Valve: It’s The Developer’s Fault If VR Makes You Sick

Virtual reality sounds extremely promising at the moment, but there are some concerns we’re sure many gamers have and that is motion sickness. The disconnect from what you’re seeing and experiencing visually versus what’s happening to your body is a well-documented issue, although companies have included technology and features to help prevent that.

In fact Valve proclaimed earlier this year that their virtual reality headset, the HTC Vive, has zero percent of its users complaining of motion sickness. Recently the company asserted those claims by stating that if you were to get sick, it would then be the developer’s fault for presumably not optimizing the experience, and that it would not be the fault of the hardware or technology.

Speaking to GamesIndustry, Valve’s Chet Faliszek said, “The idea that VR must get you sick is [bullshit]. […] As consumers and people in the community, hold developers to it. They shouldn’t be making you sick. It’s no longer the hardware’s fault any more. It’s the developers making choices that are making you sick. Tell them that you don’t want that.”

Of course whether or not those claims are true have yet to be proven. After all virtual reality has yet to become mainstream as many VR headsets haven’t been released commercially yet, and the current options offered like Google Cardboard and the Samsung Gear VR aren’t as comprehensive as what companies like Oculus, Valve, and Sony are thinking.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Valve, Virtual Reality (VR)