I had a chance to catch up with Reverend Kyle of the Rev VR podcast at the end of day one of SVVRCon, which is right before the Ubercast and his interview with Palmer Luckey.
We talk about everything from being a VR personality, his favorite VR experiences, Social VR, adding value and being topical & fostering community. He also talks about the importance of VR social experiences for coping with living in the midwest where there’s not a thriving tech scene.
More details about the discussion are below.
Reddit discussion here.
TOPICS
- 0:00 – Intro & how he got started into Virtual Reality. Got it in June. Had heard an earlier podcast, but it had stopped. Did a couple and got a good response. Eventually joined the Road to VR team.
- 1:16 – What’s your intention with the podcast? Fill in the gaps between news from the VR HMD manufacturers. Also to give developers a voice. Wants to do episode 500 eventually. There’s no formal marketing for VR, and there’s room for personalities to get involved.
- 2:55 – Most compelling VR experience? Played Time Rifters for 2.5 hours. Riftmax Theater and VR Chat. Karaoke night.
- 4:00 – Social aspects of VR chat and body language. Not meant to replace face-to-face, but there’s enough body language to feel presence with other people.
- 5:13 – Being located in Cincinnati, OH. Struggle with the lack of tech scene there. Virtual meet-ups provide opportunities to connect with other VR geeks.
- 6:34 – Impressions of the SVVRCon exhibit floor – DK2. Sony Morpheus. InfinAdeck. In VR Overload.
- 7:34 – Working with the Hydra. Looking for next level of VR input controller with the STEM.
- 8:17 – Rev VR podcast guests that stuck out? Taylor Roach and Karaoke host who is 17 years old. Cast AR. Tactical Haptics. Post-Facebook acquisition discussion.
- 10:04 – Participating in the Oculus subreddit and adding value to the VR community, and working together as a community to help make VR happen. Be active and topical.
- 11:47 – SVVRCon and the future of VR. About networking and meeting for face-to-face for the first time. Lots of community feelings. A giant VR love-in.
Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.
[00:00:11.961] Reverend Kyle: So I'm Reverend Kyle, host of the RevVR podcast and part of the Road to VR team as of a couple months now. How did I get started? A buddy of mine sent me an email and said, hey, you're into tech geek stuff. Have you seen this before? And I looked and I was like, it's the future. And so I had to jump on it. I had to do it. I ordered my Rift, got it in June, maybe a little bit before that. The desire to do the podcast came actually from a podcast that a few people had done back in like April of that year. And I heard it and I said, oh, is there room for a podcast? Would somebody want to actually hear this, listen to this? And so I did a couple and got a positive response, threw it up on my website. A couple months later, Ben Lang from Road to VR, he calls me up, he's like, hey, you should be part of our team, you know, and then like, at the same time he was talking to Cymatic Bruce and getting the dream team, the VR dream team together. And yeah, so that's kind of how I got started with it.
[00:01:16.707] Kent Bye: And so what is your intention in terms of your podcast? What are you trying to do in terms of contributions back to the community?
[00:01:23.952] Reverend Kyle: One of the reasons I do the podcast is to fill in the gaps. You know, there's always that post on Reddit where somebody says, oh, we haven't heard from Oculus in a while. We haven't had any good news in a while. And so my podcast is there to fill the void. And so I can't expect Oculus or Sony or any of these groups to constantly put new information out like we're still working on it or we're still doing it. So the developers have a need for a voice and what better way to fill that void than letting the developers talk and so developers contact me or extreme enthusiasts also contact me and they say, hey, I want to tell the world, the VR community about what I'm working on. Here it is. And so I give them an hour to have a great conversation, to geek out with me and to pitch their wares. It's very fulfilling for me. It's a big passion. Where do I see it going? I want to hit episode 500 someday. That's it. That's my only thing. There's no formal marketing yet for VR. And so I feel like there's room for personalities to be involved in that in some capacity. A spokesperson, mascot even, however you want to look at it. There's room for marketing and media and personalities like me or you or, you know, anybody. Cymatic Bruce is definitely a big one. Represent a company. Be a voice or a face of VR.
[00:02:54.650] Kent Bye: And so what have been some of the most compelling VR experiences that you've had since you've gotten your Rift?
[00:03:01.434] Reverend Kyle: You know, that's always the question and it is like, what games do you like? What do you find the most compelling? One of my favorite stories to tell is Prior to me really expanding into like RiftMax and VRChat and things like that, you had done a 10, 15, 20 minute VR experience. TimeRifters came out and I played TimeRifters to a point where all of a sudden I had taken the Rift off and I went, Wow, I've been playing this for two and a half hours. And it was the first long-term VR experience that I had ever had. But at this point, I'm so used to it, you know, doing the Riftmax stuff. I'm a huge fan of that. I always joke that I'm actually living in the back of the Riftmax theater. And I really do mean it. I spend more time in that in VR than I do anything else. So, you know, all of the things we've done, the shows, the karaoke night, those things are what I find compelling right now.
[00:03:59.562] Kent Bye: And so yeah, maybe talk a bit more about that social aspect of VR and what your experience is when you're in this virtualized environment where you can't necessarily see the exact facial expressions and, you know, what's your visual experience of that?
[00:04:14.105] Reverend Kyle: It's really important to remember that, you know, things like VRChat, RiftMax, they're not meant to replace MeetSpace meetings like this. So what they're there for is to accommodate better than just text chatting back and forth or even just talking. There's something special about taking my Hydra and I walk in a room and somebody looks over at me and you see their eyes look over at you and then they give you the wave and you're just naturally compelled to just put your hand up and wave back at them. You know, it's so small, but it's so big at the same time. That little subtle movement, that smile, that head nod, that gesture, it really adds to any, I mean, you could be on a phone call and not know that somebody's, well, I guess you could do it in VR too, be sitting in their underwear on their front porch, you know, with a tub of ice cream, you wouldn't know that. But when you see them look and they wave, and I see so many people coming together and having such a big experience with that, it's mind-blowing sometimes.
[00:05:12.911] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I guess another component there is that you're located in the Midwest, not necessarily in the urban center of all of the VR craziness, and so I would imagine that people like you and other people that may not be in the middle of the tech scene are able to stay connected in that way.
[00:05:30.301] Reverend Kyle: I constantly struggle with being in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is the heart of nothing. And I love this city to death. I'm born and raised there. But there's nothing going on there. There's no boom. There's no excitement. There's no tech world. There's no industry. It's not dying, but it's definitely not growing. And so I come out here to this basically tech mecca. You know, here I am at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley in, you know, yeah, this is definitely where everybody is and where everything needs to be. The virtual meetups give me an opportunity to interact with people all across the planet. And the VR community is very global. And when you're all sitting in a very intimate little theater, or a chat room, or a coffee shop, or whatever it is we decide to use that day, It doesn't matter where we are physically because we're all in there having that conversation and then you disconnect and it's like thousands of miles have just suddenly been created in between you. It's kind of surreal actually.
[00:06:34.896] Kent Bye: And so you've had a chance to try out a number of things that are here. What are some of your impressions of what you've seen so far?
[00:06:41.258] Reverend Kyle: Well, yeah, so my first time with DK2, my first time with Sony Project Morpheus, first time with Tactical Haptics Reactive Grip Controller, First time trying InfiniDeck. That thing just blew my mind. It's a 360 degree treadmill better than I've ever seen before. All of them are great. All of them are amazing. I don't have anything negative to say about them on record. But I'm in VR overload right now. Like, for those of you listening, it's the end of day one or it's getting close to the end of day one. I'm already completely saturated. I don't know if I could take any more VR just because of how amazing it's been.
[00:07:25.037] Kent Bye: And so, yeah, maybe talk a bit about the Hydra controllers and the STEM, what you're kind of looking for in terms of, you know, what you've been able to do with those so far.
[00:07:32.860] Reverend Kyle: I am constantly using my Hydras for, you know, whatever games there are. The Riftmax Theater, obviously, is a big one. I've tried some little-known demos, things that people don't know about quite yet that use the Hydra. You know, I'm really looking forward to that next level. STEM, Pre-OVR, there needs to be that evolution. The Hydra is last year's technology, we need this year's technology. And it's going to be still a couple months, but we'll get there. And when we do, all of the developers need to start dumping that into their games, that way we can use it. It's going to be pretty trippy, actually, to be able to physically move around and then see yourself moving more than just, oh, OK, I'm holding a stick that just happens to move my hand.
[00:08:18.008] Kent Bye: And so you've been doing the Rev-V podcast for well over 60 episodes now. I'm just curious about some of the guests that you've had on that you felt like you got a real big insight from.
[00:08:27.932] Reverend Kyle: Wow, yeah. We just recorded episode 64, was Tyler Roach, who does the, he's the actual, the karaoke host, karaoke night host in the Rhythm Hacks Theater. He's 17, and he represents that far left in terms of age, Well, you know, I mean, the kids are there and then there's the old men as well. That was a pretty profound episode for me. When I did the CastAR folks, when I had Jerry and Rick on, I actually backed their Kickstarter while I was talking to them on my podcast. You know, I can't wait to see who I'm going to get next. I know you got your interview with Palmer. He'll be my white whale, I guess. I'll get him one of these days. And I understand. There has to be something to talk about. A lot of interviews end up with, well, I can't talk about that. I can't talk about that. It's like, OK, unless you ask the profound questions, which I heard you did. You know, I've had Will Provencher, Tactical Haptics, I've always been a big fan of their technology. Right after the Facebook acquisition, I had two Kickstarter backers on to get their reaction. And, you know, I kind of went a little serious there for a couple episodes because of that event happening and I felt like we had to put some control. So I'm like, okay, everybody calm down, calm down. It'll be fine. You know, kind of attitude into the community and eventually settled down. But I love every episode I've done so far, except for the two that nobody will ever hear.
[00:10:04.185] Kent Bye: It sounds like you're very reactive in terms of what's happening in the community, but also very engaged in the Oculus subreddit and kind of digging into a lot of the discussions, a lot of the points and counterpoints, and really trying to really bring those up in the conversations, I guess.
[00:10:18.790] Reverend Kyle: You know, to be a personality in the industry, to be a personality in the community, to add value. That's my goal, is to add value to the community, to steer it in the right direction when things go awry. The Facebook acquisition is a perfect example. There was this huge reaction of the community and I said, okay, come on, everybody just come together, calm down. I tried to do my best to try to help dissolve that. Whether you agree with it or disagree with it, we're still a community. and we still need to work together to make this happen. When new products come in and there's that gut reaction, that knee jerk of, oh no, no, we can't have another competitor in the VR market. Yes we can, calm down, let them prove whether or not they're good or bad, then we'll see. So, you know, I try to be very active and be very topical. The last thing I want to do is do a podcast about something that happened three months ago. And that doesn't do any good to anybody. It's like, oh, we already know all that. That's old news. And I have dropped podcasts as a result of that. It's like, you know what? I was going to talk to you, but you're not relevant anymore. We'll do something. It sounds terrible. But I don't mean relevant. But it's just it's not hot topic anymore. So I try to stay on topic. And the last thing I want to do is deliver a podcast with somebody that's like, oh, are they still around? What is that? OK. I don't know. I let the community dictate who I interview. Nice.
[00:11:47.768] Kent Bye: And so to kind of wrap it up here, what do you see as the energy here and what you're hearing in terms of what the future of VR is?
[00:11:55.630] Reverend Kyle: So the big thing out of this day, SVVR has been all about networking. It has been all about people who have known each other virtually for months, almost a year now, meeting for the first time. And you feel like you've known them, like you just met them. Well, I mean, you and I, we've chatted, but we've never met each other until right now. Totally comfortable conversation, you know, it's like I'm looking at your little picture on Twitter or whatever. I'm seeing a lot of community feelings, people are hugging each other, people are patting each other on the back and shaking each other's hands and telling each other how great their stuff is and it's just a giant VR loving. And I'm so sorry for all of those who couldn't make it, that wanted to come. The videos and podcasts and all the media and the pictures, I hope it does them enough justice. I really do.
[00:12:49.398] Kent Bye: Great. Well, thank you so much. Sure. Thank you.
