CCP CEO: ‘The first five years of VR will be very slow, then very chaotic’

The head of EVE Online developer CCP has outlined his predictions for the slow rise of virtual reality to a mainstream medium.

Speaking to Polygon, CEO Hilmar Pétursson explained that the studio’s launch of VR dogfighting title EVE Valkyrie for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR and Gunjack for the mobile Gear VR headset marked the beginning of a ‘ten-year plan’.

This decade would be split into two distinct phases of VR acceptance, he added: chaos and ascension.

"We have taken the view that the first five years are going to be very slow and they’re going to be very chaotic, and a lot of things are going to change and a lot of things are going to fail,” Pétursson forecasted.

“But, in the second five years, then we’re going to see a rapid expansion like we’ve never seen before. But it’s going to take five years from this year to sort itself out."

Pétursson also suggested that the notion of 2016 as the ‘year of VR’ due to the launch of multiple devices was a misnomer, and advised studios to prepare for upcoming ‘madness’, rather than expecting an easy ride following the headsets’ release.

"Is there a lot of hardware?” he asked. “It’s all based on what people are expecting, and I’ve seen people are expecting a lot of hardware this year, but we never expected that.

"We had the expectation of the first five years of VR are going to be madness, and we’re going to structure ourselves to find success in that madness."