One of the most respected game developers in the business, Warren Spector, has been a fairly vocal critic of virtual reality’s recent resurgence of late. But in a recent interview, the Deus Ex creator says he’s changed his mind and that “You may see me dabbling in VR yet”.
There are few games of my generation which has garnered such universal praise as the first person action-RPG Deus Ex. It was a genre-busting, game-changing, rip-roaringly flawed master-class in game design and of overcoming technical limitations and critical expectations. As head of the Austin branch of Ion Storm, the studio formed by ex-id founder John Romero, Warren Spector steered clear of the disasters unfolding at Romero’s own studio in Texas (anyone remember Daikatana?) to build the complex and compelling Deus Ex atop the Unreal Engine, eventually releasing it to critical acclaim in 2000. To say Deus Ex is much loved is to massively underplay just how important the game was to legions of PC gamers.
And so, when a developer of that kind of pedigree takes a negative stance on a subject, related to gaming, the gaming industry tends to sit up and take notice. Having been stung by his embrace of VR technology circa 1994 Spector, speaking just a couple of months ago to Kotaku, said:
“This is where I look like an idiot in five years, but I just don’t care,” he laughs. “I was a big supporter of VR in 1994 when we did System Shock and Wings of Glory and supported the Vortay VFX1 headset and the Cybermax headset. And I just don’t believe fundamentally that people are going to want to put a goofy set of glasses on, isolate themselves from the world and play games that way. They’re not going to want to look stupid and they’re not going to want to be so isolated they can’t tell when somebody’s looking over their shoulder making fun of them.
“Prediction is a fool’s game, but I personally don’t have any interest and I think there’s a lot of hype and a lot of buzz. And I’ve certainly put on an Oculus Rift and seen some cool stuff, but as a player, I’m not very interested and as a developer, I’m not interested at all.“
Which not only disappointed VR enthusiasts who were also fans of his work, it gave extra ammunition to those entrenched in their own VR-sceptic positions.
It’s a difficult thing to admit you’re wrong, especially when U-turning from such a seemingly fatalistic stance. So, kudos to Spector, as in his most communique to Kotaku, he admits that after much more consideration (and a considerable amount of brow beating by the sounds of it) he has “..started to come around,” to the idea of developing in VR.
“Since the interview that led to [Kotaku’s] Johnny Cullen’s article about teaching design, and after many discussions with developer friends and gamers of all stripes, my thoughts have changed some on the VR front,” Spector admits. “I still worry a lot about the non-content issues around VR, the human issues that seem to me to be largely unsolvable: humans not wanting to wear goofy-looking glasses… isolation from your surroundings, not knowing who’s there with you and not being able to share the experience with others… the space required when you kind of have to move around to get the full experience… Those are the things that specifically concern me. Those are the things I wish people would talk about publicly when they talk about widespread/mainstream adoption of VR. (I have no idea if people are talking about these issues behind closed doors, for what it’s worth.)”
What does this mean for virtual reality as a gaming platform? It means that one of the gaming industry’s most respected creator may concentrate some of his talent in helping to build the new renaissance. “You can blast me for what I thought and said earlier, here and elsewhere but I hope people will give me credit for being a learning animal. I’ve started to come around. Colour me dubious, but intrigued (as I was in the ‘90s, the last time VR was The Next Big Thing). So ignore what I said in that interview about not being interested from a developer standpoint at least. You may see me dabbling in VR yet. Now, let’s talk about those human issues I cited above and see if we can solve them!”
Quite what, where, how and when we’ll see anything from Warren Spector, developed for the VR space, is as yet unclear. However, just the knowledge that he’s thinking about it is exciting enough for me, and I suspect many others out there.