Surveying Consumer Understanding & Sentiment of VR

Abstract

Since the resurgence of consumer-grade virtual reality (VR), VR has successfully established itself on the consumer market. As with any emerging technology, differences can exist between how industry/academia view the technology and how consumers perceive it. We present results from a survey (N=210) conducted into consumer perception and attitudes towards VR. We report sentiment towards VR is positive. We show the associations linked with VR by our respondents match the defining characteristics of VR identified by experts in the literature (a fully virtual view, immersion, and head-worn technology). We identify 3 additional concepts associated with VR by our respondents: video games, futurism, and price. However, our results also show consumer expectations for VR are fixated around "VR for gaming"and suggest VR has to an extent been pigeonholed as primarily being a gaming device.