Half Life Writer: Virtual Reality Is Still At Pong Stage

Left 4 Dead, Portal and Half-Life writer Chet Faliszek believes that, impressive as it may be, virtual reality is still at the stage videogames were at when Pong was released.

Speaking at the Slush Play virtual reality (VR) conference in Reykjavik, Faliszek was asked about his expectations for VR in 2015, to which his answer was that nobody really knows.

“None of us know what the hell we are doing,” a-t-il déclaré. “We’re still just scratching the surface of VR. We still haven’t found out what VR is, and that’s fine. We’ve been making movies in pretty much the same way for 100 years, TV for 60 years and videogames for 40. VR has only really been [in development] for about a year, so we’re at Pong level.”

Faliszek believes that VR will develop its own unique gameplay styles and genres and that it doesn’t make sense to twist the existing ones into working in VR. The Valve writer likened the imposition of VR onto existing gameplay to fixing a rudder to an early car, because that’s how steering had always worked.