VR Games Have Never Lived Up To Expectations for Canadian Gamers

There’s no question about it. Canada is a nation of gamers. It’s estimated that around 23 million members of the population play regularly. It’s also a fact that it’s well spread across genders, age groups and demographics. For example, 58% of women aged between 18 and 34 consider themselves to be gamers. For men this figure rises to 82%. Even older generations are keen with 45% of men between 55 and 64 with 29% of women in this age group also regularly playing.

Of the genres of game that find the biggest favour, puzzles and word games lead the way followed by action and adventure games and role-playing games (RPGs).

However, one category of game that has failed to take off in the country has been VR titles. Back in 2019 when VR was at last entering the mainstream there were some titles that were clear favorites. But in the subsequent years these types of game have failed to make any kind of in-road into the lists of overall winners.

Too complex?

One of the reasons put forward to explain this failure has been that VR games have tended to be a little too complex for most players. The fact that the relatively simple puzzle and word games lead the way may give an insight into the tastes of the typical Canadian game’s player.

It also feels significant that simple casino games like slots have proved to be incredibly popular with Canadians. So perhaps this forms a sort of benchmark for the level of complexity, or simplicity, that hits the sweet spot with players.

One area VR games potentially struggled was the range available. The games were costly and time consuming to produce, leading to a lack of options. The opposite can be said of slots for example. Thousands of titles are available, with new games added every week. Casino.ca ranks the top online slots in Canada so fans can find the games which players are having the most fun playing.

The question of expense

Whereas playing the slots offers the chance to win money, getting involved with VR gaming has the opposite effect. Gamers have become increasingly used to playing games for free on mobile devices, and even the cost of console and PC games has been going down in recent years.

But anyone wanting to enter the world of VR gaming faces considerable extra expense. For a start there’s the headset to be bought. Although the price of these has also been falling they are still prohibitively expensive for players on a budget. This has been reflected in the falling sales of headsets, down 2% year on year in the US in 2022.

Lack of games

A further contributory factor is the relative lack of VR games out there at the moment. While it was thought there would be a goldrush of new titles exploiting the new technology, this has failed to materialise.

So, while it would seem to be the logical next step forward to convert immersive games like GTA and Call of Duty into VR ones, the inevitable expense is probably the biggest barrier to developers.

And, without the range of games to play, Canadian gamers are unlikely to be attracted any time soon.

An unexpected consequence of VR

Even among people who have chosen to dip their toes into the world of VR, some have experienced something no-one could have anticipated.

For some, the very process of putting on a VR headset can bring about feelings of nausea. It’s though that this is related to the kinds of motion sickness that some people experience when travelling by sea or air.

While this is caused by motion, VR can now be so realistic that it tricks the brain into believing that physical motion is actually taking place.

There are certain solutions put forward to eliminate this effect. But it takes a very determined VR player to battle through the symptoms just to play a favourite game.

Looking to the future

So, it could be argued that VR gaming is at a critical point, not just in Canada, but all around the world.

If it’s to be a success there is going to need to be a groundswell of interest from players and some very major investment from developers.

But whether either of these are likely to materialise, we’ll just have to wait and see.