Job Simulator: The Pong of VR

Job Simulator was the first VR game that I was excited to play.

It was the first time I saw a game where I could move around in space and manipulate the world around me with digital hands.

With a traditional video game, you press a button to perform an action.

The only thing you can control the movement of is the camera and the perspective of your character.

But in Job Simulator, I was able to step into the game and play around in a fictional world.

One step closer to the Holodeck.

Recently, I wanted to play Job Simulator again after seeing a breakdown of another room-scale game called The Eye of the Temple which is a game where you must navigate moving platforms and solve puzzles in a nod to Indiana Jones.

(Room-scale means a VR experience that uses the space around you to set up a virtual environment where you can walk around and pick up objects in a natural way.)

Job Simulator is the game that I use to introduce people to virtual reality.

Job Simulator in a Nutshell

It is a virtual reality game that was released in 2016 where you play as a visitor to a Job Museum run by floating robots that have no idea how humans really lived.

The different roles you can play are an office worker, a gourmet chef, an auto mechanic, and a convenience store cashier.

The game loop is you are inside your workspace and have to complete tasks and fulfill orders for an endless parade of wacky robot characters playing as humans.

My favorite aspect of the game is the worldbuilding.

The game takes place in a world where humans are long gone and robots have taken over.

This could have been a dark commentary on our present world, but instead, the creators decided to make the world colorful and goofy.

The gameplay devolves into the absurd especially when you aren’t punished by the game for finishing your tasks in funny ways.

For example, you can make a sandwich with an apple, a wedge of cheese, and an uncooked chicken leg.

The customers accept whatever you give them because the joke of the entire game is that humans are forgotten and most of what we did never mattered.

A fun world with a dark theme.

I always recommend this game to people unfamiliar with virtual reality because it is forgiving, doesn’t require any fast motion, it’s fun and shows off what virtual reality is good at.

Immersion and presence.

You feel like you’re experiencing a different world which I think is the principal goal of a virtual reality experience.

It’s goofy and absurd, but that’s the intent.

What can we learn from this?

We can learn a lot about XR design with Job Simulator.

The things that work really well are the room designs. You never need to walk more than a step or two to get to where you want and grab an object.

This deals with the safety issue for people that are new to virtual reality. The game never presents you with a situation where you have to jump or move quickly which reduces the risk of hitting a wall or your TV.

XR design, and virtual reality specifically, need to keep the safety issue in mind at all times because you have blinded your user in order for them to use your app or play your game.

The art style adds so much to the world as well. It’s bright and colorful which makes you want to look around the cartoon world you’ve found yourself in.

It rewards the player for exploration.

An example is a funny motivational poster on the office wall that you’d never see if you didn’t look around the room.

This is where XR shines.

The spatial nature of extended reality gives a lot of opportunities to create an environment where not every player will see 100% of the content which makes them want to replay the game.

The dawn of VR gaming

One of the big reasons that Job Simulator was so successful was that it was great streaming content.

Many famous gaming streamers made video content for Job Simulator which not only helped to educate people on the game itself but increased interest in virtual reality gaming in general.

I titled this the Pong of VR because this game helped to foster a community around this new medium much the same way that Pong and other original video games helped to build the culture of arcades.

Kids and young adults would go to an arcade with a few bucks and be able to play Pong, pinball, and other arcade games while sharing a pizza.

The neighborhood arcade has sadly fallen away, but it has been replaced by online communities through streaming and multiplayer games.

I think Job Simulator is a classic and will be remembered as one of the first games to make virtual reality popular among a mainstream audience.

One more thing

If you enjoyed this newsletter please share it with any of your friends that might be interested in XR apps and the people who make them.

Please reply to this email with a suggestion about another XR app you’d like me to talk about.

Thank you for your time and have a good day!

Until next time,

Sean