ABSTRACT
Consumer VR has arrived to a somewhat muted reception. While the systems are available, platforms are running and content is available, there is still a scepticism about the medium. This chapter revisits the two key questions asked in the introduction—how has the emergence of a wider digital culture and economy impacted on VR as a medium? and what might VR achieve and how in terms of immersion?—in order to assess the state of consumer VR in its infancy. Consumer VR is closely wedded to digital media companies, who may see the future of the medium quite differently than the utopianism of VR in the past, and immersion design is still developing as the technology of consumer VR develops. This does not mean that some of the technological imaginaries of present-day VR—like the OASIS metaverse of Ready Player One—cannot or will not be achieved, but it does mean that not only will we have to wait for such a world, we should also ask important questions about whether such a world is desirable in any case.
