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Warren Spector thinks “VR is a fad”

Warren Spector

Warren Spector, probably still best known as the brain that birthed Deus Ex, thinks that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided looks really cool. Less cool, he thinks, is Virtual Reality. 

Having seen a lot of VR on show at E3 this year, Spector commented: “I’ve been pretty consistent in my belief that VR is a fad.” 

Talking to GamesIndustry about his experiences of the E3 show this year, Spector explained why he thinks that VR won’t gain any traction. “I don’t think most humans want to look stupid (everyone looks stupid in a VR headset) and they don’t want to isolate themselves from the world. I mean, if someone’s sneaking up behind me with a baseball bat, I want to know about it, you know what I mean? And let’s not talk about nausea.”

Spector believes there are opportunities for VR, but that the large-scale consumer adoption that the big VR companies are hoping for probably wont happen. “I think it’ll generate some interest among the hardcore gamers. And I see amazing possibilities in VR for social media and virtual meetings and training and crazy stuff like dealing with phobias. But for entertainment? I’m just not seeing it.”

“It’s weird, I worked on a couple of games that supported available VR headsets back in the ’90s and I was really jazzed about it. Now, I’m kind of over it.”

Spector isn’t against new methods of play, though. Whilst VR doesn’t tickle his fancy, AR gaming has sparked his interest. “AR, on the other hand – that seems pretty exciting. There’s some potential there. Even the low-hanging fruit of AR gaming seems compelling. Bring on the AR.”