When it was first created by Planet Poker in 1998, online poker was groundbreaking. Bringing the game from the casino and a live setting to the internet was a truly innovative achievement, allowing people who had never picked up a chip in a casino or home game the opportunity to go online and play the game of poker. Over the years since Planet Poker, however, there have been few breakthrough technological advances to online poker.
There were sites that dabbled in 3D technology (PKR Poker) or used webcams to bring a “live” element to the game (888Poker) over the years, but there hasn’t been much advancement beyond the original features that started with Planet Poker way back in the 90s. Most of the innovation was in deriving different tournament formats (turbos and rebuys) rather than making changes in the way the game was played. Now, however, there has been some thought to how to make online poker better through a feature that has been the realm of science fiction.
The website VRWorld.com has hypothesized the potential that virtual reality – the engagement of the five senses through computerized means – could have regarding online poker. The field, which has been theorized for at least the past couple of decades, has become more likely with additional research and cost reductions in creating the hardware that VR programs would be delivered. None other than Mark Zuckerberg, the brainiac behind Facebook, has seen the possibilities of virtual reality, acquiring the company Oculus VR (which is expected to unveil their first VR product in the first three months of 2016) for an unheard-of $2 billion.
“Enjoy the experience of visiting a ‘brick and mortar’ poker room but can’t be bothered to leave the bedroom,” the folks at VRWorld.com ask. “With virtual reality, it could all be possible.”
One of the devices from Oculus, the Oculus Rift DK2, provides a “3D experience where players fit on visor and head strap connected to the console (such as an Xbox or PS4) or computer,” they write. “Sensors (built into the visor and head strap) allow the user to move around and interact with their virtual environment. Soon, poker player could be swinging around to check the tournament leaderboard, size up an opponent’s face to spot a bluff or riffle poker chips.”
It isn’t difficult to see how this change in online poker could be beneficial to sites, players and the game overall. Online poker sites could market equipment to get players to use while on their site and get a little of the revenue from those sales. Players could get the VR feel of being in a live poker game (it isn’t known yet if that will include the factor of hygiene, but the five parts of VR are all the human senses, including smell) and online poker would be pushed forward into a new arena of play through the innovation.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that this will be a reality come next year. “A fully functioning online VR poker room could be years away in any case,” the writers at VRWorld conclude. “The Oculus Rift is only available to developers at the moment and no one is saying when the headset will be available to customers.” VRWorld also pointed out how the “old guard” – in this case, the multi-table grinders who are attempting to grind out a winning profit – would not take to the new technology because their decisions are ABC poker based (in most cases) and they would not have time to employ the VR technology to play their hands.
The conclusion of the VRWorld.com writers is that we won’t be able to stare at each other over virtual reality anytime soon. “If VR were to succeed in poker, a tie-up with existing motion-sensor hardware like the Xbox Kinect or Sony Play is a sensible move,” they say. “That way, cards could virtually be ‘peeked at’, chips ruffled and tossed in, and cards mucked after a bad hand.”
“We could certainly see fun poker games emerge first if the video game manufacturers are keen,” VRWorld.com finishes. “For now, though, it’s back to the online grind and a 2D avatar for the millions of poker players stuck in front of their laptop screens the world over.”
