DayZ Creator Dean Hall Urges Caution With Oculus Rift and HTC Vive VR Hype

The creator of DayZ, Dean Hall, has always been outspoken about his views on the game industry and where it’s headed. The New Zealand-based developer recently aired his thoughts on the virtual reality phenomenon that’s set to take off this year with the launch of the Oculus Rift, Vive, and PlayStation VR.

Posting on Reddit, the developer says that the media incorrectly sees the Oculus and Vive by treating their relationship as being similar to the PlayStation and Xbox.

“Personally I see them as fairly different,” said Hall. “While there is some overlap that seem, at least initially, like they are focused in different areas. While you can use each to do what the other is, they’re both designed at the core quite differently and seem to me to be retrofitted to also do what the other is.”

“For example, the Vive is focused on positional tracking right from the get-go and it is clear when you use it,” he elaborated. “Games designed for one or the other work best, IMHO, and I would offer EVE Valkyrie as a great example. CCP sat down and made a game for the Oculus and the result was outstanding.”

Hall went on to state that developing games for VR systems was a “back to basics” lesson for game developers because of how important it is for game developers to optimize their titles to output  a consistent, high framerate.

“It’s like the old console days where you absolutely have to hit your frame rate. If you drop any frames you can make the user sick. Curiously, this affects some people more than others. I can instantly notice the drop of even a few frames with the headset on. Where as two of our team couldn’t notice it even when it was dropping heaps,” he said. “I would get sick easy, they wouldn’t.”

It’s the reason why neither the Vive nor the Oculus Rift are recommended to be used with any systems lower than those specified through their respective benchmark tools.

Hall says that his greatest concern as a developer is whether it’s possible to make a good VR game that people will want to play for longer than 20 minutes. He added that titles developed for these systems make for great E3 demos, and that when people visit his studio, they are ushered into the VR room to test out their game.

“It offers simple, clear, and relatable experiences that anyone can appreciate,” said Hall, praising the new technology.

Hall warned that despite its simplicity and ease of use, no one really knows what to expect with the VR market, and that being taken in by all the hype may prove disastrous for studios that bank their entire budget into it.

“In reality I see this as a very expensive Wii,” said Hall. “The Wii was successful because it offered simple, fun, approachable experiences at a low cost. We don’t know what kinds of games will sell well, how big the market will be, and so on. So our steps with VR are exploration and we’re not banking the studio on it. I fear some studios are so swept up with the possibilities of VR they’re putting everything into it when we don’t know anything about the VR game market. How many people will be buying VR games? and how much will they pay?”

Dean Hall’s next game is an “emergent narrative MMO” called Ion, in which players will build, live in, and die in futuristic space stations.