Many of us (myself included) love the immersive gaming experience that I get when using my VR headset attached to my PS4 but unfortunately, like many other users, I find that after only a short time I begin to suffer what is known as cyber-sickness.
To be honest, this sickness became so bad that I had almost decided to consign my headset to the furthest reaches of the highest shelf, and I had even heard that some people had actually sold their headsets rather than suffering the negative side-effects that virtual reality can promote.
Rather than go to such extreme action I decided to read up on cyber-sickness to see if there was anything that could be done if not to get rid of the distressing symptoms at least to alleviate them, and what I found was both informative and interesting.
The effects of cyber-sickness are a lot like motion sickness with headaches, disorientation and the feeling of nausea increasing steadily.
In order to reduce these types of symptoms considerably remember to start off with short bursts of VR usage even though the temptation is high to spend as much time as possible in the new and exciting environment.
Making sure that you are aware of the space around you before you actually put on your goggles, and try not to forget about any of those objects that might make you fall over, if you can the best thing would be to remove anything that you could knock over or bump into accidentally.
The second thing is to make sure you are only using your goggles to time those short periods and this might mean you have to set an alarm for ten minutes before you take a break. This will help with keeping a track on the time you can spend using your VR without becoming ill, and you can also keep track on just when you begin to develop those nasty symptoms.
Now this can be very frustrating as I found out. Some of my own favourite games that I play are at a British online casino so, it was exciting for me to think that I could enjoy an even more immersive experience using virtual reality. I love the thrill of the whole casino vibe and couldn’t wait to get into my first VR casino.
The frustration happened as there are things that need to be done before you actually start playing the games. For instance, designing my avatar as I want it takes time and effort and as I was monitoring my time spent using my headset, I never played any games for some time.
But it was worth it…. for me the taking of regular breaks and monitoring my time spent using VR really did make a difference as I found that I could spend longer periods in virtual reality as time progressed.
Knowing that your eyes are telling you that you are moving whilst your ears are telling you that you are sitting or standing still is half the battle, and knowing this prompted me to carry on with ‘experiment.’