Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell launches a VR company

Atari’s Nolan Bushnell is busier than ever these days — in addition to his mobile game efforts, the video game pioneer is launching a virtual reality company. Modal VR is promising a combination of hardware and software that delivers high-end virtual experiences of the sort that make an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift seem like small potatoes. It’s completely wireless, low latency (under 10 milliseconds) and accommodates multiple users in areas as large as 900,000 square feet. There are full body tracking suits, to boot. Instead of limiting you to sit-down or room-scale VR, developers could create immersive experiences that fill whole fields and warehouses.

As you might guess, Modal VR isn’t designing something you would buy for personal use. You’d most likely use it in arcades — think of it as a very, very advanced version of the Virtuality rigs from the 1990s. Businesses could also create custom VR apps for their workers, such as 3D modelling tools that let engineers see life-size examples of their work.

Modal’s technology is still in the prototype stage, and it will only start shipping beta developer kits “soon.” If it works as well as promised, though, it could extend not just the capabilities of VR, but its reach. While many people can’t justify buying their own hardware, they might not have to. You’d only have to pay on a per-session basis, and could join in multiplayer games that are impractical (or in some cases, impossible) with existing tech.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Modal VR

Walking in virtual reality is hard, so ‘Lone Echo’ got rid of it

First generation virtual reality may have nailed sense of presence, but one major limitation keeps it from feeling truly immersive: Walking. The endless landscapes of the digital world are hampered by the confines of reality — your playspace is only so big, and if you walk too far in any given direction, you’re going to hit a wall. Most games get around this with teleportation mechanics, allowing the player’s avatar to jump to far-off locations. Ready at Dawn Studios’ Lone Echo took another approach: turn off the gravity, and eliminate the need to walk altogether.

Lone Echo casts the player as Jack, an artificially intelligent robot who helps astronauts run and maintain a space station that orbits Saturn. It’s the perfect environment for a game trying to sidestep limitations of VR’s walking problem: with no gravity, there’s no need to walk. The player pulls themselves around the space station by hand instead, grabbing rails and pushing off bulkheads to weightlessly drift through the space station’s futuristic corridors. Moving with your hands in VR isn’t a completely new idea, as it’s essentially the concept behind Oculus Studios’ The Climb — but freeing the player from the threat of gravity allows ‘Lone Echo’ to have a full, endless range of motion that doesn’t feel confined by the physical space around the player.

Not only does this movement mechanic solve VR’s physical space problem, but it makes the entire game feel more immersive. Manually pawing your way through the levels helps you feel connected to the virtual space and makes it easier to get invested in the story. And the story is plenty interesting, focusing on the chaos that erupts after a space anomaly tears through part of the station and threatens your robot avatar and the human astronauts he works with. Along the way, Jack will have to travel and explore the station, cut through bulkheads with a wrist-mounted torch, save human lives and repair broken systems. Admittedly, that would all probably still be pretty interesting if the game had relied on the same teleportation mechanic a lot of VR games are using right now — but it found a better way.

Sadly, Lone Echo’s solution to VR’s “walking problem” only works for games that where the player doesn’t need to actually physically walk. It’s kind of a cheat — but it’s a cheat that represents everything that’s great about first-generation VR. Lone Echo seems to be a game that put design first: one that was built around making the most of the medium’s limitations. Technology will get better, and each generation of VR will come with fewer and fewer shortcomings for developers to work around. I’m looking forward to that, but I’m also glad we’re not there yet. Clever developers can do great things with VR’s foibles. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

Update: We just played a 5 x 5 multi-player demo of Lone Echo here at the Oculus Connect event, where you’re essentially playing a fancy game of Capture The Flag. Except in this case, you’re supposed to grab a frisbee and then fly it back into your opponent’s den, thus destroying it and taking it over. The mechanics are identical to that of the single player demo we saw above — to propel through the zero-gravity space, you grab onto surfaces and push off on them. You can also generally move around by pressing on thrusters and boosters. I found it pretty hard to get around at first, but you soon get used to flying through the air. In general though, I’d prefer the single player mode to multi-player; chasing after frisbees proved too fast-paced for me.

Video game voice actors push for standardized contracts

In the midst of a protracted squabble, the union representing voice actors has come up with a contract for low-budget indie game developers. SAG-AFTRA is promoting a new agreement for titles under $250,000 that would limit difficult vocal sessions (presumably involving yelling or other vocal gymnastics) to two hours. Actors would also be paid double for such work, and collect residuals above the normal rate ($825.50 for four hours) for games that sell 500,000 units or more.

SAG-AFTRA threatened a strike last year after its previous agreement expired, and negotiations with indie game producers for a new one broke down. Actor and alpha geek Wil Wheaton unwittingly became the poster boy for the cause after tweeting support for the union and explaining in a post why actors need a new deal. Noting that producers have ignored concerns about tough vocal sessions, he said that afterwards, “your voice is wrecked .. and over years and years of this, it’s going to build up into serious and permanent damage.”

Your voice is wrecked .. and over years and years of this, it’s going to build up into serious and permanent damage.

Producers and critics, however, argue that the indie game industry works on tiny margins, so it can’t afford residual payments. They add that developers and programmers work much longer hours than voice actors.

The union failed to carry out its strike threat, and the situation reached an impasse this summer. The contract that voice actors are proposing is essentially the same one that producers rejected before. As a result, Deadline notes, few game producers are expected to sign the deal.

SAG-AFTRA does have a plan “B,” however — it is saying that vocal stress is a workplace safety issue and has also made a claim before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). “We’d rather not have to petition for new regulations,” it said in a statement, “but since the videogame employers are unwilling to address vocal stress in negotiations in a real way, we are investigating this further to protect the voices of our members.”

GOG adds ‘Hotline Miami’ and other Steam games to your library

GOG is extending its efforts to liberate your games from Steam’s copyright protection. Alongside a back-to-school sale, the online game store is expanding its GOG Connect effort to cover 17 more games, including Hotline Miami, the 2013 Shadow Warrior remake and the space exploration title X Rebirth. It’s the same drill as before: connect your Steam account and you can grab DRM-free copies of those games at no charge, helping you back them up or move them without hassles. The focus remains on indie games, but it’s still good news if you’re worried that you’ve put too many eggs in Steam’s basket.

As for the sale? The newly-launched promo will have discounts on more than 300 games, at least some of which are big names like Dragon Age: Origins, Day of the Tentacle Remastered and Dying Light: The Following. Much like a Steam sale, you probably won’t get the best deals (up to 90 percent off) on the hits. History suggests that these will be so-so games that didn’t sell well even while new. Nonetheless, now might be a good time to go shopping if you’re looking for new things to play and don’t want to either spend a lot or send money Valve’s way.

Source: GOG Connect