Speaking at the Ignite: Seattle event back in May, Joe Ludwig, Programmer at Valve Software (Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2) delivers a brief, irreverent summary of the history and current state of Virtual Reality.

Irreverent

Joe Ludwig, speaking at the Ignite, Seattle event on May 16th delivers a brief overview of VR as it stands with a tongue-in-cheek glance back in time to it’s origins. Despite it’s brevity, it’s quite a nice potted summary of where we are right now and how uncertain the future is given how new this technology.

Joe Ludwig has been the public face of VR at Valve ever since they announced they’re first public experiment with Virtual Reality and partnership with Oculus VR which resulted in Team Fortress 2: VR Mode being released back in March. Since then, Valve’s source engine based games have slowly received full, native Oculus Rift VR modes — including the legendary Half Life 2.

The Ignite Ethos

For those of you that don’t know, Ignite is an organisation specialising in organising  technology-based talks (a la TED), the twist is that anyone presenting has only 5 minutes to speak, with a maximum slide deck of 20 which rotate every 15 seconds. As a result, you get very little waffle in Ignite talks, this one being no exception.

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Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.