Over the summer a coworker told me a story about his wheelchair bound friend. This friend was playing Skyrim in VR and had been feeling fine while going through the introductory cutscene and character creation. But as soon as he gained control of the character, intense nausea struck. He initially thought it was from playing too long and set it down, but every time he came back the same thing happened. The solution? Crouching. Getting the game's perspective back to his own was a good solution to make the nausea go away.
Nausea is the most immersion breaking aspect of VR (assuming the game doesn't want you to be on purpose), simply because you cannot play while nauseous. So it is important when developing VR experiences to allow for these situations where people are at different vantage points. But this also means that not all games mechanics can be brought through the same way into VR. For some games, crouching or crawling lets players get through tight spaces. But ducking under a fallen tree might not be necessary for a person sitting in a wheel chair. And that person should not be forced into ducking constantly as that typically slows the pace of the game and would not provide the full experience.
Super Hot gets to avoid many of these pitfalls because it designed its mechanics around variable heights and a player just having a head. But when adapting existing games and genres such as stealth, we are going to need new ways to think around these problems.
This story also brings up questions of power fantasy and escapism in VR when it comes to disability. How can VR acts as escapism from all disability? What areas does this ability break down in (such as dramatic changes in vantage point)?
The discourse between virtual reality and accessibility is fascinating because it questions the purpose behind VR games but also highlights new potentials. In a role-playing virtual reality game such as Skyrim VR, the addition of VR re-emphasizes the focus of physically and emotionally being in one’s character’s universe. And while I won’t question John’s coworker’s friend’s motives, it is admirable that they kept trying to play until they found a solution to their nausea. It is admirable because they sought and found their own, immersive experience, but virtual reality games can do much better. VR games could be used to teach and disarm stigmas about people with disabilities. It could be used not simply to empathize (like if Skyrim VR…
Apart from the accommodation and accessibility issues discussed in the post and comment, I am also interested in the idea of game-provoked nausea mentioned in this post. The line in parenthesis “assuming the game doesn't want you to be on purpose” is especially inspiring. I do not have much knowledge in VR-related areas, but I believe that, in order to obtain more consumers rather than shunning them away, VR games should try to avoid creating too much negative physical influence. But what if one day VR became the norm of games and was allowed the liberty that current non-VR games possess? In Problem Attic, Liz Ryerson intentionally designs the visual to provoke physical discomfort, if not nausea, in players to…
I find the questions you posed in this post particularly pertinent, given that many games lack accommodations for certain disabilities and accessibility is not at the forefront of most dialogues surrounding games. I recently read an article about how first-time wheelchair users have employed virtual reality to learn how to navigate distracting environments, such as streets or department stores. However, your point about the issue of accessibility is especially important to guide that expansion. On the most basic level, VR headsets are costly and heavily rely on visual cues. More difficulties may arise when targeting specific disabilities and re-purposing current technologies to implement solutions. It’s exciting to think about how the functions of games are expanding from the realm…