Unity CEO: 'VR? People look silly having sex, but they still do it'

Riccitello

Unity Technologies CEO John Riccitiello doesn't entirely agree with Deus Ex creator Warren Spector's opinion that VR is a fad.

Spector recently told Gamesindustry: "I don't think most humans want to look stupid (everyone looks stupid in a VR headset) and they don't want to isolate themselves from the world.

"I mean, if someone's sneaking up behind me with a baseball bat, I want to know about it, you know what I mean? And let's not talk about nausea."

However, former EA CEO Riccitiello, who took up the reins of the game engine company in 2014, told TechRadar that looking silly in a headset won't be the defining criteria for VR in the near future.

"He's right for the moment, but it's not because people don't want to look silly," he said. "You look silly having sex for God's sake, but they still do it - and who doesn't look an idiot dancing in the disco with the sound off?"

Confundrum

Riccitiello reckons figuring out what's fun or not when it comes to VR is the more pressing issue, one that he believes will become clear when mainstream laptops gain the power needed to run demanding VR games and applications.

He said: "The reality is that VR will be done in 2016 on water-cooled, high-end PCs, but by 2017 it'll be mainstream devices - and no longer a rich person's game.

"Players will already have the portable that they want to plug their Oculus Rift or Vive or HoloLens into. That's the time that we'll solve the problem of what's fun."

The Unity boss also reflected on his own previous prediction that gaming in mobile was a fad.

"I remember when I said mobile gaming was a fad, but that was long before smartphones," he said. "Warren's an awesome guy, so I'd never want to contradict him, but he's right for 2016 and wrong for the time frame after.

"But he created Deus Ex, so he's a God. What else can I say? Even Gods can be wrong."

Kane Fulton
Kane has been fascinated by the endless possibilities of computers since first getting his hands on an Amiga 500+ back in 1991. These days he mostly lives in realm of VR, where he's working his way into the world Paddleball rankings in Rec Room.