Former CTO of Oculus VR and founder of Id Software, John Carmack, expressed his opinion on VR games. He believes that AAA games are not necessary for VR, and Beat Saber is much more important than Half-Life: Alyx.
Carmack called the use of VR headsets in combination with PCs a "boutique niche." He considers standalone VR to be a real breakthrough in the industry.
"Using a PC to drive VR experiences is a boutique niche. Still valuable and definitely worth supporting as a bonus feature, but not something that was going to turn into even console level success, let alone mobile level," Carmack writes.
It is estimated that Half-Life: Alyx has sold about 3 million copies. As for Beat Saber, Meta has never published exact sales data for this game, but it is known that almost 10 million Quest users have unlocked the game's initial achievements. In addition, the game is available on PlayStation VR and Steam, where sales are accounted for separately.
"The economics of AAA development were never going to be widely brought to bear on a PC accessory. I do think there is opportunity for AAA content to profitably have “VR bonus features”, but not fully designed-for-VR projects at comparable levels of effort," Carmack explains.