Virtual Reality Gaming Study: How gamers really feel about VR

We recently conducted a survey amongst Gamer Launch and GameSkinny users measuring interest in virtual reality (VR) gaming and eSports (eSports results will be in a later article). We learned some pretty interesting things from you guys! Some aren’t surprising at all, like the fact that 73% of y’all are excited about VR gaming. Some are frankly a little astonishing, like how almost one fifth of you spend 40+ hours a week gaming. I would really like to know your time management secrets, though. For science.

The majority of you play for more than 15 hours a week. You play a couple hours on weeknights, but really pack in the hours over the weekend. Even 15 hours is something of a commitment when you consider school or work, though. You guys are dedicated!

Virtual reality: Awesome except for the price tag

Most of you are excited about VR gaming, but only half of you would consider buying a VR gaming system at this point. About half of you say it’s because of the price. This is understandable, when the recently announced price tags of VR systems are $600 and $800, respectively. This is the price you’d pay to troll your friends.

We want to play what we’re already playing, but with a Rift on our faces

Games are an important consideration, too. Many of you stated that the selection of games is the main factor in choosing whether or not to buy a VR system. Games that you are excited about playing in VR might include EVE Valkyrie, Elite: Dangerous, Minecraft, Star Citizen (still an estimated 2 years until release, by the way), Sword Art Online, Call of Duty, or your current MMO/MMORPG.

Fallout 4 was also a popular answer, though I can only imagine how terrifying it would be to fight a deathclaw or a swarm of ghouls in VR. Some people did seem to want to stroke their inner masochist and play horror games in VR, but not nearly as many as you might expect — just a fraction of respondents. Presumably, you’d rather watch other people’s reactions to jumpscares.

If you did have to buy a VR system, about half of you would buy an Oculus Rift, but you might have done some research on the Playstation VR while browsing around online.

So what do you think? Do these results paint an accurate portrait of you and your gamer friends? What do you think was the most surprising statistic? (Besides the fact that only one person in our entire survey population expressed interest in adult VR games…)