Damn, hits home. I would've been one of your friends or family I think.

I was immediately excited about VR back in the mid 2010s. And over the past years I've done a bit of reading and have had various fun discussions with friends about the use-cases of VR today, and in 5 or 15 years from now, that all made sense to me.

I really held off as long as I could for both the tech and the content base to develop, to jump in with the best experience. Plus I had already moved away from gaming PCs to Mac + PlayStation, so when 1.5y ago PSVR2 was announced I had an opportunity to get some of the best hardware $550 could buy.

But I've mostly been disappointed. Despite waiting for half a decade to jump into it, and staying home looking out the window for my package to arrive, I spent just 30 min on it the first day, and another 30min over the course of the next week, and since I got it (pre-order) I've spent no more than 1.5 hours. I honestly don't think I've ever in my life, spent so much on something that got me so little value.

I'm not really blaming the hardware, it's all quite impressive, and I've been on the PSVR2 subreddit where everyone absolutely loves a ton of the games. It just didn't get the magic going for me.

I'm still considering selling the PSVR2 and buying a Quest 2. I'm personally less interested in the PS game content, and want to try out museums, concerts, safaris, as well as some indie (game) content and the various mods. I'm still somehow quite excited about the tech, even though I've got no interest in using the hardware I have sitting a meter away from me.

And I have to be honest, the nausea of the 3 experiences I had were a put off. Traumatic is waaaay too strong a word to use. But you know how someone may eat sushi and love it, and then get food poisoning due to bad hygiene at the restaurant, and spend 24 hours throwing up sushi, doesn't feel like having sushi for years? I feel the nausea may have had that effect a bit. All 3 play sessions I ended feeling sweaty, dizzy and sick, and required me to just lay down and do nothing for a few hours. I know it gets better as your brain gets used to it, but it raised the bar to jump in for a quick session to the point of 'why bother'. My gf didn't have this problem at all, although she hasn't asked to play since the first time I showed it to her (and she was really wowified by it all and enjoyed it a lot).

I've definitely come to the conclusion that my enthusiasm for VR was misguided, or just really premature. I don't see myself videoconferencing in VR in 5 years rather than using Teams, playing games, watching VR movies from the POV of one of the main actors, watching the world cup final from the POV of the referee, enjoying a concert from the VIP area, or playing a VR RPG like Fallout or Mass Effect with not just a ChatGTP but also a VR mod.

But who knows. Part of me does still think: if there's tons of good content out there, cheaper than now. If the devices have double the resolution and screen refresh rate, weigh less, cost less, and they're super seamless to put on and make you less dizzy, immerse you more, and get you into experiences that flatscreens can't do... then maybe it'll stay around like the Smartwatch / Apple Watch: a major ($100b per year) product category enjoyed by >200 million, that doesn't change the world but still makes it better. I don't really see VR fading away entirely, unless AR supplants it.

Could you speak to your top 5 or 10 (if you can) VR apps/experiences on the Quest 2, that you would recommend to try out?