Alright VR, You Might Have Finally Changed my Mind

I’m a stubborn guy, but this experience with Virtual Reality might have changed my mind!

Have I seen the VR Light?!?

A few weeks ago, I made an impromptu trip to my parent’s place and it just so happened that both of my siblings were in town as well. This was 100% unplanned and happened to become my introduction to the newest **Meta Quest 2.**

If you have had a chance to check out **Episode 26 of the [Super Agile Bros Podcast](https://linktr.ee/superagilebros)** on Virtual Reality and the Metaverse, you probably know that I’ve been a bit skeptical about the lasting appeal of VR. In no way do I dislike VR. If anything it’s the complete opposite. As a game dev who has done some VR game development, I think the tech is beyond interesting BUT I have my misgivings about is popular adoption and overall consumer mass appeal.

But my brother may have unintentionally changed my mind.

As we hung out in my parent’s living room catching up, swapping stories and playing games with my 3yr old niece, my brother brought up VR. Not only did he bring it up, he brought it with him. My brother had just become the owner of the new truly portable Meta Quest 2 and wanted to share the tech with whomever would be willing try it. And if course, your boy aka me, is always willing.

I have experienced VR before but hadn’t used it in quite some time. The last time I used it, the tech was nowhere near as advanced as it is now but even then it was a powerful experience. So I was excited to see how far it had come but my brother had a surprise in store.

As an intro to this new era of VR, my brother suggested that I play Richie’s Plank Experience to get my feet wet.

If you are not familiar with “Richie’s Plank Experience” it’s an actually fairly simple concept. You, the player, take an elevator to the top of a building, and walk out on a wooden plank that is suspended stories above the virtual ground in a virtual city.

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If you have never had the chance to use VR, let me explain to you that though that is a VERY simple complex, this game is instantly a “nope” for most people who have used VR before. The reason being is that even in the lowest quality VR experiences, VR can feel VERY real!

For those who suffer from the fear of heights, this is absolutely the worst thing you could ever do.

That being said, I was all about it.

Funnily enough, my brother had actually never played the game himself so I was the guinea pig of this experience that neither my sister or brother’s girlfriend were willing to try.

Let me tell y’all something, it is so hard to describe the feelings that overwhelm you when you start to step out on this plank dangling hundreds of feet above the virtual ground. Even with me audibly expressing that I knew that it wasn’t real, I couldn’t convince my body of that otherwise.

I vividly remember the first step out on the plank; the creaking of the wooden board, the sound of the wind whipping by my ears and that first real look down. My first step out on the plank happened to be followed by my first step back into the elevator. To say that “Richie’s Plank Experience” felt real feels funny to say but it’s the ONLY way to express it.

Eventually I got more comfortable slowly walking out on the plank and was feeling pretty confident. And then my siblings told me to do the unthinkable:

“Step off the plank, Brad!”

This is truly impossible for me to describe to you what my body did in that moment. The best way to describe it is that my body said “Nope!”. Looking down was hard enough but convincing my body to deliberately step off the plank and plummet multiple virtual stories to the virtual ground seemed utterly impossible.

But I was resolved to do it.

But… the choice to step off the plank was taken away from me.

A few moments after resolving to make the step off, I heard a creak, a crack and felt (that’s right FELT) the board start to give way below my feet.

I exclaimed in a panicked voice,

“Wait! I think the board is breaking?!?!”

And then SNAP!!!

I was falling!

Let me tell y’all something, my body didn’t know what to do. As I fell, my body just kinda did inexplicable things. From the laughter of my siblings, I can only imagine what I looked like. I cannot express how much of an experience that truly was.

So with that incredibly immersive experience now completed, you might just think that “Richie’s Plank Experience” is what may have changed my mind but it wasn’t….

I was actually betting a chance to play the game “Beat Saber”!

If you are not familiar with Beat Saber , it’s a game where players take hold of two colored beam sabers that are used to cut matching blocks hurtling toward them in a virtual world; all to the beat of music.

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Since I’m a gamer, I’m very well aware of “Beat Saber”. I’ve seen trailers, ads, and gameplay pretty regularly throughout the years but had never played it.

That my friends has been a mistake.

For the first time, while playing “Beat Saber”, I honestly felt that VR had a place amongst the masses. The simplicity of the mechanic, the immersive-ness of the gameplay and the feeling that this was more than a “one-off” experience really got me thinking…

If other games and applications could focus more on making VR accessible, fun and simple, VR could easily become a main staple in the average gamer’s household.

My sister and brother’s girlfriend, who previously wanted nothing to do with “Richie’s Plank Experience”, were now clamoring to take their turn slashing blocks to the beat in “Beat Saber”. They were even so pumped that they convinced my brother to buy the Lady Gaga music pack so they could slash it out to their favorite tunes.

In all honestly, I’ve been interested in VR for a long time and I own one of the early mobile VR headsets but have never really had a desire to invest more into the tech. But genuinely, “Beat Saber” has me rethinking everything. Though the Meta Quest 2 is not in the financial cards at the moment of this writing, I am legitimately considering my financial plan to figure out how to get this newer headset in the very near future.

To be frank, I haven’t fully given up on my VR skepticism but if this brief time I spent in VR is indicative of the future to come, sign me up! VR still has quite a way to go to become what everyone hopes it to be, but the future is bright. I look forward to see the next steps in the technology but I’m even more excited to see the games that are being developed that have been inspired by the likes of “Richie’s Plank Experience” and “Beat Saber”.

Consider me a changed man!

Cover Photo by Bradley Hook: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-using-vr-goggles-outdoors-123335/

Check out more gaming and nerd convos on my Podcast: **Super Agile Bros**

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