Why virtual reality makes a lot of us sick, and what we can do about it.
When I had my rig I got a boxing game and it fucking zoomed in and put totally unexpectedly and nearly made me lose my shit. I could only do an hour before my eyes would start to feel like they were going to melt.
Back in the 90’s I owned a Forte VFX1 headset (shout out to my config.sys and autoexec.bat bros) and that truly tested your stomach but it was “the future” so everyone seemed to put up with the near constant nausea and vomiting. Things are so much better now, but there’s one fundamental aspect of VR in my view that will always hold it back. It’s not the cost, cos that eventually comes down. It’s that you’ll never get away from the fact that you are wearing a giant plastic thing on your head. You can’t itch your face. It gets hot and sweaty and generally not a fun time after a while. The minute someone figures out how to safely somehow beam the experience into your brain, without having to wear a high tech casserole dish on your head for hours then it’ll become the new global thing.
Where does that statistic come from and why is the range so broad? I also don’t think it’s a big deal because even if you do get motion sick, after playing enough you don’t get motion sick anymore. (people in the vr community call it getting your vr legs)
The can’t narrow the stat… 40-70%… I call BS. Clearly a clickbait article
The biggest sin was not citing the study. It appears to come from an interview with a professor, and the range is based on variation across applications.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/feel-motion-sickness-virtual-reality/story?id=65153805
I only got a VR setup this year. I find I am quite susceptible to the motion sickness issues. However, if the game has a good comfort rating and options, I don’t have any problems. For example, I need “instant snap” for turning with the control stick and “teleport” or “blink” for movement.
Those options work well for some kinds of games but I will probably never play ones where you need to “move” smoothly without actually moving. Perhaps that is preventing me from adapting to it, but I still say “no thanks” to motion sickness.
I really love vr but I can’t play it due to the motion sickness. I’ve tried forcing through it but it never got better.
It’s not something you can force yourself through, unfortunately. The only way to get over VR motion sickness is to work up to it.
If you get motion sick after 5 minutes, spend 4 minutes every day doing basic things. After a couple weeks, you’ll very likely be able to go about 10-15 minutes. So then spend 10 minutes every day.
The moment you get any sort of motion sickness, stop immediately. Nothing you can do will alleviate it and playing more isn’t an option that day.
I do think most people are able to work up to and work through it, but most just try to brute force their way or expect that they’ll immediately be able to do everything. VR is analogous to a craft, both vehicle and hobby. While you can just get right into a car or roller coaster and send it, chances are your body needs to adjust and learn a few things about it. And while you can just pick up painting right away, chances are you’ll need to practice to learn techniques.
VR is very much a mix of both. Many people definitely can just get right on and pick it up pretty quickly, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some amount of necessary adjustments.
