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Facts vs Fiction: Cybersickness

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
The topic of "motion sickness" has been addressed at great length on this forum. However, those discussions are impressively scrambled. People try to provide definitions for motion sickness, from Dictionary entries to medical journals. Some people try to cite news sources that reveal how many individuals throughout the world are afflicted by motion sickness, only to be counter-argued by those who cite articles with stats illustrating motion sickness affliction as some global minority.

The natural thing to follow all that up with is... another motion sickness thread.

I feel that it is important to distinguish the difference between motion sickness experienced in a car or boat, versus motion sickness experienced by forcing your eyeballs to interpret pixelated imagery that is continuously blasted by a screen strapped to your face. The latest round of motion sickness debates stem from the First Person Shooter gaming genre making its way in to the Oculus Store. Games such as Damaged Core are being reviewed less as a game in a new sub-genre, and more as a game that is somehow destroying VR due to its teleport system. News about Doom VR which has been announced as having a teleport system is falling under similar scrutiny.

Sony PlayStation's VR implementation is a prime example of the reality behind VR motion sickness. Here are a few articles to help set proper context and expectations:

Has Sony done enough to avoid motion sickness on PlayStation VR?
Good VR is hard to pull off, and early game demos are causing doubt for Sony fans.
http://www.vrheads.com/has-sony-done-enough-avoid-motion-sickness-playstation-vr

Sony Responds to PlayStation VR Motion Sickness Concerns; 'A Lot of Responsibility With Game Devs'
http://n4g.com/news/1796298/sony-responds-to-playstation-vr-motion-sickness-concerns-a-lot-of-respon...

Here's the game that keeps making E3 attendees sick.
Sony's big-name PlayStation VR games are pretty disappointing. One is even making people feel sick to their stomachs.
http://www.cnet.com/news/playstation-vr-batman-final-fantasy-resident-evil-e3-2016/

'Resident Evil 7' in VR is a sweaty, puke-inducing masterpiece.
I never thought I'd get sick in VR. Man, I was wrong.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/15/resident-evil-7-vr-sickness-ps-vr/


There is a clear distinction between the experiences people are having in the real world (e.g., not the Internet), compared to what people claim to experience... as portrayed by saying them on the Internet. The debates over motion sickness need to start addressing them in the new context of virtual reality, not as some direct offspring of real-world motion sickness.

"Virtual reality sickness (also known as cybersickness) occurs when exposure to a virtual environment causes symptoms that are similar to motion sickness symptoms. The most common symptoms are general discomfort, headache, stomach awareness, nausea, vomiting, pallor, sweating, fatigue, drowsiness, disorientation, and apathy. Other symptoms include postural instability and retching. Virtual reality sickness is different from motion sickness in that it can be caused by the visually-induced perception of self-motion; real self-motion is not needed. It is also different from simulator sickness; non-virtual reality simulator sickness tends to be characterized by oculomotor disturbances, whereas virtual reality sickness tends to be characterized by disorientation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality_sickness

With all this in mind, those of us interested in real fact-based discussion can look at things like Cybersickness and Teleportation systems as real issues with real solutions; all the while keeping in mind that this technology - much like all of the Info Tech industry - will continue to evolve and eliminate problem areas in way that keeps the end-user at the forefront of digital enjoyment.
23 REPLIES 23

Arock387
Heroic Explorer
Until we find a way to allow our legs to move during motion in games.  Our brains will be confused as to why it perceives us as moving when our brain is not signaling to our bodies to move.  It will be confused, and it will let you know its confused with a punch to the gut.

TwoHedWlf
Expert Trustee
Movement of legs is unimportant, it's moving your head to match the movement your eyes are seeing.

(I mean...Unimportant until the point you move your head so much without moving your legs that your head or legs pop off)

CrashFu
Consultant
@Arock387  -  There are existing products that allow that, such as the Virtuix Omni and VirZoom.  Whether sock-sliding in a big plastic harness or pedaling an exercise bike makes you feel immersed or just silly is up to you, but... people are definitely trying to combat this problem.

(Speaking of which, I really need to set up the VirZoom emulator and try playing Skyrim through it.  Not for anti-VR-sickness reasons mind you, just for the novelty of pedaling my way towards / away from danger :tongue:  )
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

RedRizla
Honored Visionary
There's that many opinions floating about motion sickness and how to combat it, but I still don't know which one is the best to use. Some people will tell you to look straight ahead while moving the right thumb stick and others will tell you to try and move you head in tandem with the right stick. Does Oculus have a proper guide to reduce sickness when using the Xbox controller? I'm using the method of moving the right stick and head in tandem, but I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it.

Anonymous
Not applicable
I was surprised when Sony allowed the RE7 demo to be open to public. I'm not confident when it comes to cross platform games that support both VR and 2D. While I applaud the "gutsy" move, I think that was a big mistake at this stage of the product.

Right now, the biggest hurdle to solving motion sickness seems to be finding a solution for "locomotion". Particularly acceleration in any direction, where the brain expects vestibular (inner ear) input, that's not being supplied by the system.

Since non of the current systems are equipped to produce this sensation, (it is unfortunate that) the game designers are the ones that will have to avoid (teleport) those scenarios.

Deep inside, everyone knows that locomotion is going to be something that needs to be addressed in order to have a legitimate VR gaming experience. Some research is being done to use sound as a mechanism of reducing the vestibular effects.

https://fieldofdivision.com/2016/08/11/sony-files-shocking-patent-application-for-monitoring-and-cou...

DarkTenka
Trustee

lovethis said:

There's that many opinions floating about motion sickness and how to combat it, but I still don't know which one is the best to use. Some people will tell you to look straight ahead while moving the right thumb stick and others will tell you to try and move you head in tandem with the right stick. Does Oculus have a proper guide to reduce sickness when using the Xbox controller? I'm using the method of moving the right stick and head in tandem, but I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it.


If its working for you, then it would be safe to assume its right for you at least. Personally I have found the same, moving my head in tandem with movement fixes the problem. I dont even move my head entirely, a lot of the time I'm applying 90% motion with joystick and about 10% with my head, and that allows me to do a full 360 degree rotation or even double that without moving my body.

I've never heard of anyone saying "keep your head straight", I would expect that doing that would actually cause the problem. The bottom line is though, nobody really knows what the "correct" way to do it is, and it may even be different from person to person.

It's certainly different how much people are effected person to person ny the motion sickness altogether, and it's probably also different as to the type of motions and tendencies towards reacting as well. It pretty much means that there may be no 1 solution for everyone and possibly that the solution is unique to each person.

TwoHedWlf
Expert Trustee
I think simple acclimation is going to be a major component of the "solution" to VR sickness.  There's probably only so many tricks and tweaks you can do to avoid it, then hopefully once you've done that people can play in long enough sessions that they can enjoy it before they need a break.

Anonymous
Not applicable
I think something like "Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation" will hopefully be the anwser to solving this, having it built into the HMD itself.

Samsung were experimenting with some headphones that did this: 
https://www.engadget.com/2016/03/14/samsung-entrim-4d-vr-motion-headphones/

Dreamwriter
Rising Star
Nobody real calls VR sickness "Cybersickness", just whatever crazy person edited that Wikipedia page. And it *is* motion sickness, it's exactly the same thing. It's your brain reacting to your body experiencing different motions from what it is seeing.