kinda boggles my mind that this pandemic SHOULD be *the* moment for VR, the moment when there's a really obvious global use case. and in this time where that portion of the industry could be seeing a huge boom, the best we've got still appears to be uh [checks notes] beat saber

i loved working in vr. i really did. but it was hard sometimes to ignore the huge disconnect between platform-wide strategy/idealism and the real, tangible needs of people who might be interested in the hardware for purposes other than gaming. i hope someone figures it out.

lots of "hardware isn't affordable" & yes, of course nobody is interested in a luxury device when they're out of work. but this was STILL the refrain pre-pandemic, leading me to think it's more about the perception of value of VR vs any other device you could have for that price.

to make my stance clear: i think remote work should be top of line for vr strategy right now. i.e. at the very least, tech/gaming companies who have told employees they'll WFH until 2021+ could easily foot the bill to buy a headset for every employee. they're not. why is that?

behind that, in a world where physical presence is highly desirable but still unsafe, i think the next bets are socialization, dating, & education. avatars are a requirement for this. some platforms are investing in them.

but i truly think gaming and vr tv/film ain't it, folks