Can Engineers Design a Life-Like Fully Immersive VR Game/Experience for Global Interaction?

Believe it or not, the concept of fully immersive virtual reality (VR) that allows people to meet others anywhere in the world has existed for much longer than you might think. This question has been around since people started sharing stories, which essentially have always had a form of 'virtual reality' that doesn't require any graphics at all.

The Purist Form of Virtual Reality

The purist form of virtual reality has been with us for hundreds-if not thousands of years: the narrative book, or as it's more commonly known, a story. Think about it, a story is a virtual reality experience with a lot of extra steps corporations have brainwashed us into thinking we need to do, steps that require actual cash to use our own innate creativity. These steps include the use of graphics, animations, and complex virtual environments.

The Golden Age of Cross-Channel Virtual Reality

During the period from the 50’s through the late 70’s, there were fairly elaborate and extremely creative virtual reality games that used only text to create immersive experiences. These included telephone games, postal mail games, and BBS games, which consisted of DD-style descriptions of events, locations, and characters. In fact, games like chess, a virtual battle between kingdoms, have been played via mail for hundreds of years.

Virtual Reality Social Platforms Today

Yes, it is certainly possible, and many VR social platforms already exist today. Among them, the most popular is VR-Chat, followed by Neo’s VR, Chillout-VR Lavender Rec Room, and Alt Space.

These platforms offer a relatively small but growing space for global interaction. For instance, the largest of these platforms, VR-Chat, currently has over 3 million registered users and averages between 30,000 to 40,000 concurrent users online at any one time. It's growing rapidly and has doubled its active user count in the past five months. As a frequent user of VR-Chat, I have friends from every continent except for Antarctica.

Creating and Interacting in a Virtual World

The key feature of these virtual reality platforms is that the avatars and scenes that users interact with and in are created and uploaded by users themselves. For instance, I myself have created a virtual safari world and last week was guiding a group of Japanese users through a tour, while videoconferencing with my American friend who works at the Florida Zoo.

Examples of Enhanced Social Interaction

A fun and impressive example of the kind of social interaction possible through present-day consumer VR technology is the International Dance Association. They use full-body tracking to meet in VR and host real-time dance battles, shows, and events every week. This demonstrates the potential of VR for not just gaming but also social and cultural activities.

Conclusion

While the technology and social norms used today are vastly different from those of the 50s and 70s, the fundamental idea of virtual reality as a way to connect people from all over the world remains unchanged. Engineers are continuing to push the boundaries of what is possible, making virtual reality experiences more immersive and inclusive.