Finally, A Killer App?
While the VR platform has already produced plenty of quality software, it is in the past 12 months that we’ve seen a handful of games boast commercial success to rival those designed for conventional gaming platforms.
Beat Saber, Superhot, and recently Boneworks have demonstrated there is serious money to be earned in a very short period of time. Beat Saber was the first VR game to hit one million copies sold; Superhot’s VR version generated around $2 million over the 2019 Holiday period; Boneworks launched only weeks ago and is already estimated to have earned over $3 million.
Notably, too, Beat Saber, which is perhaps the closest thing VR has to a killer app, has been a hit with streamers and YouTubers, too. One cannot underestimate the role that influencers play in attracting new audiences through entertainment these days.
The biggest noise in VR, though, might be yet to come in 2020. The recent announcement of Half-Life: Alyx marks the return of a beloved, iconic IP long dreamed of by PC players — though, few would have picked the franchise to make its big return as a VR title.
Publisher and developer Valve’s decision to use Half-Life to push its VR hardware isn’t one that’s likely to have been universally appreciated, but it’s likely going to be effective in producing the desired result. Valve’s Index headset is already sold out in 31 countries ahead of Alyx’s launch, in fact
Importantly, if Alyx is a critical success, it going to play a crucial role in legitimizing VR as a hardcore gaming platform in the eyes of those who still perceive it as a novelty peripheral.
Ironically, while Valve’s primary motivation for developing a VR game is to push its own Index headset, the big winner in all this might yet be Oculus Quest. That’s because Alyx is not actually exclusive to Valve hardware; it will be playable on Quest, as well as a number of other PC headsets.
A Matter of When Not If
For industry analysts, both Oculus Quest and Half-Life: Alyx are tipped as the decisive factors likely to take VR to the next level of market penetration.
Offering her 2020 video game industry predictions to Gamesindustry.biz only just the other week, SuperData’s Stephania Llamas believes Oculus Quest will sell 1.8M devices this year, highlighting that “Quest offers the untethered experience that people have been waiting for,” which she thinks should see another two or three million units sold in 2020 — a very respectable tally indeed, even if doesn’t quite represent a total conquering of the masses.
The NPD Group’s Matt Piscatella, meanwhile, said “Growth in Oculus Quest, the release of Half-Life: Alyx, and likely reinvigorated marketing and content for PSVR should at long last bring immersive gaming VR to notable market traction.”
So while 2020 doesn’t look set to be the year of mass-market adoption, it seems the market is moving closer to solving two major parts of the “paradox of new tech.”
Quest is making quality VR accessible, and the arrival of AAA marquee VR titles from esteemed developers like Valve might finally change the narrative of the platform from a novelty to a must-have gaming device. 2020 may yet be remembered as a transitional year when VR’s mainstream success was teed up by two important pieces of hardware and software.
