I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.

It started on the Holodeck. A room where you can be anywhere and anyone. As a kid watching Star Trek, that was cooler to me than The Enterprise.

I loved watching Captain Picard and company take a break from the alien of the week to explore the Old West, a Sherlock Homes mystery, or an imperfect future.

Fantasy and science fiction stories have always fascinated me. So, the idea of being able to step into those stories and live another life, in another world, never left my mind.

Also an avid gamer since the original Game Boy, I dreamed of one day seeing a real-life Holodeck.

An attempt was made

I saw it in Toys’R’Us at a mall near where I grew up. That store and even that mall are now long gone, but I still remember the first time I saw a Virtual Boy. 

For those of you who don’t know, this was a failed console made by Nintendo that was basically a 32-bit LED screen with horse blinders tacked on.

It was underwhelming, to say the least. It was too expensive, but mostly it was just a terrible experience. Comfort is critical when it comes to playing a game.

Disappointed, I left the Virtual Boy sitting on that shelf. Soon to be discarded just like the mall where I saw it. But, I never forgot the Holodeck.

Down the rabbit hole

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you how many times I saw The Matrix in the theater. All I do remember was that it was another virtual world. And I loved it. This version was an illusion made to trick humans, but it was another virtual world.

The Matrix was presented as negative. In my mind, I imagined being able to live endless lives without the constraints of space and time while my body was stored in a safe place.

This was also the era of the Playstation 2, one of the best video game consoles ever made because so many studios and developers release interesting and fun games for it. Technology was progressing, but we are still lightyears away from the Holodeck.

Besides, you needed a giant aux cable shoved into the base of your skull to enter the Matrix, so not the user experience I’m looking for. A virtual world should be frictionless.

Almost there…

Even though I was no longer a kid, seeing the Kinect advertised, I let myself feel hope that this was a step in the right direction. A camera that would let you interact with a virtual world.

The thought of being greeted by characters in a video game or simply moving without the barrier of the controller was exciting. I still remember speaking with a friend of mine about its possibilities.

Once again, I was disappointed. But, I started to notice a bigger issue.

Frames. Books, film, television, and video games.

All mass media is frames.

Windows into another world. I want a door to walk through.

This idea became more concrete at this point. I still want a Holodeck, but more realistically, I want a new medium for communication, entertainment, and education. A medium without frames.

The Dawn of VR

The first time I tried on an Oculus Rift was at a demonstration booth at a nearby Best Buy. A guy was there to guide me through the process. I moved around a 3D object. I want to say it was a tree.

Then I took the headset off. I walked around the rest of the day with my mind still thinking about moving around in a virtual space. It felt like this time was different. Stepping into one of my favorite story worlds seemed possible.

However, the cost of a new gaming PC, the space to use it, and the technical ability to make anything worthwhile were all things I lacked. It wasn’t my moment yet, but I knew technology was progressing.

I kept my eye on this fledgling industry and waited for my moment to start.

Gotta catch’em all

As I said, I played the Game Boy as a kid, so like many of my peers, I was addicted to Pokemon Red/Blue. Running home from school to ignore my homework to walk around that world capturing all those pocket monsters.

Those were the last Pokemon games I played. Many years later when the AR game Pokemon Go was released, I had to try it out. Being able to look through my phone and see Pokemon all around the real world was fun.

This was my first experience with augmented reality, but I saw the potential for the technology right away. Children these days are glued to screens of all kinds, so it would make sense to create educational experiences using AR and mobile.

VR and AR were now on my radar. And I kept watching this industry take form.

It happened in a Korean VR cafe

I spent three years of my life in Korea. Some of the happiest years of my life.

While I was there, I kept exploring VR and AR projects from afar. During that time, I even tried to learn Unity. The first of many attempts.

I still didn’t have the space to set up room VR, but Korea had me covered. Many cafes and arcades had opened with rooms set up for you to use VR for an hour at a time. I was able to explore the limited number of games available at the time.

It was Valve’s The Lab that showed me how far this medium had come since my first demo at Best Buy. I spent most of that first hour playing Longbow, a castle defense game where you shoot arrows by moving your arms.

This was it. The controller had moved aside and I was able to be in a world defending my castle from tiny stick-figure enemies. Drawing my bow and shooting arrows until my arm became sore.

After the success of HTC Vive, the Rift, and Pokemon Go, it seemed like XR was here to stay. But, I still didn’t have a headset of my own to try out this technology at my own pace.

A headset all my own

I remember the morning that Quest 2 headset was released. I was still in Korea at the time, and my friend from the States messaged me that he was going to buy the new stand-alone VR headset.

I ordered it before I had my first cup of coffee. Finally, years after the resource-heavy Rift had been released, now I was able to get my own headset. Counting down the days and weeks, it was all I could talk about.

When it finally arrived, I bought Beat Saber, Job Simulator, and Elven Assassin. After my teaching job, I would come home and explore virtual reality games until the battery died on my headset.

That same Quest 2 headset has traveled with me across three continents. My app library has expanded considerably. Now, after using VR and AR for so long, I finally feel ready to enter into the XR industry as a writer and content creator.

Closing thoughts

You can read about the history of the XR industry on the internet. They’ll give you dates along with significant milestones like the Sword of Damocles and the flight simulator Super Cockpit, but this is my lived history of the XR industry.

This is why I created The XR Letter.

I’m not a programmer or engineer. My skill is storytelling. I want to learn all I can about the industry that I have watched grow from a distance. Never participating, only longing for the shared vision of this technology.

Today, we are still decades away from anything that could be called a Holodeck. If it’s possible at all. But, we are seeing the birth of a medium that will change how humans interact with each other.

If you know anyone that would be interested in learning more about this industry, then please share this free newsletter with them. And if you’d like to contact me with ideas for future topics, then you can DM me on Twitter.

Thank you for your time!

Until next time,

Sean