Opinion: Trying to find the virtue in virtual reality

Jan. 15—Just when I was getting used to actual reality, along comes virtual reality.

My sister gave our 15-year-old son a virtual-reality headset for Christmas. It's called Oculus Quest 2, and when you strap it on your head it looks like a giant pair of binoculars is trying to eat your face off.

I've been reading about virtual reality for years, and so I was excited to try Oculus Quest 2, but not before others in the family took their shot. If playing VR made you look dorky — as I suspected — I wanted others to get laughed at first.

"It's got 10 games inside," my sister announced as the 15-year-old excitedly opened the package.

"I don't think it has any games inside," I said minutes later, reading the fine print on the box. "It says right here under the pictures of the games, "Games not included."

"Oh, sorry," she said.

If you think about it, this completely makes sense. The point of selling virtual-reality machines is making money off virtual-reality games. Google confirmed that there are indeed free VR games available to download, just not the best ones. If VR games were ice cream, pistachio would be free but chocolate would cost 50 bucks.

My wife quickly seized on a free VR game that uses mapping software to take you anywhere in the world.

"I'm outside our house," she announced at one point, and then minutes later adding, "Wow, our garage door is open. Now, I'm in Japan."

"Nice," I said.

"I asked it to take me somewhere random, and it took me somewhere like Alabama," she said.

I thought to myself, "Visiting Lick Skillet, Alabama, on VR is probably free, but I'll bet Paris, France, costs like $500."

After an hour or two of observing people ogle the Oculus, I was ready to take my turn. Our 15-year-old positioned the head straps over my bald spot and fit the controllers on my hands.

"OK, I'm not impressed," I announced immediately.

I was being honest. I expected Oculus to take me to another world — a place I would never want to come back from. Instead, I felt like I had been given two shots of tequila and pushed inside the 1982 movie "Tron."

"I thought it would be better," I muttered while trying to slice a bunch of colored boxes with my light sabers.

"Some people just don't want to be entertained," my wife noted.

My game was called Beat Saber and involved digital swordplay set to music. I found it mildly enjoyable for about five minutes, and then I was done. I tried to get it to play Michael Jackson's "Beat It," but I couldn't figure out how.

I downloaded a free drum-kit simulator, and it felt like I was playing inside a vat of Jell-O.

Our older son, 20, who was home from college, gave Beat Saber a try and scored like a million points immediately. He declared victory and left.

That left the 15-year-old to enjoy his toy. Within hours he had downloaded a game that allowed him to box, one-on-one, against friends who got the same VR set for Christmas.

Into the night, I heard him upstairs jumping around. At one point I went up to check on him.

"Are you OK," I said. "You're sweating."

He explained that he had just boxed his best friend — and his whole family — one by one.

"Was it fun?" I asked.

"It was awesome," he said, his cheeks flushed.

That's when it hit me. Big tech knows its audience. I'm betting the VR industry, at the moment, knows its target audience is 15-year-old boys who need to burn off energy.

By the time the technology advances enough to enthrall adults, I'll probably be long gone.

Which is just as well. Petting my dog, eating a cookie and watching football is all the reality I need.

Email Mark Kennedy a mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.