MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Publisher EA has said it will be right at the forefront of virtual reality if the technology takes off – but a big hurdle remains before that can happen.
The challenge is if you are at all even slightly motion sick prone, it’s very tough," EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said in a talk at the 2014 UBS Global Technology Conference, GameSpot reports.
"I’ve seen people within 30 seconds have to take the goggles off because … it is so immersive. It’s an incredible experience and I think there’s a huge opportunity but there’s some technology steps that have to be played out and I think so ways to make sure people enjoy it but don’t get sick by it too quickly."
None of which means EA isn’t actively investigating the technology, however.
"We’re clearly experimenting with it today,” Jorgensen added. We’ve run some of our games on two or three of the different platforms that are being developed for virtual reality.
"If a virtual reality platform takes off, either a standalone or as part of any of those other platforms, we’ll be there to build games," he said. "If you look at our games, they’re incredibly well set up for virtual reality because we create these big, immersive worlds that people essentially play in.”
Earlier this month Oculus Rift CEO Brendan Iribe urged market rival Sony to ensure that it addresses the VR motion sickness problem when developing its Project Morpheus headset or else risk damaging the technology’s reputation.
Earlier this year Lunar Studios abandoned plans to add VR support to its upcoming title Routine due to the "extreme” motion sickness experienced by testers.
