Virtual Encounters

Ideas in the world of VR development

- Philippa Warr

VRDC Fall 2017 – the virtual reality developers’ conference – took place in San Francisco in mid- September. Aside from prompting the thought that the event would sound more zingy if they were to rebrand as “Cybergoggles NOW!” the VR shindig provides a fascinating look at the priorities and projects of its practitioners.

Generally I’ve thought that the best and most interesting work in the field of virtual reality would probably happen outside gaming. That’s not to say that great VR games won’t be made, but for me it’s in the same position as Microsoft’s Kinect. There were some brilliant (and some brilliantly broken) gaming projects which used that tech, but there was also research into ideas like using the Kinect to control the movement of cockroaches with the ultimate goal of potentially exploring and mapping disaster sites, for example.