I mentioned this in a different VR thread, but attempts at fully-immersive gaming have been done many times before, and their fate is always reduced to the importance level of a carnival sideshow. It's neat as far as demonstrations go, but to use on a regular basis? Forget it.

The only PTSD will be from their lives having gone nowhere because they wasted it all away in VR. And even that I have my doubts it will be good enough to warrant concern for. Most likely it'll be a fad like 3D films, which are common, but not the first choice for many. Mind you, this is not the first time the VR fad kicked in and became the "bastion of all gaming furthermore" (I saw a lot of this in the early 90's). Gaming will go on as-is.

Getting PTSD from a video game is as likely as getting a whiplash after crashing in a racing simulator.
Somewhere along the way your brain should be aware that what you doing is not real, unless you have some sort of psychological disorder. So no, I don't think the average adult brain will have problems separating reality from video games.

However, kids appear to be highly oversensitive to video games even without VR, so selling VR sets to kids is probably a bad idea. For one thing the brain is not fully developed until you are at least 25, which supports this argument.

As already pointed out, VR has most of its value in applications outside of the world of gaming, for example it might be very useful in physiotherapy for kids and adults alike. It can also be very useful in education and in professional work, from architecture and medicine to astronomy and archaeology.

I think video gaming is just a small and limiting part of VR's potential.

Edit:

As far as video games go VR will be focused on first-person games; mainly FPS, horror, Minecraft and simulators.
In other words it mainly affects a few gaming genres and franchises.

So we will still have our strategy games, third-person games, rpgs, platformers, sports games and so on.

And even with VR developers can't afford to make VR-only games, they still need to offer regular gaming options if they want to reach decent sales figures. Most gamers cannot afford a VR set, let alone be willing to buy one.

PTSD from BDSM VR Porn? That would be a bummer.

What about German scheisseporn?
VR POV?

The agendas and money behind VR certainly does. Computing has always had ties with the military industrial complex, but it was a meandering and nebulous one considering the huge applications and sectors that computing can affect. VR on the other hand is almost totally straight from DARPA labs. War lobbyists and defense contractors are all over it. They've been using VR and human/cybernetic components in the Warfighter program for years... all largely funded by US, the tax payers.

So VR games, VR porn, whatever. I see why people would look forward to it, but for me the real deep concern is the step AFTER VR, which will be full on human/computer cybernetic interfacing. We're about 10-15 years out from humans and computers melding together. The consequences, dangers, and ethical dilemmas of that reality will be huge, yet will probably be ignored due to the sheer amount of money and power behind its implementation. Plus it will be staggered in deliberate stages, so that the punch is telegraphed and most people won't recognize the changes from point A to be point B.

I agree on the amount of crap that will be into VR, once it settles for good (if it ever does).
Totally forgot about porn et al ;P

not me. as long as i have the option not to use VR stuff. i think i'll be ok watching people getting weirder by the decade.

Ok, once again.....................what was this thread about?

*puts off VR headset*

This is exactly what happened in the early to mid 90's. Descent and Descent 2 (et al) offered support for VR headsets available at the time (both of which cost north of $200 and had spotty game support). Both companies (names I'd have to go look up) went OOB due to most consumers' unwillingness to shell out the cost of 4-8 brand new $50 games just to get that extra bit of immersion.

Old saying : Those that don't study history are doomed to repeat it. I see a lot of this lately.

Because it can do.
Anders Behring Breivik used games are part of his training for his 2011 attack on Norway.

His claim of using them to improve his aim, is like David Beckham saying he used Sensible Soccer to become the 2 Dimensional, caricature of a human being we know.

However its more likely he used them for desensitisation, much like regular military. Mentally imposing the act of taking a human life onto the killing of a virtual target.

This is what happens with phobia treatment too. The adverse situtation is introduced in a controlled manner, repeatedly with a psychologist giving cognitive therapy.

Years of playing TombRaider hasn't helped with my Acrophobia (fear of heights)

4Chan's /r9k/ wants it for their waifus; if it brings them a bit of happiness in their apparently-awful lives, why not.

A lot of people don't get the hype craze for up and coming VR, nor see how it stands a chance to be any more successful now than VR has been in the past. I can only suggest that people who think this way may have simply not studied up on what the up and coming VR solutions intend to do properly now for the first time ever that no prior VR solutions ever came close to doing - which is why they all sucked ass and failed in the marketplace. When one does a lot of reading and watching videos and presentations such as John Carmack and others talking about the gory details, it becomes quite clear that the current approaches to VR underway are finally attacking the "difficult problems" that previous VR solutions just never bothered to try to resolve in the past.

Regardless of all of that though, there is one single solitary indisputable reason that the next-gen VR headsets will be a massive success in the marketplace with multiple underscores, surrounded by asterisks and followed by several exclamation points. It all comes down to one single word in fact...

Porn.

Extreme detailed high resolution 3D virtual porn. End of story pretty much right there. The hardware practically can sell itself by the millions just on the theoretical premise of that really. :) In fact I'd go as far to say that whether anyone is personally a fan of porn at all or not, we can all thank the porn industry for virtually guaranteeing that the next-gen VR headsets are not only going to be a massive success in the market, but because of that the hardware will commoditize easily and the price of the hardware will likely stay low.

This generation of VR is not going to end up relegated to niche geek markets, and wont end up being thrown in the basement closet on top of that old Mattel Powerglove. :) In fact... if Mattel plays their cards right they could even bring back a new generation of Powerglove to capitalize on this, although the new glove would serve an entirely different purpose now. hehehe

The difference is that implementing VR is cheaper than ever and will continue to get even cheaper. It takes just a little bit of sense to include VR support in a game not even specifically designed for it, this gives the current VR generation a huge advantage over the previous ones: there are already tons of games with VR support out there before the hardware has even hit the store shelves, many PC gamers already own games with VR support without actually having based their purchases on this aspect. This will boost sales numbers of the hardware and in turn mean that developing games specifically for VR is more feasible due to many consumers already owning the necessary hardware. At least on PC there's not even a real need for killer apps this time.

Of course a big "VR crash" can still happen, it's absolutely imaginable that sales will be disappointing and not worth the manufacturing costs, but as it stands VR has better starting conditions than even motion controls on X360 and PS3 had, even though those followed a concept already proven to work by Nintendo. VR can fail spectacularly on consoles, though, being closed platforms and all. Especially Sony will have it rough with its own PlayStation VR. They would be wise to make PS VR officially support PC and, if possible, make it compatible with games designed for Oculus although I doubt that's gonna be easy, if possible at all.

Note that personally I'm extremely sceptical of the long-time appeal of VR. Putting on a VR headset is inconvenient and limiting the awareness of one's real surroundings makes most people highly uncomfortable. At this point I think that VR will have a glorious launch and become a niche thing quite soon. The question is whether VR can survive as a niche thing.