VR is for Kids!

I need to start this article by admitting that I'm a little jaded. I've been developing VR games myself since late 2013.

It takes a lot to get me excited about a VR title. There's a lot of standing in one spot shooting things or doing mundane tasks with some immature jokes layered over-top these days. Not really my thing.

Shortly after I started making my first VR game, my daughter Quinn was born. Though early on it made developing a bit difficult (as I work from home), she is more excited about VR now than I ever was!

And why wouldn't she love it? She's flown the Apollo 11 mission multiple times while bouncing on a knee! She's been to the bottom of the sea and poked a jelly fish. When I was her age, I was lucky if I got to go to the zoo once every few years! She's had a birthday party with an anthropomorphized hedge hog, and explored the outer reaches of out solar system.

Here she is at 2, swimming with whales.

https://www.instagram.com/p/0gXAYUpicR/

https://www.instagram.com/p/0RPV9AJiQL/

So what's the problem?

Well firstly, as with all new technology, we are unsure of long term effects VR will have on developing eyes and minds. Both Oculus and Samsung has set their age restriction to 13+ and Sony has said that the PSVR shouldn't be used by children under 12.

Here's a great article by Digital Trends discussing these safety issues. https://www.digitaltrends.com/virtual-reality/is-vr-safe-for-kids-we-asked-the-experts/

The article comes to the same conclusion that I have. It's probably fine.

A bigger issue in my opinion, is that we're not designing VR experience to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

We should be marketing VR to young children and parents. We should be developing content directed to the edutainment of this lucky generation. We're selling VR to the wrong people!

Even some of the experiences that ARE great for kids have flaws that make them way less accessible. Over the past week or so, Quinn has been very interested in the scale of things.

She has been blowing her own mind with videos like this one:

And the classic Powers of Ten from 1977:

So today, when she asked me if she could do something in VR, I loaded up the new classic Titans of Space (made by a friend of mine). It's a space tour. You sit in a ship (much like Carl Sagan's ship of the imagination, but less 70's sci-fi looking), and fly from our sun, to the farthest known bodies in our solar system, then to a few of the largest known stars in our universe. We stop along the way to take in each celestial object as a some information about it appears on the ships console.

And here is the problem. Not as much now that she's almost 5, but until recently, her hands weren't big enough to reach the buttons with her thumb while holding the controller. Never-mind the fact that she can't see the controller and have me communicate what to so while wearing the HMD. She's meant to look at the panel that says "Ready", point an imaginary laser pointer at it, and hit a button with her thumb. In recent updates, this has been streamlined. Now I can hold the controller and simply press a button, but I digress.

Another great example of this is Medium by Oculus. It's a fantastic 3D sculpting tool where the user can build and paint amazing artworks of art. Quinn LOVES it. She walks around our living room making giant castles and flowers made out of white foam. There's just one problem. The tool selection and sizing options are way too complicated. We're lucky she can manage to pull the trigger and create a stream of "clay". It would be so helpful to just have a few buckets of paint of the floor that she could dip her brush in. ![]()

This isn't just about the kids. If we want VR to succeed, we need to get everyone into it. That includes grandma, the guy missing a limb, and little Quinn. If VR isn't for them, who is it for? Not me.

We need to make brilliant, beautiful and inspiring content like this more accessible. And we need more of it! I mean, I understand that it's not supposed to be for kids right now, and maybe that's the first hurdle we need to jump, but wont somebody please think of the children? :P

I swear that she mostly plays the educational stuff. I just don't have video of it :P

As always, follow me @anticleric to hear more rants about VR and stuff