 I'm TC Sotic with The Verge and we're here at GDC 2013. I'm about to try the Oculus Rift development kit for my first time. We're also about to check out Hawken, which hasn't been shown off before today. Let's jump in. This is insane. Oh man, this is incredible. This is like, this is the most bizarre thing I've ever done. I've never played anything like this before. Why are you guys here? What are you guys doing at GDC this year? What we're doing right now is shipping developer kits and we're trying to get these to people who want to develop games in virtual reality. So GDC is filled with developers, lots of indie developers, and we think that showing these people what VR is like is a really critical part of being successful. What types of developers do you really want on board for this? What kind of experiences are you trying to create out of the game? You know, to be honest, we don't know at this point. We're making these developer kits because we don't know what kind of experiences are the best experiences out there. What's happening is we're getting interest from developers who are saying, hey, I think that what I have could be a good VR experience. I really want to give this a shot. And so we want to make sure that those people are getting the developer kits they need. So maybe next year, the same time of year, maybe I'll have a better answer as to what kind of experiences do we want to be seeing more of on the Rift. Oh my God. I feel like I'm actually in the air right now. See, this is the kind of game I want to play. I just want to fly. This would be great for a flight simulator. I think this would be unbelievable for exploration games. You know, something like, I don't even know, Journey or, you know, games that haven't really even been conceived of yet. Imagine playing Myst on this thing. It would be insane, you know, actually having to look around at your environment. Definitely some exciting prospects for, you know, nonviolent games, exploration games, puzzle games. What about non-games? I mean, there's, you know, virtual realities used in a lot of different applications. PTSD therapy, for instance. I used to work in a military lab, and that was one of the projects that we worked on. Yeah, there's post-traumatic stress disorder treatment for soldiers. That's something that's been an ongoing VR research field for years. There's people who want to use it for education, people who want to use it for police and fire training so that you can train for certain situations and how to react to them without actually putting people in harm's way. There's people who want to use this for telepresence, telerobotics, so that they can operate machines at a distance but feel like they're present at the scene. There's all kinds of applications for virtual reality beyond gaming, but gaming is certainly the single biggest one. All right, so this is a Bare Bones racing game demo. It's really weird that I can feel the steering wheel but not see my hands on the steering wheel in the game. It also feels like I'm in a whittled balsa wood car, but that's okay. I should go fast. Oh, God, this is sickening. Oh, I'm definitely... Yeah, this is way different from Hawken. You're going a lot faster. I could see this being insane in an actual game like Forza or Need for Speed or something. But I can definitely feel my stomach just turning. Oh, God. I feel like my body wants to move, but it can't. Whoa! Oh, my God. I just spun the car out. Have you been talking to developers? I mean, it seems like there's a challenge in, for instance, Team Fortress 2 when you have a character like the Scout that runs 40 miles an hour that's going to make people sick, potentially. How do you grapple with getting VR players and non-VR players in the same game together? Is that something you have concern about? Is that something developers have been trying to figure out? TF2 is a title that Valve used so that they could collect these kinds of metrics. They want to see how people perform against each other in VR as opposed to out of VR. They want to see what kind of classes people choose in VR, what maps do they like, how long do they play, what tends to make them stop playing. It's too early to try to solve problems about how to have basically competitive parity between normal players and VR players. Because one of the problems is that traditional interfaces like a keyboard and mouse, they're superhuman. You can do things. You can instantly accelerate full forward. You can spin 360 degrees in a tenth of a second. Those are things you can't possibly do in real life using your natural body to move. So I think there's always going to be a disconnect. I don't think you're ever going to have the same performance between a VR player and a keyboard, mouse, monitor player. You might have different advantages and different disadvantages, but balancing those is going to take a really long time, so I don't think we're close to that. It could just be for me, but it seems like racing games are going to be sickening for sure. And I could see this, you know, any game where you're really going fast will be nuts. Alright, I can't. Oh, come back man. You don't have to stay in there.
 I'm TC Sotic with The Verge and we're here at GDC 2013.
 I'm about to try the Oculus Rift development kit for my first time.
 We're also about to check out Hawken, which hasn't been shown off before today.
 Let's jump in.
 This is insane.
 Oh man, this is incredible.
 This is like, this is the most bizarre thing I've ever done.
 I've never played anything like this before.
 Why are you guys here? What are you guys doing at GDC this year?
 What we're doing right now is shipping developer kits and we're trying to get these to people who want to develop games in virtual reality.
 So GDC is filled with developers, lots of indie developers, and we think that showing these people what VR is like is a really critical part of being successful.
 What types of developers do you really want on board for this? What kind of experiences are you trying to create out of the game?
 You know, to be honest, we don't know at this point.
 We're making these developer kits because we don't know what kind of experiences are the best experiences out there.
 What's happening is we're getting interest from developers who are saying,
 hey, I think that what I have could be a good VR experience.
 I really want to give this a shot.
 And so we want to make sure that those people are getting the developer kits they need.
 So maybe next year, the same time of year, maybe I'll have a better answer as to what kind of experiences do we want to be seeing more of on the Rift.
 Oh my God.
 I feel like I'm actually in the air right now.
 See, this is the kind of game I want to play. I just want to fly.
 This would be great for a flight simulator.
 I think this would be unbelievable for exploration games.
 You know, something like, I don't even know, Journey or, you know, games that haven't really even been conceived of yet.
 Imagine playing Myst on this thing. It would be insane, you know, actually having to look around at your environment.
 Definitely some exciting prospects for, you know, nonviolent games, exploration games, puzzle games.
 What about non-games? I mean, there's, you know, virtual realities used in a lot of different applications.
 PTSD therapy, for instance.
 I used to work in a military lab, and that was one of the projects that we worked on.
 Yeah, there's post-traumatic stress disorder treatment for soldiers.
 That's something that's been an ongoing VR research field for years.
 There's people who want to use it for education, people who want to use it for police and fire training
 so that you can train for certain situations and how to react to them without actually putting people in harm's way.
 There's people who want to use this for telepresence, telerobotics, so that they can operate machines at a distance
 but feel like they're present at the scene.
 There's all kinds of applications for virtual reality beyond gaming, but gaming is certainly the single biggest one.
 All right, so this is a Bare Bones racing game demo.
 It's really weird that I can feel the steering wheel but not see my hands on the steering wheel in the game.
 It also feels like I'm in a whittled balsa wood car, but that's okay.
 I should go fast.
 Oh, God, this is sickening.
 Oh, I'm definitely...
 Yeah, this is way different from Hawken.
 You're going a lot faster.
 I could see this being insane in an actual game like Forza or Need for Speed or something.
 But I can definitely feel my stomach just turning.
 Oh, God.
 I feel like my body wants to move, but it can't.
 Whoa! Oh, my God.
 I just spun the car out.
 Have you been talking to developers?
 I mean, it seems like there's a challenge in, for instance, Team Fortress 2
 when you have a character like the Scout that runs 40 miles an hour that's going to make people sick, potentially.
 How do you grapple with getting VR players and non-VR players in the same game together?
 Is that something you have concern about?
 Is that something developers have been trying to figure out?
 TF2 is a title that Valve used so that they could collect these kinds of metrics.
 They want to see how people perform against each other in VR as opposed to out of VR.
 They want to see what kind of classes people choose in VR, what maps do they like,
 how long do they play, what tends to make them stop playing.
 It's too early to try to solve problems about how to have basically competitive parity between normal players and VR players.
 Because one of the problems is that traditional interfaces like a keyboard and mouse, they're superhuman.
 You can do things. You can instantly accelerate full forward.
 You can spin 360 degrees in a tenth of a second.
 Those are things you can't possibly do in real life using your natural body to move.
 So I think there's always going to be a disconnect.
 I don't think you're ever going to have the same performance between a VR player and a keyboard, mouse, monitor player.
 You might have different advantages and different disadvantages,
 but balancing those is going to take a really long time, so I don't think we're close to that.
 It could just be for me, but it seems like racing games are going to be sickening for sure.
 And I could see this, you know, any game where you're really going fast will be nuts.
 Alright, I can't.
 Oh, come back man. You don't have to stay in there.