What do you think about VR visual novels?

[Mutive]

Oh, I'm sure games exist. (Although I've yet to hear of the headset itself supporting them - could you provide a link? I'm legit curious. Although if this is similar to the little lenses you can put in front of your cell phone, I'm going to give it a hard pass. Those *aren't* immersive and honestly are pretty miserable to play with. The VR headsets I've used have all been pretty entertaining...but also have required a pretty high powered gaming rig attached to them. Which definitely limits the market.)

And the assets are a HUGE deal. As you said, $40 for 30 minutes of being able to walk around a cartoon environment isn't desirable to me. To want to plunk down that kind of money, I'd want a full VN...just in 3D. (Which I suspect would be VERY expensive to produce as it would need large numbers of environments, voice actors, characters, etc.) I could see, say, spending that kind of money to lose myself in a fantastically realized world. Not so much to wander around a cartoon living room and talk to two 3D models.

Again, I can 100% see a market for it in porn. (I imagine there are more than a few people who'd love a more immersive experience of making love to the sweet, sweet anime girl of their dreams in a more immersive environment.) But it's also not something that I suspect would be inexpensive to produce.

[Imperf3kt]

Again, I can 100% see a market for it in porn.

Such a market already exists and has been slowly growing since about 2016 IIRC.
Although not technically visual novels, there have been many games of that sort released where the player interacts with a single character (usu. female) via choices and dialogue, except from a 3D perspective.

[Mutive]

Such a market already exists and has been slowly growing since about 2016 IIRC.
Although not technically visual novels, there have been many games of that sort released where the player interacts with a single character (usu. female) via choices and dialogue, except from a 3D perspective.

I'm not surprised at all. People pay for porn. And I suspect that's a market for which even slight advances in how immersive it is greatly motivate consumers to spend more.

[DanOrgan]

Oh, I'm sure games exist. (Although I've yet to hear of the headset itself supporting them - could you provide a link? I'm legit curious. Although if this is similar to the little lenses you can put in front of your cell phone, I'm going to give it a hard pass. Those *aren't* immersive and honestly are pretty miserable to play with.

All games from here: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/?locale=en_US are running on the device itself.
They are way better than lenses + cell phone. But worse than high-end PC games (such as HL Alyx). Have you heard of the Beat Saber? Don't expect something much better.

Such a market already exists and has been slowly growing since about 2016 IIRC.
Although not technically visual novels, there have been many games of that sort released where the player interacts with a single character (usu. female) via choices and dialogue, except from a 3D perspective.

Yeah, some VR porn games are quite cool. I've tried VR Kanojo and I like it.
But all those games are PC games. You can't run it without having a $1000 PC wired to your device. There are few exceptions, of course. But honestly, is it even possible to render a realistic human body with detailed animations on mobile hardware? No, I don't think so.

[Mutive]

Oh, interesting. I'm glad to see it's evolved.

But, with that said, if the game isn't super immersive without a $1000+ PC connected to the device, I'm not sure how desirable it would be. To me, at least, the fun of VR (and the reason it's worth paying for) is that it is INCREDIBLY immersive.

Now anime style animation often does have lower rendering needs than, say, something that's supposed to look photo realistic. So I guess it could work. But, again, I suspect it would be pretty expensive. (And even the lower end rigs aren't something that most people are going to buy. It's a small market.)