Even though it would appear there isn’t much growth in the VR industry, some statistics seem to state otherwise. The number of VR gamers on Steam has nearly doubled throughout 2018. Virtual reality gaming still remains a rather niche market, but this overall improvement is too big to ignore.
VR Gains Traction on Steam
In the world of VR gaming, the involvement of Steam may very well be the saving grace for this industry. Considering how consumers aren’t too eager to explore virtual reality options anytime soon, one has to make content accessible in case something changes. The rise of VR arcades shows consumers can enjoy playing games in virtual reality, even though they prefer a more accessible price point first and foremost.
As such, it is quite interesting to see how VR gaming becomes more popular on Steam. Granted, there have been a lot more titles released this year, albeit none of them provided by to be a major success in terms of longevity. Even so, it shows both consumers and VR arcades are trusting the offering son this platform. Offerings like these can give VR arcade owners access to over 60 titles which creates a more competitive offering.
The year 2018 has been a good year for VR games on Steam. Interestingly enough, it seems owners of Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headsets are increasing, whereas the rest had stagnated or slightly declined. Even so, nearly 1% of all Steam users now own a VR headset, which is a somewhat promising statistic to keep an eye on.
The main question is how these figures will evolve throughout 2019 and beyond. Virtual reality is not the successful market most hardware manufacturers expected it to become. The technology is far from mainstream and may not achieve much success anytime soon either. The growing number of VR-capable games is promising, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
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