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[Eddie-Griffin]

https://www.ign.com/articles/job-simulator-owlchemy-interview

Speaking to me at DICE, the two are ecstatic about the leaps and bounds Owlchemy and VR as a whole have been able to make over the years. Hand tracking technology, for instance, is progressing well, and is a major staple of Owlchemy’s plans for multiplayer play in its upcoming new, untitled VR game. Specifically, they tell me, they want to work on multiplayer play that’s collaborative, not competitive, because they believe it just works that much better in the VR space specifically.

“VR multiplayer in the current state, which is totally great and fine, is a lot like, I lay on my floor and shoot you with a big sniper rifle, or I'm flying around an arena throwing the ball,” Eiche explains. “But people haven't conceptualized: we're playing a duet on the piano, the equivalent to that, or we're writing together on a whiteboard or we're sculpting together. And we are experimenting with those things.”

Affording Chaos​

But with experimentation comes a whole host of technical challenges. The physical space has to be believable not just with one person running around in it and interacting with objects, but multiple. Eiche calls it a “technical nightmare, but worth solving.”

“The things that make console games great are not the things that make VR games great,” he continues. “VR games just tend to work best when you get sand boxing and you get explorative as a core feature and not explorative in the ‘going through a Zelda world’ exploration. But explorative as in, I'm messing with the environment.”

Which is where hand tracking comes in. Eiche tells me that hand tracking is great technology for exploring interactions with worlds that controllers can’t accomplish. A controller can give you a button to pick up an object, and maybe do a single interaction with it, then get rid of it. But what a controller can’t do is what Eiche calls “affordances,” or secondary interactions. Extra stuff that a person might want to do with an object in a world that might be extraneous or even silly. Like clicking a pen.

“Spraying a spray bottle, squeezing a sponge, those are all things that controllers don't do well because they're so binary in their state,” he says. “Even with analog controls, it never feels right. But you can do a soft pickup with hand tracking and then squeeze. Eggs were the best. Because you pick up an egg. And then you're like, ‘Ah, an egg.’ And you squeeze as hard as you can and it crushes and you're like, ‘Yeah, I did that.’

“We used to say the water bottle on the table is the worst. If you have a water bottle on the table and you reach through it, that disappoints people. So then you pick it up and the next thing is, I should be able to uncap it and then I should be able to drink it. I should be able to pour it. I should be able to...affordances is what we talk about a lot.”

Biggest Games of 2023

Hand tracking isn’t the only other VR tech that Eiche and Reimer are excited about. Face tracking is another big one, because of the level of emotional depth they hope it will allow players to express in virtual spaces, especially cooperatively. And Reimer was thrilled that Sony committed to putting a rumble in the head of its PSVR2 headset, in no small part due to a very specific interaction in Job Simulator.

“In the kitchen there's a blender and if you turn on the blender and then you stick your face in it down to the blades, there's haptics in the headsets and the headsets like this,” he holds his hands up to his head and vibrates for a moment. “And it cracks me up so much.”

Eiche adds: “Sony was the only group crazy enough to do it because every time we'd ask another headset manufacturer, they're like, ‘Are you kidding me? We have trouble enough getting it on the head. Right? We're not going to shake their face.’”

The Wrong MetaVRse
One technological concept that they’re a little less high on is the metaverse. Reimer likes the word, but says it’s been ruined.

“A lot of people think of the Metaverse as a space where we dump 10,000 people into the same location and they're doing stuff together,” he says. “And I don't think that's going to work.”

Eiche chimes in: “Once a year we go to GDC I'm like, ‘Wow, this is what 10,000 people looks like. And then we're like, I got to get the fuck out of here.”

Reimer notes that even in a space like a big conference, you don’t hang out with all 10,000 people. You find small groups of friends and spend time with them. That’s closer to what he thinks a “metaverse” might end up being successful at.

“I think they're always solving the wrong problem,” Eiche continues. “You're solving the tech problem. And it's a content problem. And I read a tweet that I just love, which is, ‘It's easier to create a pen and paper than it is to write Ulysses.’ And over and over again, each metaverse creates a pen and paper…So every time somebody talks about it and they're like, ‘We'll have so many users generate this content.’ It's like you're making the pen and paper again and hoping that some genius writer shows up and creates the world that you wanted in there. And I mean, Roblox existed for, what, 15 years before it became popular? Anyone thinking about embarking in the Metaverse should look at that and go, holy shit, we have a content problem, not a tech problem.”

Eiche does believe that VR is a likely component of a metaverse idea, and in fact is already a part of it, because it’s already part of an online society. But he doesn’t want VR to be “put in a box.”

“VR can do a lot more than just this thing that you're trying to shove it into because you read a lot of Neil Stephenson and you think it's super cool. And it is super cool…But those worlds were also dystopias, right? Ready Player One, they lived in stacks of trailers and everybody went to the Oasis to hide from reality. And then you see people get on stage, they go, we're building the oasis. And it's like, are you building both sides of it? Because I don't like that.”

It's like Wii Sports, right? You need to get past that.

---

As Reimer departs, he’s happy with what he’s built and the space he’s helped carve out for Owlchemy in the VR market, especially given that they started at a time when many questioned if VR was about to die for good. Now, there’s no question VR is here to stay, and it’s on Eiche to think about Owlchemy’s place in defining its future. He wants to get the VR industry to move toward the vision Owlchemy has of VR spaces as instinctive, inventive playgrounds that aren’t dependent on current ideas of what a video game should be.

Eiche explains that when games are dependent on controllers, they tend to gravitate toward specific kinds of verbs in their gameplay: shoot, throw, things that are easily mapped to buttons. But with VR, you can bypass all that and conceivably remove most limitations from what a person could do in a virtual space. Why, then, would the VR industry need to keep making video games like the console industry? Why spend investment money on trying to translate another AAA shooter into VR when there are so many other possibilities?

“I think it would be a failure of VR if Job Simulator is still [one of the top VR games] in five years,” Eiche says. “It's like Wii Sports, right? You need to get past that. We need the industry to move on. Financially we'd love it if we're in the top 10 forever. But is that healthy for the industry?”

Reimer adds: “Any individual studio, including Owlchemy, is only successful if other studios are also making awesome stuff.”

This is a very interesting interview with the Job Simulator devs who think there''s a failure to be ambitious and conceptualize the possibilities with making VR content, and they believe that developers are basically sticking with the status quo facing stagnations. As well as the flaw of traditional game controls limiting the scope VR can have.

The last section though is probably the most interesting. They say they want the industry to move forward from the expectations of gaming consoles, and says that VR developers should treat VR completely separately, while scrutinizing the attempt to convert console games to VR, or using the hybrid format.

I think there's impact to their line saying that VR would be a failure if Job Simulator is still a top game for the medium in 5 years, and grilling people who keep looking to put out a Wii Sports instead of being inventive with the possibilities VR offers. They say while being on top would be great for them monetarily, it would be unhealthy for the VR market as a whole.

Honestly, when you think about it he has a point. Job Simulator first came out in 2016, so 7 years later it's still a top game in the market. Sure, in the earlier days there were some growing pains but when VR improved it was still top software.

Now some people disagree with him that companies should treat VR different from console gaming and should focus less on translating the console experience to VR and converting games over, however the majority of experiences people have had with top selling VR headsets including the popular Quest 2, does highlight many of the concerns the Job Simulator dev mentioned in this interview. There's also the argument that giving away appealing games bundled with headsets like Wii Sports, may actually provide sector growth.

Regardless, there's one thing that they said that's hard to disagree with, and that's a lack of inventiveness to chase that console status quo and bring that over to VR for many software studios participating in VR development.

 

[feynoob]

Eddie, how much do you like VR?

 

[Kuranghi]

Eddiiiiiie!

 

[Rubik8]

Never seen someone with such a hate-boner. Get some friends or a life.

 

[ABnormal]

That's agreeable, but the primary reason to the rather conservative game design in VR today is not lazyness, it's motion sickness. Basically, until motion sickness will be eradicated by some specific tech (like the one Valve spoke, which seems to be able to suppress it entirely), all developers are forced to restrain movement and interaction withing a commercially acceptable threshold of tolerance (they could develop a game with completely free and dynamic movement and interactions, but it would only be playable by selected few individuals. That's all. All the other considerations are secondary and, while being also important (such as price, dimensions, and technical specs), they will NEVER be the deciding factor for mass adoption and full unleashed development. Not even games. Many continue to say that Alix or other games will make VR mainstream, but they will not, regardless of the greatness of the game.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

That's agreeable, but the primary reason to the rather conservative game design in VR today is not lazyness, it's motion sickness. Basically, until motion sickness will be eradicated by some specific tech (like the one Valve spoke, which seems to be able to suppress it entirely), all developers are forced to restrain movement and interaction withing a commercially acceptable threshold of tolerance

I don't think he was arguing laziness, I think he was arguing too much focus on trying to treat VR like a game console as said here,

He wants to get the VR industry to move toward the vision Owlchemy has of VR spaces as instinctive, inventive playgrounds that aren’t dependent on current ideas of what a video game should be. Eiche explains that when games are dependent on controllers, they tend to gravitate toward specific kinds of verbs in their gameplay: shoot, throw, things that are easily mapped to buttons. But with VR, you can bypass all that and conceivably remove most limitations from what a person could do in a virtual space. Why, then, would the VR industry need to keep making video games like the console industry? Why spend investment money on trying to translate another AAA shooter into VR when there are so many other possibilities?

It seems that he believes that VR devs are basically putting a lot of investment in conversion and keeping the same traditional mechanics devs usually implement with console development, and bringing it to VR.

I agree with you that motion sickness is definitely a factor from bigger inventive games from being made, but he's complaining about the many devs that are just doing conversions and not trying to be interactive on a minimal level.

Removing motion sickness will make that easier, but the argument he is making is that devs need to change their mindsets as well and not treat making games for VR the same as making games for a console.

 

[justiceiro]

Disagree, the industry should be driven by what consumers want, not by what companies think they can push down our throats.

Minecraft staying on the top charts for more of a decade means the industry didn't evolved for that time? Or maybe the game was good enough for users to keep coming up with new and inventive ways to play the game?

Job simulator, like Wii sports, was and is a perfect entry point. Doesn't mean people didn't get past that, but means that there is always new people starting there.

 

[ABnormal]

It seems that he believes that VR devs are basically putting a lot of investment in conversion and keeping the same traditional mechanics devs usually implement with console development, and bringing it to VR.

I agree with you that motion sickness is definitely a factor from bigger inventive games from being made, but he's complaining about the many devs that are just doing conversions and not trying to be interactive on a minimal level.

Well, that's precisely laziness (or fear to try new directions).

There are also other reasons for that: low installed base (that will continue to be unless motion sickness will be resolved), which makes conversions a more sustainable
And anyway, I for first want conversions (like RE8 and GT7), and I hope "hybrid" games will be common, but VR can do much, much more in terms of gameplay and interaction, if free from restraints, so I'm looking forward to VR-only titles that create entirely new ways to play. In part, that would be possible even today, even without solving motion sickness entirely (as Alix demonstrated), but few try to do new things, preferring to rely on old, stagnated game designs (like the extremely trivial, derivative horror games wannabe which are an insult to creativity and a real vision, and that are built only to cater to some impulse buying from casuals).