That's a fair and good assessment, Haemo.
However, this line stood out "Resi 7 is the best execution of a proper VR game concept", and the reason why explains most of what you've been saying, ironically.
RE7 isn't a wholly "proper" VR concept. In fact, it's not a VR concept at all. It's a tacked on mode that just so happened to work incredibly well because of three things: the premise of the game being horror, it's perspective, and the fact that it's a proper big budget game designed first and foremost to be played in a traditional manner. It's execution in VR is actually pretty half baked in terms of VR mechanics, and as far as that goes, it's not even realising the full potential of VR, which in fact is a very positive thing considering how well the game actually immersed you in that environment.
The reason why a lot of these concepts feel so rushed or poorly realised is for numerous reasons, mostly down to the risk factor of devs not wanting to splash big money on something that could potentially bankrupt a studio in one fell swoop. VR is still very much niche, and so the industry is still fully entrenched in it's traditions, and the priority - and will be for some time - will be traditional game development to be played on a standard TV. This is why Capcom have provided a blueprint for the way to go with VR moving forward. It'll be a gradual incline of progression. Sort of like how videogames initially sprang out from the arcades as a niche market in the late 70's to mid 80's where there it ran into a brick wall in failing to find that one killer application that would kickstart it all like taking a spark to dry tinder. That just so happened to be a certain Italian plumber and a now Japanese giant that started out making and selling playing cards. VR might certainly stutter, but sooner or later, someone will take that risk required, perhaps when the technology is more mature, and that "must have" app will make it take off, and that app might not even be what we all think, in that it might not even be a traditional video game.
Oh, I agree with most of that - what I meant with
Resi 7 being the best execution of a "proper" game concept working in VR is that however it's played, it's pretty much all about quiet tension and
"what's lurking behind me?" perturbing atmosphere, with occasional action flashpoints. No other AAA PSVR title (there are very few) has pulled its intentions off so well, and the clear intentions of
Resi 7 were to have it work in both VR and traditional formats. That's a 'proper' VR concept, because most VR games are not trying to be simultaneously immersive both in and out of VR, in fact most of then can't even be played without VR.
Game construction concepts like those are far more valuable than less effective VR-only titles, because it naturally broadens the audience, tempting those who love it to try out its VR mode the full game through, and the VR improves the intended experience so few who do that will be left unsatisfied. I don't agree that it's half-baked as such, just that the compromises made to have it working both ways don't significantly affect its enjoyability, and in fact the very limited VR-world mechanics help it by making you feel constricted and less powerful, which suits the setting down to the ground.
There is no other 'big' game out for PSVR which has executed its VR atmospheric envelopment as well, and the entire thing is playable that way too, which is looking increasingly unusual for a 'hybrid' title. I don't personally see it as a 'tacked-on' feature; in fact rather than being "designed first and foremost to be played in a traditional manner", I think it's been designed from the ground up with both modes fully in mind, and with VR mode actually being the best experience of the whole work. I doesn't need to realise the full potential of VR mechanically (or even in terms of visuals - the 'dodgy' grainy, unclean low-res look totally works for it), because a very specifically atmospheric environmental immersion, including the old video effects and such, was its main (you could even go as far as to say
sole) aim.
To be honest, if you read that sentence again, I was actually just using
Resi to blend into saying that despite it being the most effective VR game overall that I've personally experienced so far (with its horror theme being central to that effectiveness), if VR horror 'experiences' keep getting pumped out at a disproportionate rate to other promising genres, with their very basically creepy settings and spooky sounds and the obligatory frequent jump scares, it's gona become a bit tiresome for players. It was essentially an argument for more thoughtful gaming applications of VR going forward, not just across more varied game genres, but for the VR horror genre itself to be more varied and innovative rather than just derivative of what is perceived to 'work' as a VR horror experience. A slew of imitators will dilute rather than strengthen the appeal of VR horror.
I do think the embracing of PSVR has been slower than it could/should have been, because most decent titles out there are plucky little indies; the full PSVR blockbuster shelf is pretty bare almost a year on. Most AAA studios have only dipped the tip of their little toe in, with mini VR
experiences added to their big names, which is what I personally would call 'tacked-on', not stuff like
Resi 7's balls-deep "here you go, have both at the same time!!!11" approach. That tentative feeling needs to give way to a recognition of the vast potential VR affords for sheer historic videogame innovation, with commercial viability concerns taking a little bit of a back seat. Strong PSVR games will shift, but dev studios both big and small need to be brave. The financial risks are many and obvious, but in all of the great emerging popular eras of videogames, from the early 8-bit home console era to the Amiga golden age to the first major wave of fully polygonal-3D games that came along with the disc-loading systems following after the "let's try this out" pioneers a few years earlier, the risk-takers who absolutely smashed it out the park were on the whole rewarded for their efforts, at least in the videogame history books. The first VR pioneers have been around a pretty long time now, so it's up to the next wave of experimenters to build on what I would say are now very sturdy foundations. If indies can make really nifty VR games with hardly any money to play with, and they evidently are, then the sniffier big guns have no real excuse other than being cynical cowardly capitalist pigs.
