At the beginning of the month I set myself a simple goal. Play PSVR for at least a little bit every day and blog about it. I got off to a good start and I not only found myself able to carve out the time to play the games but I was enjoying PSVR a lot more than I thought I would. I loved Moss, had a blast with a hotel smashing game, and even enjoyed a simple puzzle game partially because it was in VR.

Then, about a week in, I stopped playing VR games and I haven't touched the headset since.

So what happened? Did my PSVR break under the strain of actually being played for the first time in years? Did I just get lazy and quit? Did I develop some kind of allergy to the rubber used in the device?

No. What happened was that my step father had surgery. This had been planned for a long time, and I was actually looking forward to it because he'd been in pain for months and the doctor was hopeful that the procedure would help him. What I was not expecting were the complications. He seems to be fine now and is recovering and mostly pain free, but for about a week after the surgery he was in and out of the emergency room while they figured out what had happened and developed a treatment plan. Because of this I had to be available at all times of day and night, in case I needed to rush to the hospital or even just provide logistical or emotional support. I could not use a VR headset because it could cause me to miss an important phone call or text message. Given the choice between a dumb blogging experiment and helping my family there was, of course, no choice.

Then, after the complications had been dealt with and he was feeling better, I developed some headaches, probably from the stress of everything that had been going on. Periods of stress have often been migraine triggers for me after the stress has passed, so this wasn't surprising, but the last thing I wanted to do during one of these headaches was strap some goggles and headphones on and blast myself with light and sound. I can usually play low key games even during a migraine (JRPGs work pretty well, as do games like Loop Hero or deck builders) but only if I take frequent breaks and close my eyes when I need to. Modern consoles have been a godsend for this because of how easy it is to suspend games, even during the middle of a cut scene or whatever. While you can do this with a VR game, the intensity of the experience and the fact that you need to actually put something on your face and take it off to take a break means that I can't really use it when I'm not feeling well.

All this doesn't mean that VR is bad or doesn't have its place, but it does mean that place is limited. I'm a single guy and I can usually carve out time to play games in the morning or evening if I want to, but VR is so demanding that it wasn't possible even for me. If I had kids or other things that were likely to demand my time without warning (like my stepfather when he was experiencing surgery complications) it would make VR even more impractical. In addition, the fact that it's hard to do when you're not feeling 100% means that it can't easily fit into your life as a way to wind down before bed or just deal with an illness.

Part of the popularity of the Switch is that it fits easily into people's lives. You can play it on a commute (when those are a thing again) or while someone else is using the TV, or in bed before going to sleep. VR goes the other direction. Even as headsets get better and more convenient the fact that it demands your full attention and it bombards you with light and sound, and build in alerts and interruptions for when you get phone calls (as some headsets already have) it will always be more demanding than conventional gaming. It's fine and even good as a supplement. I'm not done with VR, and I will definitely get back to it and blogging about it soon, but it's always going to be a supplemental thing for more hardcore enthusiasts. There's a reason that many of the games being given away by Sony during the current promotion are VR games, and that's not because VR games are super popular.

VR is not a fad and it is here to stay, but I think it will be more like motion controls than we expect. They're a part of a lot of games (and I think many games will offer VR support and flat screen options) and there are some games that really use them well, but they're kind of a niche thing at this point. VR will be a bigger niche than that because it has more to offer (and incorporates motion controls very well) but it will never be the dominant way to play games.