to this (Score:3)
1. Valve announced Alyx
2. Boneworks was released (a hotly anticipated VR game)
3. The Link cable was released for the Oculus Quest.
All of this lead to severe shipping shortages during the holiday period and HMDs selling out not only from Oculus (the quest was hard to get) but also from Valve (the Index was briefly unavailable twice).
Some people naturally waited for Jan to place their orders.
Forced to windows 10? (Score:2)
Seems to coincide though, if so then this sudden uptick is not new users, but old users updating to a platform that tracks them.