Ars Technica: Google's last surviving VR product is dead. Today the company stopped selling the Google Cardboard VR viewer on the Google Store, the last move in a long wind-down of Google's once-ambitious VR efforts. The message on the Google Store, which was first spotted by Android Police, reads, "We are no longer selling Google Cardboard on the Google Store."
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I am really interested in the fact that this was the last VR product that Google still had for sale and it is now no longer for sale. I think VR really became a big thing within the past few years and it sort of seemed like it would be the next big thing in technology. There was a lot of conversation about all the potential of VR, and how it could potentially become integrated into our everyday lives. I think however there has been somewhat of a plateau within the VR technology and I am curious if the research into this type of technology will pick up again. When I first started to hear about VR I found myself asking “What’s the point?” I do not think that question was ever really addressed and that might be a big reason that VR has not taken off in the way that many people thought it might.
I think it's really surprising that this is Google's last ditch attempt at VR going out the window. Given the potential of the VR industry, it's hard for me to believe a giant and notorious industry hopper, to put it nicely, is giving up. In recent years it's started to look like Google has its foot in every door imaginable, in terms of tech. I've never personally used a Google Cardboard but I have friends that have and surprisingly they had good things to say about it. I assumed incorrectly that something as flimsy as cardboard couldn't possibly deliver a good VR experience but I guess that was me speaking from a place of lack of information. I have tried a Samsung VR set that came free with a phone I bought a few years ago and while the gaming experience was alright for the most part I really enjoyed using it for Netflix. VR is something I've wanted to get into for awhile now but it's just such an expensive hobby to get into. I'm sad to see that Google's efforts to make VR more accessible to the average buyer are ending so soon.
Although the Google Cardboard itself is not on sale anymore, I think it has done its job as, it is also written at the beginning and towards the end of the article, it contributed to altering the public perception towards the VR products by lowering the entry point to the world of Virtual Reality. I was actually very surprised to see how many products that they worked on, because even though I have many Android fans around myself, I had never heard of anything about this kind of VR projects before I read this article. I totally understand how they were disappointed by the absence of immediate success because I do not think that it advertised widely enough. Also with addition to the products compatible with Nintendo Switch, I did not know such thing existed even though I am the user of Nintendo Switch and visit the E-shop quite frequently.
I do not think I know a single person that actually enjoyed using the Google Cardboard. Back when it came out in 2015, it was an easy way to introduce smaller phone developers to the world of VR. It was also an attempt to boost public awareness of the VR scene. I, personally, had one back in 2016 as it was gifted to me by my mom. It was easy to set up but the actual “gameplay” - if you could even call it that - was such an eyesore. The strain, in addition to the little amount of actual things to do, proved that even the $20 “console” was not worth the money. My friend Preston also got gifted one, his was even free, and he said that he respects the Google Cardboard. Albeit he did not use it all that often, he and I admire how they impacted the gaming world in their introduction of VR to the everyday person. They would have profited if they eventually released a bigger and more electronic version a few years later.
I understand why Google has stopped production of the Google cardboard, but it is still sad to see it go. I have a great memory with the google cardboard when my grandpa was excitedly showing all the grandkids how it worked, and how amazing the VR was to him. Despite this good memory, I acknowledge that the product is little more than a gimmick, and probably not worth the 20$ to most people. I agree that efforts of creating VR with a phone should be canned in favor of exploring AR technologies, as VR with a real headset is so much more impressive, and having companies that only concentrate in the development of VR is likely much more productive than adding a VR functionality onto a smartphone with so many other purposes. I am truly excited to see what Google can develop with this redirection of their energy toward AR.
I think Google has the completely wrong business model when it comes to their various branches of technological development, including their VR endeavors. They seem to think that if they don't immediately see millions and millions of dollars of profit that their product must have been a failure, and pretty soon after the move to entirely shut down those teams and halt all development. VR had tremendous potential, and the continued success of headsets under the Oculus and HTC Vive banners proves that. Unfortunately, these companies also make rather high-end headsets, which leave their price points well above that of the average consumer. Google, with its much cheaper and more user-friendly option, allowed interest and accessibility for VR to expand well beyond what it could have achieved otherwise. Sure, at the end of the day Google is a company, and they need to make money off of their projects in order to justify spending money for labor and development. However, I do think the broader implications of their place and role in a particular industry should factor into their decisions, and their actions in areas like VR and video game development prove that they don't think like that at all.
This is an interesting secondary to the story of google glass which also just sort of disappeared. It’s not that surprising that some of google’s ideas don’t work because they just have so many of them. VR is an interesting one because the use is so niche and much like google glass, it’s cool, but not practical. VR seems to be used by museums/entertainment centers and with video games which require more fancy mounted headsets. As cheap as the google cardboard was, it had no practical use because it required having both hands on the device and at the point it was difficult to interact with. They definitely pushed the envelope, but it was to the point that it didn’t matter anymore because it wasn’t worth anything. It is also interesting that when products are discontinued, it sort of just silently goes out of favor and there are no announcements made unless someone just happens to notice.
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