Like you said a the end, I think it will gain popularity with a game that can only be done in VR. As seeing a VR version of CS or R6 wont bring the viewers. Thats probably what that made Echo VR unique and thus popular. Also if they are gonna have like live events, put the competitors in their own large room and maybe have the spectators have their own VR headset to watch within the world (yea logistically maybe difficult), as people wont come to watch people stand on stage in headsets.
Fun Fact: I started covering VAIL esports because no one was making Score esports-style videos for VR esports. Absolutely honored that y'all interviewed me. Thank you!
@ unfortunately it is penalized in current VR leagues. Thankfully VR does have other means of expression that you can’t do elsewhere like doing a victory dance
Glad to see VR Esports getting a bit more recognition! As one of the winners of the Miami Vail Major (the first event covered in this video), and as one of the main casters for the recent VRML Con that happened in Denver, we as a community have come so far. Glad to see so many of my fellow competitors getting the recognition that they deserve (shoutout Chillst3p, love you broski
It's kind of wild. On top of that, it's an entirely new medium that I don't even think we've learned how to really interface with yet. Like, imagine the challenge of learning an FPS when you're used to MOBAs. Those games are built upon a universal means of input we use for them, and players have been able to hone their skills using those input methods. By comparison, VR games just standardized WASD. So we're at least a few years out from things getting really interesting in VR esports. And we won't see high level competition like we do in games like CS/RL/LoL for at least another decade imo.
I'm a competitive (pro) Pavlov Vr player. I've been playing the game for dawn near 7 years and we might finally get a lan this year. I'll be going 100%
Thanks for featuring me in your video! I was the creature at the start with the furry ears on stage ^.^ VR esports is super hype! There are definitely a lot of challenges that need to be faced on the way up, but it's growing more and more each year. Making sure the viewers have a stable and understandable viewing experience is huge. The community also needs to rise up and support itself instead of just be the ones playing the matches XD Tons more than just this, which I could write a huge essay on, but most of it was covered in the video itself. Thanks for the video
As an ex member of REKT in VAIL in the past I was excited to see some REKT clips from the past two lans, I was surprised when I saw this video in the VAIL VR discord its awesome to see a channel like this covering vr esports.
thank you so much for making this video! i’ve been in the VR Esports scene for over 4 years now, and we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs. from tragedy with echo, to burnout in breachers, to now casting vr games, i’ve been going through a whole journey in this little corner of esports. we need all the attention we can get, so thank you very much for doing good research on this video and interacting with our little community.
Thank you for covering our niche little corner of the internet. The more our strengths and even weaknesses are promoted, the more we can grow! I hope this video does well so more creators of your size begin covering it
it's a struggle to get ANY wider coverage on VR esports, so it's amazing to see a video from you guys that gets into the details on why VR viewership just struggles so much. i've told IRL friends about VR esports, and some can watch a few casted matches or so, but the appeal is just nonexistent when you compare it to desktop esports... so much of the fun from watching a casted league match comes from understanding the game being played, and while everyone knows how LoL and CS play because of how accessible those games are, it's only the active league players and a small majority of other VR users that get as engaged as you would expect. also, just like any other small esport scene, we can't rely on money or large orgs to draw people in; there's no contracts, very little funding and only a handful of sponsors, so even the #1 players can sometimes end up feeling disillusioned when they only earn $250 from a six-month season. when concerning vr's limited population, it's also important to mention how the newer wave of VR players we're seeing from meta's standalone headsets are very young + the average user will only play for an hour or so a day on more casual-oriented games. i started playing VR in 2017, and i only ever knew about an alive VR competitive scene existing in 2020; most leagues operate over discord, and have very little advertising or reach to even the players of the game they are running tournaments for. we can only really hope that there will be a big VR revival around the corner to really get things going 🙏
lol to be fair you don't have to play a VR FPS shooter to understand it but people do indeed only watch eSports of games they already play. Like you won't be seeing a LoL player give a shit about a csgo tournament or be impressed by a guy hitting a noscope awp but will go crazy when one player clicks a single keyboard vutton that kills 5 players at once. Someone who doesn't play LoL or CSGO won't really care either way. So yeah, VR definitely has to be popular for it's eSports to be popular. Most gamers definitely want to have VR but it's in no way cheap or they think it is daunting to set up. CSGO and League both have large esport viewers because even the most dogshits of PCs can run those games so a guy living in the slums with a rundown PC can still appear as a viewer in a tournament stream.
Pretty cool seeing familiar names like YellowHat, Chillst3p, and teams I've played with/against across different games. Wish more people payed attention to Pavlov VR, just because the mechanics has one of the highest skill cielings because of the varying TTK and recoil patterns that I'm still trying to perfect.
Good to be speaking about it, as a VR Esport player playing on a pro-am org, we need to see an increase in popularity. VR is still in it's early days but it has since matured quite a bit with platforms becoming cheaper to get into it. Infact 300$ gets you a solid standalone experience that less then a CONSOLE!. We have vr esports teams that are already trying to be the FaZe Clan and Optic of VR. We just need more eyes on it, even though it's a hard investement rn.
Popularity will come when we get a title deserving of widespread viewership that emphasizes the strengths of VR as a new medium. VR FPS is right where it needs to be. Kinda looks like Smash esports 10 years ago.
Saw this video in the onward VRML and we’re all super pleased to see some content about our overarching VR esports community finally, a big hell yeah from us, if only vr was more accessible cos the esports scene is crazy fun, crazy competitive and there are some crazy good clips.
Vr Esports are definitely growing! Viewership is low because player bases for games are low. While games like CS have 500k concurrent users, most vr games don’t have half that many unique downloads! Until a large number of people start buying headsets (which y’all totally should since the quest 3 is the price of a console), the esports communities are gonna stay small
As a Pro VR Player for games such as Vail Pavlov and X8 for the past few years, The lack of potential sponsorships and money makes us players who are skilled loyal players simply feel as if it would 100% be more worth it for us to get good at 2D games like CS2 and Valorant OVER ANY VR games. We put thousands of hours in for practically no reward. Yet we love the community and games so much that we stay. Some tournaments are a couple thousand dollars worth of earnings, but that's not enough to make any sort of "Career" out of it like Couter strike unless you make social media content out of it.
The problem is that although I love VR I have never even heard or seen anything about VR eSports tournaments anywhere. Btw which headsets do you use privately and on LANs?
I've been playing VR and more importantly Onward for over 4 years. I competed for nearly as long and play in one of the top 10 teams in Onward VRML (Dark Tidings). The VR Esports scene is slowly growing and will continue to do so. Some games Like Vail try to bring the production level of traditional Esports (CSGO) to VR to gain more attention and grow the space at a much greater rate but the industry will continue to only move at a slow but steady pace. The motion sickness tends to vary between people and the games they play. I can play Onward for hours on end and not get sick, but 30 minutes of Half-Life Alyx and I need to lay down for 30 minutes to ever think about playing again. One thing about VR motion sickness is that games are incorporating different features to reduce if not eliminate the problem (Snap Turn, Teleporting, ect) plus it is something that can be overcome the more times you play. If you play for 15-30 minutes a day three days a week for a month you can see your play times to being to increase. Taking ginger is something else that helps as well as having a fan blow on you to help cool you down. But whatever you do, DO NOT continue to play once you begin to fell ill, it will only get worse. Glad to see a more mainstream source of media finally take a stab at VR Esports.
I've had the blessing of being a part of the competitive VR community, starting with playing and now casting tournaments; VAIL specifically is truly just the start of a deep, deep dive into what esports could truly become in the future - remember that this hardware will only get smaller, lighter and more powerful as the years go on! Absolutely hyped that Gaijin got the opportunity to chat, he's a great guy and I've always loved working with him! On the notes of VR adoption - there's a huge survivor bias with motion sickness, and a lot of people haven't reported it, and left their headsets to collect dust or sold them off. We need more serious, long-term studies to make sure the average person can be comfortable and enjoy the experience. Also, most VR gamers dont consider the Apple Vision Pro a "VR Headset" - it's not for gaming & not moddable. Thanks for covering this Score, I'd love to see a "History of VR" or "Game Development" series in relation to this!
Apple doesn’t either. Thats why they don’t mention any XR terminology in any of their marketing. The hardware is that of a VR headset, but they limit it intentionally, so the VR gaming community can’t get involved.
Another problem that staggers the VR Esport scene imo is the developer support. Most of these VR games often target the casual scene first, as it's very difficult to even make a profit out of VR in general. This ends up leaving a lot less proper funding or difficulties with VR Esports. Another note is that VR Esports is only 1-10% of the VR playerbase as a whole, so a lot of developers just dismiss it as a fab and will often put off it's competitive scene. Most of the leagues are often community ran, which can lead to distancing between it's esports scene and the developers.
But that’s how it should be. All successful esports games start off with generating a large and dedicated player base. If that is not the prerequisite your esport will never last.
Honestly my main barriers to VR right now are twofold: 1) My old headset is way too hot and heavy and I don't have the money to buy a new one 2) There's no competitive game that appeals to me the way some games did. I do like Beat Saber, but only casually, I wouldn't solo queue ranked.
The Onward VrML community thanks you! Our game/league has been around since 2016 (going into season 17) and we’ve never felt like our community has gotten the recognition it deserves! 🍻 Heres to hoping all these great Vr titles don’t end up with the same fate as EchoVr
My main gripe with VRFPS esports was the viewing experience. I used to compete and even win some tournaments back in 2021-ish, but even watching back VODs of our own matches felt like a chore. If the stream camera is first person, it often misses what the spectated player is doing with their hands, as the hands aren't bound to the camera's viewport. If the stream camera is third person, it's hard to see what's going on at all. I'm sure those problems could be solved and were the growing pains of a small community that didn't really have experienced broadcasters at the time, but it's hard to get people interested if the response of everyone I told to watch our matches was "I had no idea what was going on."
I participated in first to wurst and first 2 wurst H3VR tournaments. And that whole community is open to the public but it still remains a relatively small group of people. Back then i couldnt even finish a H3VR run and i was still allowed to participate. Probably one of the coolest things ive ever done as i watched one of my clips get into the highlight reel. Now in 2024 i would say im in the top 100 players. I wish there were more support for this genre of esports
As a map maker for Pavlov VR, I think there’s so much potential for content but we just need to have a larger community thats willing to make the game more fun.
I use vr for sim racing, there's nothing that comes closer to actually getting the experience of being in a racecar. It takes time to get over the motion sickness, if 25min is your limit then you gotta do 15min sessions until you can get to 20min sessions, and then you go to 25min so on and so forth. You must avoid the sickness with short sessions and your brain will eventually acclimate. A fan blowing on you also helps, try it again. Its definitely worth it..
Hello I’m a professional X8 player who played at vrml con. Idk really what to say but that I enjoyed the video and I hope that the esport scene will continue to grow because I want more lan events.
Finally we're getting some recognition 🎉. Hope you realize how much this video probably means to a lot of VR comp players. As a former comp player for pop1, a lesser known comp game, this is such a great video. 🔥
My takeaway is that vr esports is like doom and quake used to be. Takes some die-hards to be into and they're really into it. Its not quite to the call of duty, rainbow 6 siege stage yet. Keep building the base, it'll get there.
7:45 I would agree with that, however what may make VR eSports more unique would be team rosters that would have 2-3 more substitute players on the roster to swap out guys after matches, assuming some of these games would go longer than 30 minutes to an hour. Instead of you consistently seeing the same rosters with the same players, you are now seeing two separate teams, fluctuating between their players and substitutes to fill in if someone is getting ill. It would be no different than a football or soccer player getting off the field and the second string or third replaces him
Bro, I'm a gamer & an athlete: not great enough at either to be paid for it, but love both. If I could afford a VR setup, I'd be playing this shit nonstop. Omg it gets me so excited!
Favourite grassroots vr competetive thing for me was First 2 Wurst. They make crazy compilations and trailers too. Original half life mod and scene vibes.
I never really entered the comp VR scene, but I’m still huge into just casual play and watching the VRML casts. It was so much fun to watch VRML CON last summer for VAIL and Breachers, while also grinding the shit out of them(mostly VAIL and my newest addiction exfilzone[VR Tarkov]). But nevertheless, I’d love to see the VRML thrive, along with other games that truly take the extent of VR like STRIDE and Broken Edge start to really get their foot in the door :) So to anyone on the fence of buying, watching, or entering the VR scene in any way, with my whole heart I say, GO FOR IT.
I didn't even know there were VR eSports, but I'm glad to know there is, because I'm pretty sure it'll be physically more healthy than normal eSports, and also way more skill centric because it actually takes into account your arms and head moving instead of just your wrist. It's way more intuitive to control a gun in VR than it is on a flat screen, and encourages far better skill expression than clicking pixels on a screen.
I found myself getting motion sick after a bit when I first got my VR headset. I would play for an hour or so and stop after not feeling well. But after coming back constantly (determined to use the item I spent $500 for) for a couple weeks then I got use to it and now I don't get motion sick with it. I found flying around in google earth and racing sims got to me the most at first, playing table tennis and shooters didn't affect me as much.
motion sickness is only the first ever 30 minutes in VR, then you adjust on the 120Hz, and the Meta Quest 2 and 3 go for 250-500 for a great fps VR experience :)
Hopefully one day, VR esports will be bigger than it is. As a pro VR player myself, the community has so much love no matter the game. I’d say VR at the level it’s at currently, is like the ps2. Hopefully it will gain more recognition it deserves in a few years. Love from the onward community 🫶
Bought the Quest 3 a couple months ago and I've been loving it but as you mentioned the main issue is the motion sickness (personally I only get slightly dizzy but it's still annoying) and the overall pressure on the neck, which can lead to injury. Thankfully the battery only lasts for around 2h, which is both a good thing as it makes you take long breaks, but also a bad thing for anyone who wants to become real good at those games.
I think there's something to be said about viewership of VR Esports. Because VR is a medium that can only really be *experienced* by the players, VR Shooters in particular don't really offer anything to the viewer outside of just looking like another counterstrike clone, and one that the viewers can't even easily just go play themselves. I'm a little surprised to not see more discussion of some of the other VR experiences that really don't have any real Flatscreen counterpart. A game like Beatsaber really does something unique and has a fairly thriving community, in part by making it a much more compelling viewing experience.
Even a self-described "Pro-Video-Gamer" like me had to breach the motion-sickness barrier after it set in 2 hours after I first started playing Fallout 4 VR. I came back a day later and I had no problems after that, unless I don't play any VR games for a long period of time, where I then have to re-adjust but it seems easier than the first time. Eventually people will get used to this.
I tried VR at a friends house and got the nastiest headache of my life. It’s a shame because there is no way as a working class individual I’m gonna fork up the cash for VR now, even though I really want to.
Yeah the trouble with VR motion sickness is the body learns to not get it but it takes some time (week or two for some but months for others) and so people get put off immediately when if you just play a little and often, eventually you will almost NEVER get sick. Plus VR prices are going down and down, we all hope soon it will be a mainstream market considering the prices are already far lower than that of a console or PC.
Damn, I'm hella sad Echo VR shutdown. I'll never get the chance to play it now, and as a Ender's Game fan, I looked forward to trying it the most. I've tinkered with a friend's headset for a while before, so I already know that I don't have issues with motion sickness or headaches-I would've had a blast in Echo VR.
10:20 Exactly. Even though I’ve never played vr, (in a perfect world where the motion sickness problems are fixed) the scene needs more original games and not r6 but in vr, csgo but in vr, etc
VR is just not VR yet atm. The VR we have right now is like playing Pong in your Nokia vs playing Elden Ring in your Steamdeck. VR right now feels like a baby just starting to learn how to crawl. Unless VR reaches Sword Art Online tech, it still has a looooong way to go. Some of the games are really fun like BeatSaber, Thrill of the fight, PistolWhip, Blaston, EchoVR 😢, etc.
Ill tell you why its not as popular, even people that play vr don't play it often enough to gain an interest in the esports side(there are literal statistics on that). I play vr every time there's a new walkabout mini-golf map and that's about it. VR doesn't make me motion-sick(i always remember im just playing a video game which i think helps but also breaks immersion), i think VR is fun but the fact is i don't feel attached enough to vr to be like "ill watch these esports". Not only that but VR as per usual is behind the curve. People have already settled into their competitive games of choice and people are starting to hate that model a lot. I'm also surprised that this video didn't address the elephant in the room which is "meta" which is simultaneously killing and keeping vr alive. Meta keeps wanting to turn VR into some dystopian nightmare, that's definitely not selling VR to people(the vr fanboys saying "its the future, its inescapable" is also doing that, intentionally or not.) or when they don't bill it as that they don't really advertise it as a gaming product, it billed as something for work or for AI BS, lord forbid they bill it as an actual gaming device. When they do a game advertisement I'm always shocked to see how short the adverts are, it's just "hey this game is out" then the ad ends. Who cares if there's a batman game tbh? nobody is gonna move to the quest 3 just to play it. I literally just bought a quest 2 you really think I'm gonna immediately jump ship? People don't like exclusives nowadays, it just limits your player base arbitrarily for no reason and especially with VR, that's a killer. VR is a fraction of the techy population, even less so do those people have a quest 3, why limit your batman game to just the quest 3? I swear the people buying VR headsets are annoying family members that give quests to other family members, say "it's the future" and then those people don't use them, it explains some discrepancy I could come up with why quest sales are following the first iPhone sales almost to a T but nobody is using VR often enough to justify a ton of things that would actually make VR worth it. What VR needs is a wake up call and compared to a lot of other tech shit coming out I actually like VR but the people in it need to be honest with themselves. It's too niche, it's too cumbersome(hardware and software side), literally nobody uses it enough, meta was a choice, and the majority of VR games feel so uninspired. VR feels like tech scientists trying to replicate creativity. They're horses try to lead themselves to water to drink when the nearest watering hole is on a different plain of existence. It's just the same bs since VR. this tech is the future, that tech is the future, I swear it's the future this time(VR, nfts/crypto, AI) all I'm seeing is people that are in and want their tech horse to succeed but nobody bidding outside of that. VR is the only one I can see breaking the mold but it can't do that without all the bs being cut out which needs to happen. Cut the bs, make VR games people actually want to play and that they see worth it strapping an apparatus for multiple hours that will absolutely cause "motion sickness problem", neck and back injuries (eventually) to play, and people will look past the downsides. As of now there's like one game maybe a handful that do that and unfortunately most of them were released when VR headsets started coming out. I'll stop my rant there cause this is getting long but the answer is simple: nobody is watching VR sports cause VR itself isn't popular with the masses and there are literally so many reasons, they could probably make a case study.
i think vr esports aren't going to have mass appeal until the following things are addressed:- 1)VR actually becomes affordable for the masses, a bigger userbase will mean vr esports is on more people's radar. 2)Spectating VR becomes more streamlined , anytime i try to watch a vr esport it feels so wonky and weird trying to spectate a VR game on a regular screen. 3)Less goofy looking games , things like counter strike look slick af and it makes the VR FPS with their goofy animations and physics look like a flash game when you're spectating especially if you don't have the context of what it would feel like to be looking at that content in an actual VR headset.
Technically VR is affordable in comparison to everything else now, considering you can get a fairly high level headset with everything needed to play for $300, less than any other main stream gaming platform other than mobile. The rest I fully agree with and it will just take time as developing for Vr is much harder and has been done for a much shorter time. One day it will get there! Honestly though the biggest problem is lack of sponsors, it’s a cycle we’ve seen a lot of in VR esports, small/niche sponsors -> lack of money for the community -> old players driven away -> less content to make -> less sponsors -> reeat
@sogsVR is not that affordable outside america and people who can afford it don't bother since their friends can't afford it or they'd rather upgrade their PCs. Also game devs don't seem to be as innovative with VR as expected, like I've seen some youtubers play VR games that could have easily been developed for a mouse and keyboard. Even VRChat had more players playing on computers rather than VR.
What do you think the future of VR Esports is?
Download ESPN Bet today at thesco.re/3OVdQ5J and use code: ESPORTS to claim your new player bonus!
Taking sponsorship from a betting site is crazy
Lmao
Like you said a the end, I think it will gain popularity with a game that can only be done in VR. As seeing a VR version of CS or R6 wont bring the viewers. Thats probably what that made Echo VR unique and thus popular. Also if they are gonna have like live events, put the competitors in their own large room and maybe have the spectators have their own VR headset to watch within the world (yea logistically maybe difficult), as people wont come to watch people stand on stage in headsets.
You should make posts about various VR esport finals and seasons going on to help us grow, we would all love you forever ❤!!!!!
Fun Fact: I started covering VAIL esports because no one was making Score esports-style videos for VR esports. Absolutely honored that y'all interviewed me. Thank you!
We love you G4IJIN
@@SeismicVNGRD ❤
i was in a TheScoreEsports VIDEO and this is what happened....
@@lmklmklmk coming soon
@@lmklmklmk coming soon
That irl teabag has to be classified as a war crime 🤣
I’ve heard so many takes on physical tbagging over the years and this is my favorite one hahahaha
@ i’m all for it, i’ve seen cases of players being penalised in pro play for teabagging and it’s so weird.
@ unfortunately it is penalized in current VR leagues. Thankfully VR does have other means of expression that you can’t do elsewhere like doing a victory dance
@ trash talk and BM in esports being phased out is the worst thing to happen ever :(
Glad to see VR Esports getting a bit more recognition! As one of the winners of the Miami Vail Major (the first event covered in this video), and as one of the main casters for the recent VRML Con that happened in Denver, we as a community have come so far.
Glad to see so many of my fellow competitors getting the recognition that they deserve (shoutout Chillst3p, love you broski
Yo hope the vr community grows into the mainstream so we can see more irl teabags.
Irl TEABAGS!!!
I never realized how many challenges VR Esports is up against
Hardware takes alot and pcvr games are really limited like the game i play RUMBLE
@@NichDevRumble Yeah, makes sense. It feels like the tech still has a long way to go. My Quest 2 stopped working on my Windows 11 machine a month ago.
It's kind of wild.
On top of that, it's an entirely new medium that I don't even think we've learned how to really interface with yet. Like, imagine the challenge of learning an FPS when you're used to MOBAs. Those games are built upon a universal means of input we use for them, and players have been able to hone their skills using those input methods.
By comparison, VR games just standardized WASD. So we're at least a few years out from things getting really interesting in VR esports. And we won't see high level competition like we do in games like CS/RL/LoL for at least another decade imo.
Could you not advertise espn bet to your majority minor audience
No, and expect someone to say something about how it's ethical and you're wrong lol.
I'm a competitive (pro) Pavlov Vr player. I've been playing the game for dawn near 7 years and we might finally get a lan this year. I'll be going 100%
Thanks for featuring me in your video!
I was the creature at the start with the furry ears on stage ^.^
VR esports is super hype! There are definitely a lot of challenges that need to be faced on the way up, but it's growing more and more each year.
Making sure the viewers have a stable and understandable viewing experience is huge. The community also needs to rise up and support itself instead of just be the ones playing the matches XD
Tons more than just this, which I could write a huge essay on, but most of it was covered in the video itself.
Thanks for the video
Amen 🙏… still hoping for the first actual AAA pvp game some day to get back into comp play…. might take a few decades tho, lol
As an ex member of REKT in VAIL in the past I was excited to see some REKT clips from the past two lans, I was surprised when I saw this video in the VAIL VR discord its awesome to see a channel like this covering vr esports.
thank you so much for making this video! i’ve been in the VR Esports scene for over 4 years now, and we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs. from tragedy with echo, to burnout in breachers, to now casting vr games, i’ve been going through a whole journey in this little corner of esports. we need all the attention we can get, so thank you very much for doing good research on this video and interacting with our little community.
We can achieve anything! Slowly and steadily, together❤
Thank you for covering our niche little corner of the internet. The more our strengths and even weaknesses are promoted, the more we can grow! I hope this video does well so more creators of your size begin covering it
it's a struggle to get ANY wider coverage on VR esports, so it's amazing to see a video from you guys that gets into the details on why VR viewership just struggles so much.
i've told IRL friends about VR esports, and some can watch a few casted matches or so, but the appeal is just nonexistent when you compare it to desktop esports... so much of the fun from watching a casted league match comes from understanding the game being played, and while everyone knows how LoL and CS play because of how accessible those games are, it's only the active league players and a small majority of other VR users that get as engaged as you would expect.
also, just like any other small esport scene, we can't rely on money or large orgs to draw people in; there's no contracts, very little funding and only a handful of sponsors, so even the #1 players can sometimes end up feeling disillusioned when they only earn $250 from a six-month season.
when concerning vr's limited population, it's also important to mention how the newer wave of VR players we're seeing from meta's standalone headsets are very young + the average user will only play for an hour or so a day on more casual-oriented games. i started playing VR in 2017, and i only ever knew about an alive VR competitive scene existing in 2020; most leagues operate over discord, and have very little advertising or reach to even the players of the game they are running tournaments for.
we can only really hope that there will be a big VR revival around the corner to really get things going 🙏
lol to be fair you don't have to play a VR FPS shooter to understand it but people do indeed only watch eSports of games they already play. Like you won't be seeing a LoL player give a shit about a csgo tournament or be impressed by a guy hitting a noscope awp but will go crazy when one player clicks a single keyboard vutton that kills 5 players at once. Someone who doesn't play LoL or CSGO won't really care either way. So yeah, VR definitely has to be popular for it's eSports to be popular. Most gamers definitely want to have VR but it's in no way cheap or they think it is daunting to set up. CSGO and League both have large esport viewers because even the most dogshits of PCs can run those games so a guy living in the slums with a rundown PC can still appear as a viewer in a tournament stream.
Good points and all but calling League of Legends "accessible" is easily the best joke I've heard this year, and it's about to wrap. 🤣🤣
Pretty cool seeing familiar names like YellowHat, Chillst3p, and teams I've played with/against across different games.
Wish more people payed attention to Pavlov VR, just because the mechanics has one of the highest skill cielings because of the varying TTK and recoil patterns that I'm still trying to perfect.
Thank you for signal boosting a niche esport community, we need the players and viewers lol
Glad to see our little niche get some coverage finally! It’s a small community, but dedicated as hell!
Good to be speaking about it, as a VR Esport player playing on a pro-am org, we need to see an increase in popularity. VR is still in it's early days but it has since matured quite a bit with platforms becoming cheaper to get into it. Infact 300$ gets you a solid standalone experience that less then a CONSOLE!. We have vr esports teams that are already trying to be the FaZe Clan and Optic of VR. We just need more eyes on it, even though it's a hard investement rn.
You suck
@@Batman-y3dyou are sad
@@NichDevRumble chill ik him
can I join VGG
Popularity will come when we get a title deserving of widespread viewership that emphasizes the strengths of VR as a new medium.
VR FPS is right where it needs to be. Kinda looks like Smash esports 10 years ago.
I’m a Pavlov VR competitive league player who’s only played for 2 seasons.
VR Esports Needs more attention!!
as someone who plays in multiple vr competitive games, i can safely say this has been a very fun journey and 100% worth it
Diddo
Hi neb :3
worth it (- aura tho)
Someone who never takes the headset off
Neb ur so coo
5:45 hey that’s me
naw
video starts at 1:14
This is about VR Esports that was happened at 5:11
Saw this video in the onward VRML and we’re all super pleased to see some content about our overarching VR esports community finally, a big hell yeah from us, if only vr was more accessible cos the esports scene is crazy fun, crazy competitive and there are some crazy good clips.
Vr Esports are definitely growing! Viewership is low because player bases for games are low. While games like CS have 500k concurrent users, most vr games don’t have half that many unique downloads! Until a large number of people start buying headsets (which y’all totally should since the quest 3 is the price of a console), the esports communities are gonna stay small
As a Pro VR Player for games such as Vail Pavlov and X8 for the past few years,
The lack of potential sponsorships and money makes us players who are skilled loyal players simply feel as if it would 100% be more worth it for us to get good at 2D games like CS2 and Valorant OVER ANY VR games.
We put thousands of hours in for practically no reward.
Yet we love the community and games so much that we stay.
Some tournaments are a couple thousand dollars worth of earnings,
but that's not enough to make any sort of "Career" out of it like Couter strike unless you make social media content out of it.
I'm right there with yeah played Pavlov vrml for damn near 6 years moved to quest because that's the platform that's gonna be at vrml con
The problem is that although I love VR I have never even heard or seen anything about VR eSports tournaments anywhere.
Btw which headsets do you use privately and on LANs?
@@TOTFAHRERprivately you’ll see pretty much every headset on the market but quest 2, 3, and 3s are most common. LAN last year was held on quest 3’s
I've been playing VR and more importantly Onward for over 4 years. I competed for nearly as long and play in one of the top 10 teams in Onward VRML (Dark Tidings). The VR Esports scene is slowly growing and will continue to do so. Some games Like Vail try to bring the production level of traditional Esports (CSGO) to VR to gain more attention and grow the space at a much greater rate but the industry will continue to only move at a slow but steady pace. The motion sickness tends to vary between people and the games they play. I can play Onward for hours on end and not get sick, but 30 minutes of Half-Life Alyx and I need to lay down for 30 minutes to ever think about playing again. One thing about VR motion sickness is that games are incorporating different features to reduce if not eliminate the problem (Snap Turn, Teleporting, ect) plus it is something that can be overcome the more times you play. If you play for 15-30 minutes a day three days a week for a month you can see your play times to being to increase. Taking ginger is something else that helps as well as having a fan blow on you to help cool you down. But whatever you do, DO NOT continue to play once you begin to fell ill, it will only get worse. Glad to see a more mainstream source of media finally take a stab at VR Esports.
Echo VR was SOOOOO FUCKING GOOD! I was sad as hell when they shut down that game. Best fun i've had in VR by far.
Still the most puzzling decision in VR history. Why kill VRs most thriving online scene when it is doing well?
Me too😢😢
Echo VR looks like Ender's game
I literally searched for "VR Esports" summary videos today and I thought this was an old one 😂
Perfect timing! Great video 🤘
I've had the blessing of being a part of the competitive VR community, starting with playing and now casting tournaments; VAIL specifically is truly just the start of a deep, deep dive into what esports could truly become in the future - remember that this hardware will only get smaller, lighter and more powerful as the years go on! Absolutely hyped that Gaijin got the opportunity to chat, he's a great guy and I've always loved working with him!
On the notes of VR adoption - there's a huge survivor bias with motion sickness, and a lot of people haven't reported it, and left their headsets to collect dust or sold them off. We need more serious, long-term studies to make sure the average person can be comfortable and enjoy the experience. Also, most VR gamers dont consider the Apple Vision Pro a "VR Headset" - it's not for gaming & not moddable.
Thanks for covering this Score, I'd love to see a "History of VR" or "Game Development" series in relation to this!
Apple doesn’t either. Thats why they don’t mention any XR terminology in any of their marketing. The hardware is that of a VR headset, but they limit it intentionally, so the VR gaming community can’t get involved.
being apart of vr esports for vail it is the most fun thing to do imo. sadly doesn't have that many viewers though
Another problem that staggers the VR Esport scene imo is the developer support.
Most of these VR games often target the casual scene first, as it's very difficult to even make a profit out of VR in general. This ends up leaving a lot less proper funding or difficulties with VR Esports. Another note is that VR Esports is only 1-10% of the VR playerbase as a whole, so a lot of developers just dismiss it as a fab and will often put off it's competitive scene. Most of the leagues are often community ran, which can lead to distancing between it's esports scene and the developers.
preach
But that’s how it should be. All successful esports games start off with generating a large and dedicated player base. If that is not the prerequisite your esport will never last.
Tell me about it, onward VRML and downpour interactive are practically worst enemies now lmfao
Pavlov is peak vr. Come for the comp, stay for the high fade.
Honestly my main barriers to VR right now are twofold:
1) My old headset is way too hot and heavy and I don't have the money to buy a new one
2) There's no competitive game that appeals to me the way some games did. I do like Beat Saber, but only casually, I wouldn't solo queue ranked.
Having been a commentator for multiple games in the scene for some time, it is really cool to see a channel I love so much talk about VR.
Virtual Athletic League Season 1 Champion here! 2018-2020 was a great time for VR Esports. Always hoped for it to get more love.
I didn't even know it existed. That is dope!
The Onward VrML community thanks you! Our game/league has been around since 2016 (going into season 17) and we’ve never felt like our community has gotten the recognition it deserves! 🍻 Heres to hoping all these great Vr titles don’t end up with the same fate as EchoVr
My main gripe with VRFPS esports was the viewing experience. I used to compete and even win some tournaments back in 2021-ish, but even watching back VODs of our own matches felt like a chore. If the stream camera is first person, it often misses what the spectated player is doing with their hands, as the hands aren't bound to the camera's viewport. If the stream camera is third person, it's hard to see what's going on at all. I'm sure those problems could be solved and were the growing pains of a small community that didn't really have experienced broadcasters at the time, but it's hard to get people interested if the response of everyone I told to watch our matches was "I had no idea what was going on."
As a professional Pavlov player I just have to say that I love that you made this video the first to getting these leagues bigger is exposer like this
I participated in first to wurst and first 2 wurst H3VR tournaments. And that whole community is open to the public but it still remains a relatively small group of people. Back then i couldnt even finish a H3VR run and i was still allowed to participate. Probably one of the coolest things ive ever done as i watched one of my clips get into the highlight reel. Now in 2024 i would say im in the top 100 players. I wish there were more support for this genre of esports
As a map maker for Pavlov VR, I think there’s so much potential for content but we just need to have a larger community thats willing to make the game more fun.
Finally happy to see yall talk about this, VR esports are awesome to see
Trent tuah podcast (RIP)
I use vr for sim racing, there's nothing that comes closer to actually getting the experience of being in a racecar. It takes time to get over the motion sickness, if 25min is your limit then you gotta do 15min sessions until you can get to 20min sessions, and then you go to 25min so on and so forth. You must avoid the sickness with short sessions and your brain will eventually acclimate. A fan blowing on you also helps, try it again. Its definitely worth it..
Hello I’m a professional X8 player who played at vrml con. Idk really what to say but that I enjoyed the video and I hope that the esport scene will continue to grow because I want more lan events.
VR esports could be amazing. imagine watching a game live with your headset in a virtual arena that would be insane
Finally we're getting some recognition 🎉. Hope you realize how much this video probably means to a lot of VR comp players. As a former comp player for pop1, a lesser known comp game, this is such a great video. 🔥
My takeaway is that vr esports is like doom and quake used to be. Takes some die-hards to be into and they're really into it. Its not quite to the call of duty, rainbow 6 siege stage yet. Keep building the base, it'll get there.
I CANT BELIEVE YOU COVERED THIS THANK YOU ❤
7:45 I would agree with that, however what may make VR eSports more unique would be team rosters that would have 2-3 more substitute players on the roster to swap out guys after matches, assuming some of these games would go longer than 30 minutes to an hour. Instead of you consistently seeing the same rosters with the same players, you are now seeing two separate teams, fluctuating between their players and substitutes to fill in if someone is getting ill. It would be no different than a football or soccer player getting off the field and the second string or third replaces him
thanks for bringing recognition to the vr comp scene 🙏
You are on my feed so often that I didn't even realize I haven't been subscribed all these years. Whoopsy Poopsy.
4:45 The first IRL Teabag in esport history
This is what gaming was made for
As I vr pro its an amazing thing wish it got more views though
Pretty cool seeing people I’ve played with up here
WAIT THIS IS SO COOL IVE BEEN PLAYING VR ESPORTS FOR 2 YEARS NOW THIS IS SOOO DOPE
It’s amazing that I recognize literally everyone in the comments. Hey guys. Good to see you here ❤
Bro, I'm a gamer & an athlete: not great enough at either to be paid for it, but love both. If I could afford a VR setup, I'd be playing this shit nonstop. Omg it gets me so excited!
Favourite grassroots vr competetive thing for me was First 2 Wurst. They make crazy compilations and trailers too. Original half life mod and scene vibes.
I never really entered the comp VR scene, but I’m still huge into just casual play and watching the VRML casts. It was so much fun to watch VRML CON last summer for VAIL and Breachers, while also grinding the shit out of them(mostly VAIL and my newest addiction exfilzone[VR Tarkov]).
But nevertheless, I’d love to see the VRML thrive, along with other games that truly take the extent of VR like STRIDE and Broken Edge start to really get their foot in the door :)
So to anyone on the fence of buying, watching, or entering the VR scene in any way, with my whole heart I say, GO FOR IT.
the crazy difference between swinging your arms up versus putting pressure with a single finger makes it so much more impressive.
Definitely adds a new dimension to the skill gap. Most notably changes how you approach crosshair placement in certain scenarios.
I didn't even know there were VR eSports, but I'm glad to know there is, because I'm pretty sure it'll be physically more healthy than normal eSports, and also way more skill centric because it actually takes into account your arms and head moving instead of just your wrist. It's way more intuitive to control a gun in VR than it is on a flat screen, and encourages far better skill expression than clicking pixels on a screen.
I honestly haven't thought about VR esports and now I'm interested in watching.
I found myself getting motion sick after a bit when I first got my VR headset. I would play for an hour or so and stop after not feeling well. But after coming back constantly (determined to use the item I spent $500 for) for a couple weeks then I got use to it and now I don't get motion sick with it. I found flying around in google earth and racing sims got to me the most at first, playing table tennis and shooters didn't affect me as much.
motion sickness is only the first ever 30 minutes in VR, then you adjust on the 120Hz, and the Meta Quest 2 and 3 go for 250-500 for a great fps VR experience :)
Hopefully one day, VR esports will be bigger than it is. As a pro VR player myself, the community has so much love no matter the game. I’d say VR at the level it’s at currently, is like the ps2. Hopefully it will gain more recognition it deserves in a few years. Love from the onward community 🫶
as someone who plays competitive Pavlov whether ranked or comp leagues i cant wait for vr games to get a higher player base in comp some day
Really interesting video that taught me a lot on what's out there. I'm hoping for vr esports to improve in the future!
i am ranked “Master” in echo and breachers, VR is very far from mainstream, just pray Orion Drift brings in the numbers VR deserves 🙏
FINALLY ITS GETTING EXPOSURE
Bought the Quest 3 a couple months ago and I've been loving it but as you mentioned the main issue is the motion sickness (personally I only get slightly dizzy but it's still annoying) and the overall pressure on the neck, which can lead to injury. Thankfully the battery only lasts for around 2h, which is both a good thing as it makes you take long breaks, but also a bad thing for anyone who wants to become real good at those games.
NO SHOT A VR ESPORT IS MADE INTO A VIDEO BEFORE THE MOBILE ESPORTS SCENE
0:19 the irony oh
They've talked about brawl stars. If you don't look for it, how can you find it.
I think there's something to be said about viewership of VR Esports. Because VR is a medium that can only really be *experienced* by the players, VR Shooters in particular don't really offer anything to the viewer outside of just looking like another counterstrike clone, and one that the viewers can't even easily just go play themselves. I'm a little surprised to not see more discussion of some of the other VR experiences that really don't have any real Flatscreen counterpart. A game like Beatsaber really does something unique and has a fairly thriving community, in part by making it a much more compelling viewing experience.
3:27 SNAPSHOT YH
VR is not as expensive as it was before. You can get a standalone quest 3s so no pc needed cheaper than a new ps5.
chill step is insanely good got rekt by him quite a bit in pavlov lol
I guarantee you if Fulldive VR existed VR Esports would be exponentially more popular than what it currently is.
Got to see Snapshot there for a second!! Hell yeah! Even *Dead off Break* made an appearance!
Please cover tbis more pleaseeee
Even a self-described "Pro-Video-Gamer" like me had to breach the motion-sickness barrier after it set in 2 hours after I first started playing Fallout 4 VR. I came back a day later and I had no problems after that, unless I don't play any VR games for a long period of time, where I then have to re-adjust but it seems easier than the first time. Eventually people will get used to this.
long time vr player. Weird to see you guys talking about vr esports lol. I played in the final lan event for echo vr.
Yooo rad to see my Orion Drift clip in there but SUPER rad to see G4IJIN!
Im the #1 EU shack player everyone
A gambling sponsorship? what's your viewership, 70-80% under 21? ooof.
Ahead of it's time. People/gamer is not ready for this concept of gaming but, we will be in the future.
The reason i havent watched vr esports is i dont have a vr headset amd i didnt have a fucking clue it existed and now i want to watch it
I tried VR at a friends house and got the nastiest headache of my life.
It’s a shame because there is no way as a working class individual I’m gonna fork up the cash for VR now, even though I really want to.
Yeah the trouble with VR motion sickness is the body learns to not get it but it takes some time (week or two for some but months for others) and so people get put off immediately when if you just play a little and often, eventually you will almost NEVER get sick. Plus VR prices are going down and down, we all hope soon it will be a mainstream market considering the prices are already far lower than that of a console or PC.
Damn, I'm hella sad Echo VR shutdown. I'll never get the chance to play it now, and as a Ender's Game fan, I looked forward to trying it the most. I've tinkered with a friend's headset for a while before, so I already know that I don't have issues with motion sickness or headaches-I would've had a blast in Echo VR.
10:20 Exactly. Even though I’ve never played vr, (in a perfect world where the motion sickness problems are fixed) the scene needs more original games and not r6 but in vr, csgo but in vr, etc
I think VR esports will take off the moment immersive neural interfaces are realized (sorta like the ones from Sword Art Online)
What vr headsets are being used in these fps clips
Made an appearance in this video😍
oh man echo vr during its prime, was something to see. im sad it was killed, met so many cool people. and had alot of fun playin matches till 3am
VR is just not VR yet atm.
The VR we have right now is like playing Pong in your Nokia vs playing Elden Ring in your Steamdeck.
VR right now feels like a baby just starting to learn how to crawl. Unless VR reaches Sword Art Online tech, it still has a looooong way to go.
Some of the games are really fun like BeatSaber, Thrill of the fight, PistolWhip, Blaston, EchoVR 😢, etc.
Ill tell you why its not as popular, even people that play vr don't play it often enough to gain an interest in the esports side(there are literal statistics on that). I play vr every time there's a new walkabout mini-golf map and that's about it.
VR doesn't make me motion-sick(i always remember im just playing a video game which i think helps but also breaks immersion), i think VR is fun but the fact is i don't feel attached enough to vr to be like "ill watch these esports". Not only that but VR as per usual is behind the curve. People have already settled into their competitive games of choice and people are starting to hate that model a lot.
I'm also surprised that this video didn't address the elephant in the room which is "meta" which is simultaneously killing and keeping vr alive. Meta keeps wanting to turn VR into some dystopian nightmare, that's definitely not selling VR to people(the vr fanboys saying "its the future, its inescapable" is also doing that, intentionally or not.) or when they don't bill it as that they don't really advertise it as a gaming product, it billed as something for work or for AI BS, lord forbid they bill it as an actual gaming device. When they do a game advertisement I'm always shocked to see how short the adverts are, it's just "hey this game is out" then the ad ends. Who cares if there's a batman game tbh? nobody is gonna move to the quest 3 just to play it. I literally just bought a quest 2 you really think I'm gonna immediately jump ship? People don't like exclusives nowadays, it just limits your player base arbitrarily for no reason and especially with VR, that's a killer. VR is a fraction of the techy population, even less so do those people have a quest 3, why limit your batman game to just the quest 3?
I swear the people buying VR headsets are annoying family members that give quests to other family members, say "it's the future" and then those people don't use them, it explains some discrepancy I could come up with why quest sales are following the first iPhone sales almost to a T but nobody is using VR often enough to justify a ton of things that would actually make VR worth it.
What VR needs is a wake up call and compared to a lot of other tech shit coming out I actually like VR but the people in it need to be honest with themselves. It's too niche, it's too cumbersome(hardware and software side), literally nobody uses it enough, meta was a choice, and the majority of VR games feel so uninspired.
VR feels like tech scientists trying to replicate creativity. They're horses try to lead themselves to water to drink when the nearest watering hole is on a different plain of existence. It's just the same bs since VR. this tech is the future, that tech is the future, I swear it's the future this time(VR, nfts/crypto, AI) all I'm seeing is people that are in and want their tech horse to succeed but nobody bidding outside of that. VR is the only one I can see breaking the mold but it can't do that without all the bs being cut out which needs to happen. Cut the bs, make VR games people actually want to play and that they see worth it strapping an apparatus for multiple hours that will absolutely cause "motion sickness problem", neck and back injuries (eventually) to play, and people will look past the downsides. As of now there's like one game maybe a handful that do that and unfortunately most of them were released when VR headsets started coming out.
I'll stop my rant there cause this is getting long but the answer is simple: nobody is watching VR sports cause VR itself isn't popular with the masses and there are literally so many reasons, they could probably make a case study.
Can't even watch a video about VR games without getting sports gambling shoved in my face. Love this country.
Nah the teabag is crazier
VR is not that fully develop yet. It needs a lot of works to do. But it is a fact that VR is the future and it's inevitable.
Ommmggg echo was literally BLITZBALL from final fantasy x
holy shit theScore is covering vr esports?
Competitive Vail VR is alot of fun and a great experience but we need alot more players and teams.
i think vr esports aren't going to have mass appeal until the following things are addressed:-
1)VR actually becomes affordable for the masses, a bigger userbase will mean vr esports is on more people's radar.
2)Spectating VR becomes more streamlined , anytime i try to watch a vr esport it feels so wonky and weird trying to spectate a VR game on a regular screen.
3)Less goofy looking games , things like counter strike look slick af and it makes the VR FPS with their goofy animations and physics look like a flash game when you're spectating especially if you don't have the context of what it would feel like to be looking at that content in an actual VR headset.
Technically VR is affordable in comparison to everything else now, considering you can get a fairly high level headset with everything needed to play for $300, less than any other main stream gaming platform other than mobile. The rest I fully agree with and it will just take time as developing for Vr is much harder and has been done for a much shorter time. One day it will get there! Honestly though the biggest problem is lack of sponsors, it’s a cycle we’ve seen a lot of in VR esports, small/niche sponsors -> lack of money for the community -> old players driven away -> less content to make -> less sponsors -> reeat
@sogsVR is not that affordable outside america and people who can afford it don't bother since their friends can't afford it or they'd rather upgrade their PCs. Also game devs don't seem to be as innovative with VR as expected, like I've seen some youtubers play VR games that could have easily been developed for a mouse and keyboard. Even VRChat had more players playing on computers rather than VR.