In the Loupe
In the Loupe
I Tried Virtual Reality (VR) So You Don't Have To
Virtual Reality (VR) is growing in popularity, and as the technology improves, so do the opportunities for use in real life. Michael has explored VR with his friends the past year and reports back on his experiences, the good, the bad, the... vertigo-inducing.
Michael later speaks with three of his best friends who are avid VR users on how they've used this technology to stay in touch and keep their friendship alive in 2025.
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Welcome to In the Loop so that you don't have to. Virtual reality is something I find very interesting. I'm also incredibly apprehensive about it. I work in user experience and I definitely have read Ready Player One if you've read or watched that movie and that's all about virtual reality, and I think of it as a cautionary tale and today I'm going to kind of set it up for you. I understand how it might be.
Speaker 1:You might get a different idea of what virtual reality is, or VR is based on what's in the news and you know maybe you've tried a demo before but I'm going to do is explain my experiences with it, talk about what I like and don't like and there's a lot of things I don't like about it. And then I'm actually going to interview my three best friends who we actually stay in touch, now that we're all living in different states and we've stayed in touch through VR. I definitely like the least out of the four of us, but I want to use it as a cool opportunity to interview them and they're going to talk about what they like and dislike about VR.
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Speaker 1:And now back to the show. Okay, so let's talk about virtual reality or VR. So first things. First, I want to set up what VR is. In case you don't have any idea, I'm just going to assume that you're coming into this completely uneducated and new to the idea of virtual reality.
Speaker 1:Vr currently, as it stands in 2025, is administered, kind of accessed, through these headsets that you strap to your head. They're kind of like goggles and they have this computer inside of them. That is, I got to be honest. They're kind of heavy. They have straps that go around the side of your head and then one that goes on the top that sort of pulls it back. And then you also have these two controllers. That's true for the one that I use, which is an Oculus, and Oculus is set up by, or is owned by, meta, which is Facebook, and it's different. I know if you have one of the Apple headsets, but I gotta be honest, like those things are, I don't even know if they're still making them anymore, but and I've never used one of the Apple ones, but I do hear some pretty good things about them I bet you it'd be pretty cool, but they are incredibly expensive.
Speaker 1:So one thing I wanna get out of the way is virtual reality is completely replacing your experience in real life with a virtual one. That is what kind of defines virtual reality. There's another thing called augmented reality, which I'm much more of a fan of, sometimes referred to as AR. So the difference between VR versus AR AR augmented reality is where there is a layer of data, a layer of information or experience on top of your real life experience, whereas virtual reality completely replaces it. Real life experience, whereas virtual reality completely replaces it. So an example of like what an AR experience might be is maybe you go and you strap this you know glasses on which is what Google Glasses was, is an AR experience and it maybe will allow you to see butterflies or a dragon in the sky, but you still see kind of the sky and the clouds and the buildings and experiences around you, but it's layering these things on top of it and maybe it might even play audio on top of it as well. So that's the difference between VR and AR. For some reason, there is less AR experience out there than I would have expected. I think that AR has this incredible opportunity to kind of enhance life and I find that tantalizing and interesting.
Speaker 1:Vr, I think, is trying to replace life and that is one of the big reasons why I'm a big naysayer on it. I've read the book Ready Player One and it had a pretty profound impact on me. For Ready Player One, it depicts this like kind of almost like post-apocalyptic sort of world where there's all of this, you know, horrible, like life is so bad in real life that people are trying to escape reality by going to this virtual world called the Oasis. And my friends hate when I bring up Ready Player One because I'm always like, yeah, I hate wearing the headsets and stuff. But it's also owned by Meta and I have some gripes with Meta. Again, I'm not starting this episode off in a very positive note and I guess I kind of want you to understand the experience and like kind of the holistic look at it before we dive into like the actual utility of it.
Speaker 1:But by being owned by Meta, meta has kind of a history of playing really fast and loose with your data and your security really fast and loose with your data and your security and what that means is everything is tied into your Facebook account or, sorry, your meta account, and I find that kind of weird. I made my Facebook account when I was in seventh grade Wait, yes, seventh grade and so that was, you know, like 15 years ago or so, or maybe even 16 years ago. So I've had the same account for so long that I don't even know if I really want to tie more things into this legacy login or this legacy account. I'd rather have things tied into my Google account, which I made a lot more recently and I also take a lot more steps to secure. So the one thing I will give back to Meta is they make the experience very straightforward and seamless. For a long time, meta was kind of touted as the pinnacle of user experience. I think now Apple and Google sort of make a good strong run at that. I think that Apple especially man their onboarding systems for, you know, different technology is pretty flawless if we're being honest. You know, think about, like Apple packaging and like the experience of unpacking a laptop. It's just incredible. But by being owned by Meta, I must admit it's not exactly one of my favorite companies out there and it's one. It's again another kind of tick in the box of things I don't love about virtual reality, and so the way it's set up, again it's.
Speaker 1:I'm looking over at mine. It's this headset that sort of sits on your eyes but not on your nose or mouth and it really straps in. I don't super love it because of a couple of things. It's sort of heavy. At least my Oculus is heavy. I know that. I'll speak to him later, but my friend Andy, who's a developer at Punchmark, he has, I think, a Quest and I think that they're lighter, but my current Oculus is kind of heavy and it really sort of pushes down on my nose.
Speaker 1:The other thing is I can't wear glasses when I have the headset on, so I have to put my contacts on, and sometimes that's like an extra step of preparation which I'm not super keen on. You know, if it's late at night, my friend's like, hey, let's jump on virtual reality. I'm like I gotta go put my contacts on late at night and then, you know, go put the headset on. The other thing is this headset they have to be charged all the time. If I don't use mine for two weeks, there's a good chance it has zero batteries right now and I think that that is like one of those I don't know aspects that I really hate charging stuff and I think that apparently the Apple headsets are good enough that they can run off of like no charge for you know a day or something like that, or a really long time, whereas with the headsets, I think, it kind of seemingly doesn't hold a charge super long, I think, or maybe it runs at a really high use rate.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about the onboarding experience. One thing that's kind of interesting is suddenly it's like what does the experience feel like? And I think that an interesting aspect is that, meta being first to the game, they got to decide what the experience is going to be and when you log in you're kind of sitting in almost like a viewing port. So you're almost sitting in the top of if you've ever been to a lookout at the top of a mountain that you've hiked, it kind of feels like you're in there and you're able to launch different games and experiences Right out of the box. Different games and experiences Right out of the box I must admit not a lot of things come with the Oculus.
Speaker 1:You have to either purchase or download them, so right off the rip, not like a ton, but there are some fun games. I'm not much of a gamer, but if you are, there's a whole suite of video games you can play on it. Some of my friends feel really good about a couple of them. They think they're really immersive and fun. But as a non-gamer who kind of enjoys watching people play games more than actually playing games, it definitely is not as big of a win for me.
Speaker 1:One game we play a lot is Walkabout Mini Golf. Walkabout is it's, you know, it's like putt-putt golf and it's kind of interesting it's. You are floating a lot and you use the controllers that are in your hand. You only use one controller at a time. You use the controllers to kind of move your golf stick and it is. It's surprisingly accurate and I'm really bad at it. My friend Knox is very good at it and it annoys me because for me to get better at it so I could compete, I would have to practice a lot and I just am not ready to dedicate that time.
Speaker 1:But the other one that we use it for a lot is the chatting room. So what I find cool about this is like you can go and enter this room where you're basically in just a lobby with your other members. You go in and you can just chat and you can also on this big screen that's in the room, because it gives you this kind of different ambiances. You can be in like a cozy little fireplace room. You can be in like a cool space where it's like a like a conference center, those kinds of things. There's actually like a surprising. It is kind of intimate intimate.
Speaker 1:The thing is, though, is like is it better or worse than just being in a group FaceTime call? I'll ask the other guys if it's better or worse For me. I get just as much out of being in a group FaceTime call, because I can see their face and I can, you know, emote with my hands, and I can see their face and I can emote with my hands, and I can kind of laugh, or I can side-eye and roll my eyes, and they'll get the subtleties of my message. As opposed to when you're in this virtual reality, your animated character doesn't have those subtleties. It's not mapping your face the way that it does in the movie Ready Player One, and things aren't haptic in that your hands can't, like, feel weight when you pick things up. You know, you don't feel the weight of the golf club. You still are feeling the controller in your hand, and to me, I think that's one of my initial issues with virtual reality. I think that the augmented aspect sounds interesting to me, but again, it is very different.
Speaker 1:I think that there's a lot of things that virtual reality could be used for, so a few things that I've heard are trying to be developed around. It is, for example, I think that one of the interesting uses could be exposure therapy or PTSD related to certain environments or experiences. One thing you could do is have them use headsets and then experience you know, or expose themselves to these traumatic events in very controlled and more healthy ways that they might be able to, you know, have a more positive relationship with those experiences. I've heard that that is something that is being developed. Another one is definitely for learning or situational learning. I guess one of those things is like can you train you know first responders on you know, traumatic or emergency events, a first responder medic, be able to go in and knowing which victim should you be prioritizing and are you checking their pulse first and kind of going through those reactionary steps and making it so when you actually do have your first experience, maybe you are trained better than off of a book or off of plain video. I think that there is something of value there. Another one could be things related to snap decisions, training or firefighting, or from military members, or you know, I think that pilots are also supposedly experiencing that with different types of simulators, not just, you know, with headsets, but with, like these, more state of the art ones. It's not something I've dived into that deeply, but there is probably value there.
Speaker 1:Another one is potentially shopping, and I'm going to bring the question up to my three friends, but shopping is definitely something that could be experienced, for example. But I think that that would be a much better use case for augmented reality. For one of those examples, I had this episode planned out for a long time and I didn't end up buying the couch, so I didn't do the episode, but I was going to do VR shopping and I was going to try to buy a couch for my house, completely through virtual reality, and I thought that that would be an interesting experience. Like how hard is it to actually pay? Will my credit card flag it as fraudulent? The reason why augmented reality would be cool for that is you could like see what the couch is going to look like in your apartment before you put it there. Like is the colors going to look right? Is it the right size? Is it going to? How high up on the wall is it going to come? I mean, theoretically, you can make it so that you already have, like, the posts in place so that it'd be able to sit down perfectly. I think VR is not going to be for shopping. Again, it's about replacing your reality as opposed to augmenting it. I think that AR might be of utility for that, but that is something worth, you know, exploring or thinking about.
Speaker 1:And the last thing I wanted to bring up and my friends hate when I bring this up I get motion sick with these headsets. It gives me, makes me feel dizzy, it limits how much time I can wear the headset, not that I even enjoy it in the first place, but I have a pretty hard stop at right around 45 minutes to an hour where after that I really can't wear longer. It makes me, yeah, kind of have like an upset stomach and I kind of feel off balance. Especially when I take it right off, I do feel like I'm kind of like falling over. And you know, I guess that's not uncommon. I guess with some of the more expensive headsets, that is, you know, diminished, but with the current one that I have with this Oculus. It definitely makes me feel a little bit motion sick, but those are my initial experiences with virtual reality man.
Speaker 1:I would love to hear some feedback from our listeners about if you've ever tried out virtual reality. I find it to be one of those emerging technologies that sometimes I feel like it got so much oxygen probably three years ago during COVID, and like there was so much focus on virtual reality that and they thought it was like the new frontier, and then it kind of died out and people realized that like technology hadn't caught up. But, just like with anything, I think that it was maybe ahead of its time and maybe there'll be a rise from the ashes and there'll be new stuff. But all that to be said, that's my initial experiences with it, after having used it for about a year and a half, and I think we're going to take a quick break and when we come back we're going to talk with my friends Andy Knox and Joe Kay. So everybody stay with us as we talk about virtual reality.
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Speaker 1:And now back to the show. And we're back. What is up, everybody? I'm joined by three of my best friends we affectionately refer to ourselves as the jabronis and I'm joined by Andy, who's a developer at Punchmark, knox, who is our director of technology at Punchmark, and Joe, kay used to be at Punchmark and now is a director of technology elsewhere. How you guys doing Doing good? I'm Joe. And Mike. How you doing, joe? You seem so so not amused.
Speaker 3:Joe unresponsive on that one.
Speaker 4:Actually, you can cut my whole part out of this podcast, right? Oh no.
Speaker 1:Oh no. So we used to all live in Charlotte together and we played a ton of disc golf and we were hanging out every weekend and oftentimes during the week as well. Super common, we're hanging out every weekend and, uh, oftentimes during the week as well. Um, super common. And then I, unfortunately or you know, fortunately for some of you guys uh moved away and I moved north, and now andy uh moved west and uh, crazy enough, knox and Joe K actually live on other sides of a state border, so we're pretty far away and we have a reunion every year and that's the only time we're really seeing each other all together. But you guys are big fans of VR. I want to start with Joe K. You were kind of the one that were like, hey, you're gonna try out vr. Um, why do you like vr so much?
Speaker 4:um well, so I can't take full credit for the whole gang getting into vr, because andy showed it to me first. Uh, he had a earlier model and uh, he just showed me like some like 3d music videos and stuff and I was like man, this is so cool. I didn't even imagine that this existed before and now that I know it's a thing, I got to get into it. He also showed me Google Earth VR, which is just a crazy experience where you're just on the Earth, whatever size you want to be, you see the land in a 3D model. It's crazy. It's a great time. So I saw that very quickly, got on board and got myself one and did my own thing with it and had a great time.
Speaker 4:I think I quickly found out the best part about VR is the social aspect. If there's already people in your life that have VR that you get to hang out with in VR, that makes it just so much better. I think that's why we're on it as much as we are. The four of us have a VR, the three of us play VR. Because the three of us the four of us have a VR, the three of us play VR. It's just a great way for us to stay in touch and also do something that keeps our interest. Even if we all don't feel like talking, we can get on VR. We're all just playing golf. We're still hanging out in a way. I just really like the social aspect and try to get anyone that didn't already have one on board. That's why you got one, and I still try to do the same thing with other friends.
Speaker 1:Knox and Andy, do you guys feel like it scratches the same itch as, for example, like hanging out in a room, or is it comparable, like is it close enough? Because to me I have had a hard time with like that social aspect. But there have been moments when we're hanging out in the, in the group room, where I'm like, oh, this is kind of like us hanging out in my living room again, but, um, what do you think? And yeah.
Speaker 5:so I think it's kind of an interesting halfway point between doing something completely virtually for all, sitting down and, say, playing a game together, or for all like sitting in the exact same room in real life. So for people out there who might not know exactly what VR is, it's a headset and you put it on and it looks like you're in a different reality, like you look around and you're in a virtual environment. Your friends are all there and they are represented as avatars and you can kind of see them walking around, so you are kind of in the same. It kind of tricks your brain into actually feeling like you're in the same room with your friends because you say something and you can see the other person throw their head back and laugh. And just being in that same space I think offers something over FaceTime which just feels like you're staring at a screen after a while.
Speaker 1:in my opinion, and Knox, I feel like you adapt almost the best to VR. It seems like you almost put it on like a glove whenever you slip into VR. For me, I definitely chafe at that. Is that something very fluent with tech? Is that something that you kind of feel like you naturally come to, or what do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe. So Maybe I have less of a barrier to intrigue just because I've been so like enmeshed in tech my entire life. The first day I put on a VR headset, I went out and bought one that same night, so it's just a natural adaptation. You were talking about people moving away getting connected with VR. All of my friends who move away I make sure they have a VR so we can hang out. It's like. It is so like similar. It's definitely the closest you can get to hanging out in real life. It's like eerily similar. You lose track sometimes that you're not in real life and you'll try to lean on a table and fall over or whatever. I think that it's so close to hanging out in real life that that's why you don't like it, because it's eerie. You know how good it is.
Speaker 1:There is that what do they call that thing? The gap, uncanny Valley, uncanny Valley, that's it. It's close, but I've got an Oculus, joe, you've got an Oculus, I think. What do the other two of you guys use?
Speaker 5:All of us are Oculus Quests. I think those guys are Oculus Quest 2 and I'm Quest 3. You're Quest?
Speaker 1:3, gotcha. So one of the points I bring up earlier in this episode I'll send you guys that you guys make sure you listen to it Is I get motion sick. And I want to ask you guys do you guys get motion sick or do you guys just battle it, or is it something you get used to or like, or am I just a baby? I don't know.
Speaker 3:A little bit of both, yeah, so like it definitely depends on what game you're playing. The more you get used to it, the less you get nauseous. But I've been playing a long time and I still have to. There are like comfort modes that you can turn on in a lot of games where it kind of gives you like tunnel vision, so your peripheral vision doesn't really throw you off as much. That's helpful. But yeah, it's about getting in there more often helps you a little bit. But really it's more about your settings. I just play the right games and you'll. You'll get some games. You'll have to throw them away because they make you nauseous and move on to other ones. But the ones that are good are really good, so it's worth it, yeah what about you guys?
Speaker 5:um, I agree, depending on the game, some games you're like literally flying through the air, so if you're not prepared for that, that might not be a great time. Um, you know, there's some experiences, like I say, where you're literally just kind of walking around in a virtual environment. Those aren't too bad, um. So yeah, it kind of depends.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll get it after a while. Uh depends on the game. If you're moving around a lot or if you don't like turn on the comfort settings and like your whole vision is moving all the time, then it's kind of easy to get it.
Speaker 1:But if you're not moving that much, you know, I'm generally fine yeah, I think, uh, one thing that's really interesting about it is it is the immersive aspect of it. Um, so, what we've been talking about primarily in this chat is, uh, the social aspect of it, which I I am willing to. To give you that it is. It is great. I really like, especially what I'll do a lot is we've already talked about this ad nauseum, but for the listeners, I just have a hard time being dialed into it.
Speaker 1:I'm really bad at VR games, so I'm always the worst, which we're all competitive with each other, and it kills me being the worst at something consistently, at something consistently. But what we started doing is when we play Walkabout mini golf, which I talked about earlier in this episode, these three will play and I'll play as like a like an explorer kind of thing. I'll just go and fly around the map and I'll look at things. It is really interesting, like it's super immersive. I kind of wish I could use it more to explore like wonders of the world, or go into Sagrada Familia, you know Basilica in Barcelona, and like stand in there and like look up. Have you guys done anything that's like real life, immersive exploration or anything along those lines?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can totally do that. If you go on YouTube, there's like a whole section of YouTube that's just like 360 video and you can go. I think you can go to concerts. You can totally do that. If you go on YouTube, there's like a whole section of YouTube that's just like 360 video and you can go. I think you can go to concerts. You can go to India, you can go to tops of mountains and like it's just like you're standing there and you get to look around. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 4:National Geographic has a couple you can do Machu Picchu and you can actually like walk around through it.
Speaker 5:And then also what you mentioned earlier, joe, with Google Earth. So Google Earth has a VR app where you can load it and the Google Earth cars that are driving around getting pictures of all those places. You can go into any one of those and just look around in VR so you can really feel like you're walking around the streets in New York City or something. So it's crazy, mike, you're the artist you should. There's like art apps where you can make like 3D structures, just like fully creatively.
Speaker 1:Like that would be the avenue for you.
Speaker 1:I've seen that like it's like almost kind of like having a 3D printer where you can go and print stuff and then shape it in that space. But dude, what's crazy. It's just I think I just haven't clicked in my brain what that kind of experience is like. So earlier on the episode I am talking about uses for VR, because I think gaming it's good, but there is 2D gaming and I think that the gap is so far right now. I think it's going to be several years until VR actually catches up, especially with how much of a flop Apple was now. I think it's going to be several years until VR actually catches up, especially with how much of a flop Apple was recently.
Speaker 1:I was talking about what could the utilities of VR be? Obviously, the people listening. This is in the loop. This is mainly about e-commerce and shopping and marketing for the jewelry industry. I wonder if have you guys? I'm kind of surprised by how little augmented reality is built into the Oculus. Um, augmented reality, they only use it in very limited instances, at least from what I've seen. Um, I like one of the examples like I could think of would be a great use is like what if I was to buy a or want to buy a couch, and I would stand in my living room and then maybe be able to try out different couches in the location that I want to put it that way, I would know oh, this couch is way too big for the space, or this couch is, you know, it comes up too high on the window pane and that's a no-go. Have you guys seen any of those utility uses, especially around AR, or is it mainly just gaming?
Speaker 3:for you guys. Dude, I'm pretty sure that exact app that you just described exists. I'm pretty sure you can shop for designer furniture, put it in AR space in your house and then order it from the app. It's pretty cool. But I think you're right about there's less AR than VR, because I would say because until recently it's really just been VR. The MetaQuest 3 was the first like popularized VR headset that I saw in like an affordable market where people can get actual good cameras on their VR and just at home easily. And other than that, the MetaQuest 2, it's like looking through a $10 camera. It's gray, it's pixely, you can't really see anything. So ARs, they have it on the Quest 2, but it's terrible to use. So no wonder nobody was developing for that until recently. Andy, what do you think about that? You just got the Quest 3.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so to your point, it's called pass-through on the Oculus, the ability to just look through the cameras and look around your environment while you have a headset on. Pass-through is much better in Quest 3 than Quest 2, to the point where Quest 2, you can kind of see where you are in the room and everything's kind of black and white and grainy. In Quest 2, you can kind of see where you are in the room and everything's kind of black and white and grainy. In Quest 3, you can read a book in full color. It's crazy the amount of generational difference that's just between one iteration. So that is, to your point, hitting the market pretty recently. So these things are coming. It's just how quickly do we want to throw people at developing up these apps? Now that we have quest 3? What does the market look like?
Speaker 3:so I think a lot of businesses are kind of going through that right now that's actually the reason why I don't have a quest 3 is because it's so good at that. You know they have this thing called the spatial cloud where it looks through your camera and maps your house and everything in your house as spatial data that it sends back to them. And that freaks me out, because the Quest 3 got really good at analyzing your environment and having better cameras and stuff and I'm like I'll stick with the Quest 2. It pretty much does the VR thing that I want.
Speaker 1:No, I'm with you have you guys ever used any of the AR tools, such as? Do you guys ever try Google Glass? It's crazy to think that that was like 15 years ago when that came out, and I think that they're on to something. It's just unfortunate that they made you look like a real loser when you wore them, man. That's like the truth of the matter, like they had a perception, kind of thing, but the utility was, I still think, really impressive.
Speaker 5:I remember there was a story back then where one of the beta testers or something tried to take it into a nightclub and just basically like wearing a camera on your glasses while you're walking around the night. He was like I think that was like one of the first stories out there about Google Glass and honestly I think that partially helped take that whole project. It was just out of his time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. I think it's an interesting utility and, like another example that I had talked about was potentially using VR as a training mechanism or training tool. So, for example, maybe you have an EMT and EMTs are obviously part of it is just trusting your instincts, flowing through emergency situations and like knowing I think it's called triage or triage, where, like you know, like the hierarchy of importance and things like that. And could you strap a VR to someone who is either like a rookie or like training to become an EMT and then present them with certain situations, like a car crash or something along those lines, and then seeing how they triage through these events. I think that would be a really fascinating use. Or, you know, things like not to go to a super extreme, but like hostage situations, like how would you handle like these high pressure instances, which having experience in them is definitely going to help you handle them a lot better. So don't you think you should present them with more opportunities to gain that experience in non-high stakes experiences like that have?
Speaker 1:you guys ever thought about any of those kind of instances where VR could be used as like a training tool.
Speaker 3:Your foresight's incredible. Yeah, have you heard of the new meta glasses that came out? No, oh, yeah, I think Ross might even have a set. Yeah, he has a pair. So they have cameras on them so they can see what you see, and they have speakers that direct into your ears so it can talk to you. And it's got AI on it so it can see what you see, analyze the situation and give you instructions, if that's what you want it to do, and so it can totally be used in training situations, and I'm sure it will be very soon Like it can do all that analysis and give instructions and kind of train you just naturally while you're doing the thing. So that'll be cool to see happen, yeah, what about you, Joe.
Speaker 1:You think any future use cases out of VR?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know if I could say about any in particular, but I know there's like they're getting there pretty close, like I think they have like official flight simulator programs in vr. They use it as part of like flight simulator training. Uh, yeah, the whole thing you said about like hostage situations are just like uh situations that you can't really replicate in training. But you could do it in vr and make it more lifelike, make it experience stuff, all that for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All right, everybody. We're going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor.
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Speaker 1:And now back to the show, and we're back. So if someone was listening to this and they were interested in trying out VR, what one would you recommend that they jump into? Is it the Quest 2, would you say, or do you recommend that they just get the state-of-the-art one and kind of go from there?
Speaker 5:3 is a pretty big jump and I believe price-wise it's pretty close. So if you can swing that one, I'd definitely recommend it. If not, Quest 2 is still is still excellent. Again.
Speaker 3:Two of these guys still have it, so actually, andy, I'm worried about the, uh like, the screen door effect. You know so for I guess people who don't know screen door effect is when you're looking at the screen in your vr headset, you know the view when you're looking through a screen door, how it has a grid around it. Sometimes you can get that if the resolution isn't super good. Um, and I feel like that adds to like how you feel when you play it, whether you're nauseous or whatever. How is the? How is the resolution on the quest 3 compared to the quest 2? Can you tell the difference?
Speaker 5:yeah, the resolution is definitely better. I don't have the specs in front of me but, uh, that screen door effect where you can see the individual pixels and you lose that immersiveness. It's definitely less in the Quest 3 than it is the Quest 2.
Speaker 1:You know. So I guess I'd probably recommend, if you're diving in, you might as well get the state-of-the-art one the real reason being or just get like a used one, if you can, from someone. If you can get it cheap, that's probably what I would recommend. But to bring this thing home you guys hate when I bring this up, but it wouldn't be a conversation with my three best friends about VR if I don't bring up Ready Player One.
Speaker 1:I am very loathe to get too into VR because of the fact that I think, at its core, vr is trying to not trick us but like coerce us into leaving reality behind for a new reality, and I think that there's, you know, there's some arguments to be made in favor of that.
Speaker 1:Maybe your reality is not one that you want to be living in and maybe this presents you with an escape.
Speaker 1:That's all good things, but I think when we were trying to get me into VR and you guys were trying to get me, especially when I had moved to Burlington at one point I was like I need to be out at the bars and at the coffee shops trying to make new friends, because that's the only way for me to better my situation, which was living in a city where I had no friends, friends and it's so tempting to slip into VR and have my three best friends in the room with me, but I'm not bettering my hand, if you know what I mean. I know I've talked about it before and you guys always kind of laugh, but I'm worried that VR is going to be so good in like five years or ten years that we are going to have a Ready Player One situation on our hands where people are less likely to better their situations in favor of what I see as a temporary fix, which is virtual. Have you guys thought about this at all beyond? Oh, yes, you have. Have you guys thought about this as much as I?
Speaker 3:have the reality. I have has anti-gravity mini golf, so that seems better to me. I don't know about you.
Speaker 1:That's a pretty good point. Pretty good point. What about you guys? Andy, Joe, I think this is an important one. I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts on it.
Speaker 5:My reality has anti-gravity mini golf. Seriously, though. So we've been been. I mean, the whole world's kind of been moving more virtual for a while, right. First it was computers and then phones, and now we have ai.
Speaker 5:You can talk to a completely non-existent person, like that's just kind of the way things are going. Uh, vr is one outreach of that, and it's definitely a big one, because it's literally something you put over your face and you're in a new world, so it takes you out in a very real sense from the world. I think we're going to get to this point where people spend time in both. I don't think we're going to get to ready player one where you only take off your headset to eat and sleep or whatever.
Speaker 5:I think people are still going to engage in this world because the you, you know you can go skiing in virtual reality or something, but you know it's a very different experience than getting up on a mountain and coming down the slopes and having the actual wind in your face and all that. They can simulate it, but it'll never be the same thing. I think that'll kind of stick out after a while. Plus, the jabronis are coast to coast, as you say, so we can all get together in the same room and play. That's a really good point it is.
Speaker 1:It's I don't want to call it a band-aid, it's more of like it's just alternate. I thought about it because just recently, you guys came and visited me for a week and it was awesome and it's like, okay, like can we replace this? Like I want to do this more, I want to do this more, I want to do this every week without me living in the South, because I want to live in the North. It's snowy out, it's beautiful, and how can we replace that without having boatloads of cash and flying you guys up every time I want to hang out? I think VR is some of that, but it's not all of that, if you will. So I don't know. Just something I it's a quandary I don't think I have an answer to, but definitely really interesting.
Speaker 3:I can give you my real answer on that. Sure, yeah, so I think that tech is going to play a more and more critical core role in our lives going forward and we're going to rely on it much more. Like that's just going to happen, right. So, like, along the way, you can pick up the good things and you can play a board game with your friends who live in a different state when you want to like take the good parts as they come, because the onslaught is coming.
Speaker 1:That's how I'm approaching it yeah, anything else, guys, before we wrap this thing up, I think that's pretty much everything I wanted to cover. It's very uh, it's very interesting. I think that this episode normally I'm teaching people like have you guys ever listened to my podcast before? Yeah, who are you? Wait, you're Mike Joe.
Speaker 2:No, you shouldn't.
Speaker 1:These are supposed to be my best friends. They haven't even listened to my podcast once. No, I think. Normally I'm talking about like what is, what is the utility of this and like how can we make money off of it, and for right now, I don't really have the answer. I think it's more of just kind of like a something that is happening and it is developing. So it's worth keeping it on your radar and thinking about it, and I appreciate you guys sharing your insights. I think this is really cool. I wanted to have you guys on my podcast for a really long time and I appreciate you guys on my podcast for a really long time and, um, I appreciate you guys time. I think that's where we'll end it. Thanks guys. Cool podcast everyone. Amen, all right, thanks everybody.
Speaker 1:We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers, bye, all right. Everybody that's in the show kind of a different one. Uh, this episode my guests were were Joe, kay, andy and Knox. They're two of my best friends. I think it was really cool talking with them. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E Thanks. We'll be back next week Tuesday with another episode. Cheers, bye.
