Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Early adopters of the Oculus Rift will be able to sync their eye holes with the virtual reality headset for the first time this week, but did you ever wonder how a small startup got to this point? Sure, there was a massively successful Kickstarter campaign and the Facebook acquisition, but how did the engineers at Oculus actually build the Rift? Peter Rubin of Wired wanted to find out, so he met with Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and found out what makes the Rift tick:
WHEN YOU SET out to create a virtual reality headset, you soon realize that the idea of form following function is bullshit. It’s a reductive canard. Yes, both of those things matter, and the Oculus Rift does need to be both beautiful and powerful, but it’s not something you hold in your hand—it’s something you put on your face. That’s a daunting prospect: Not only are you blind to the world around you, but there’s the whole I-look-nuts thing.
That’s only part of it, though; once you put it on your face, it needs to disappear. It needs to be not just comfortable but light—or at least feel light. After all, it’s less of a window than it is a wormhole; the more you remember it’s there, the less you’re able to lose yourself in everything happening inside it.
The full article is available for your perusal at Wired.
