The Thin Edge of the Wedge for Virtual Reality

Pius Uzamere argues that virtual reality will succeed first in business applications instead of gaming:

The most interesting virtual reality software startups this year won’t really be “virtual reality” companies at all; they’ll be startups making amazing tools that just happen to use VR to bring them to life. This has already started to play out in fields like medicine where virtual reality is already being used to train brain surgeons at Mount Sinai.

The argument is roughly that 1) high-quality VR equipment will start out expensive, 2) business apps can be distributed via web, 3) toolchain for creating business VR content is better (3d scanning tools etc).

Non-gaming VR applications are indeed underhyped. But gaming is important as an entry point. Critics tend to underestimate the scale and passion of the hardcore gaming community. For example: 32 million people watched the live steam of the championship of League of Legends, an extremely complicated game that is only available on PCs and Macs. VR has an unusually favorable market structure: a thin edge of the wedge (hardcore gaming) and a thick edge of the wedge (replacing everything we now do on screens).