My first experience of VR was when I was fifteen, on a school trip to the O2 in Greenwhich. Individiually, one by one, we were given a headset, and made to sit in a chair that could spin 360 degrees, in a small dome-like temporary structure. I watched my classmates, they seemed terrfied. They were screaming, and jumping up off the seat. I was prepared to be frughtened. My turn came, and I was not. The figures looked false and intangible to me, I would liken the experience to going to the Planeterium. I did feel a little ill from the expereince, a feeling similar to motion sickness. I decided on this day that I do not like VR.

Years later, I spoke to someone about this experience, and they too said that in their virtual reality experiences, they too felt motion sickness. I also experience nausea when playing video games, but not when watching long films. I discovered a term called “cybersickness”, which can make people ill due to causing a disruption in bodily function. When the human body is static, but the brain in percieving that it is moving, such as when using virtual reality, confusion is caused in the body, bringing on sickness (in some people).

I thought about how if this cybersickness is a sensation that commonly occurs, how is virtual reality still prevailing? There are VR experiences where the user is able to move physically with the virtual movement, or the user can choose to have a much less immersive experience in terms of the visual.

The game that my group have created is very immersive, but the player must stay in one place to play, using the controls given with the headset to navigate the virtual world. I wonder how cybersickness will affect the experience of our game.