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[DunDunDunpachi]

Ali Wong: VR Is Like Weed, Give It a Try

The comedian talks about her experience voicing a character in an interactive VR narrative.

variety.com

Ali Wong may be best known for her standup comedy, and for starring in Netflix’s romcom hit “Always Be My Maybe.” Earlier this year, the comedian participated in a different kind of project: Baobab Studio’s interactive virtual reality (VR) movie “Bonfire,” in which Wong voices the robot sidekick of a stranded intergalactic explorer.​

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To commemorate the release of “Bonfire” for Sony’s PlayStation VR headset, Wong recently told Variety about her work on the project, and her thoughts about VR in general.​

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Wong admitted that she didn’t have a whole lot of experience with VR before teaming up with Baobab Studios. “I’ve seen a lot of the publicity surrounding VR over the years and think it’s an exciting new medium, though my exposure was minimal,” Wong confessed. “ My husband is a gamer, so I’ve tried VR out with him, but that’s all I had going into ‘Bonfire.’”​

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Asked what she thinks about VR after working on “Bonfire,” Wong responded: “Give VR a try. It’s like Marijuana. It’s the future!”​

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I can't speak for the comparison to weed, but VR is definitely an experience you need to try yourself before forming an opinion.

 

[GymWolf]

She is right, people who hate vr never tried good vr most of the time.

Trying 20 min with a used device (maybe sweaty from previous try) in some stores IS NOT TRYING VR PROPERLY.

Still not as good as weed

 

[Thaedolus]

Had some friends over last night and played around on the Index. Played some Tetris Effect, Beat Saber, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Super Hot VR, Gorn...one couple has a Quest already after trying it at our house, the other couple ordered one before they left. Once you give it a try on some good games it's pretty amazing.

 

[kraspkibble]

i just got a Rift S this week. it's not perfect but it's so much fun. i haven't been this excited playing games for years. i hope it becomes more popular. it definitely needs a lot of maturing in terms of both hardware/software.

i don't blame people if they don't want to drop the money on it right now. it is definitely aimed at enthusiasts. i think if VR is to be successful it needs to happen on consoles and prices need to come down a lot. hopefully PS5 has a lot of VR support next gen. the only VR headset for consoles is the PSVR and i think you can use a Rift with the Xbox.

as for PCs well it's a different story. people are dropping much more money so a headset isn't that crazy. i mean, i paid £750 for my GPU. £500 for my CPU. £300 for my RAM. £380 for an SSD. £300 for a motherboard. so paying £350 for a headset is nothing to me. when people are spending hundreds on parts it's not too hard to justify the price of a headset. that said, the Index is really expensive at just over £900 but then...if people are dropping £1,000-1,500 on an RTX 2080 Ti then i'm sure paying £900 for a headset is justified and affordable to them.

 

[ZeroGravity]

It's the future, but by the time the technology gets to the sci-fi level that I want it to be at, I'll be dead.

 

[Stuart360]

She's wong.

 

[Terce]

She's a pretty funny comedian, very man-like in her crude humor but not embarrassing like Schumer. Still not into VR as the cost to have a good experience is too much for me but props to her for taking a stance.

 

[off duty ninja]

She's wong.

If she's Wong, I don't want to be white!

VR is just like weed except one of them makes me sick sometimes. Thankfully smoking weed helps with nausea too.

 

[Vawn]

It is hard to get VR into people's hands to really appreciate it. And the crapoy VR like mobile phones or worse, Labo, makes people think they know what VR is when they really have no idea.

 

[lukilladog]

It´s more like masochism.

 

[Grinchy]

The two things sure do go together well also.

Have you ever tried VR....on weeeeeed?

 

[Romulus]

It has a future alongside regular gaming. Definitely the best way to game.

 

[JimboJones]

It's one of those things that having a rich friend is good for, get to experience it the one or two times a year without having buy and set up and put away the shit.

 

[Nymphae]

I remember when comedians tried to sell me jokes, not consoomer products.

I know I can trust her take here because it's not like she's earning off of VR in any way.

 

[GymWolf]

edit lol i'm an idiot

 

[Romulus]

It's one of those things that having a rich friend is good for, get to experience it the one or two times a year without having buy and set up and put away the shit.

Lmao rich.

Setup is super easy. Not much longer than dealing with the charging a regular audio headset, plugging it in.

 

[Grinchy]

It's one of those things that having a rich friend is good for, get to experience it the one or two times a year without having buy and set up and put away the shit.

Yeah, that's probably true of VR as well.

 

[Spukc]

 

[EverydayBeast]

I'm willing to give her a pass on the comparison both have big dollars coming to them and are just starting out on big stage.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

And people say female comedians aren't funny.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

She's wong.

She is Wong for comparing to Bong?

Is that a VR Ding Dong for Wong?

 

[ZywyPL]

You usually get marijuana for free to try it. First two or three tries to be exact. Give me free VR with 2-3 titles and I will gladly "give it a try".

 

[Thaedolus]

It's one of those things that having a rich friend is good for, get to experience it the one or two times a year without having buy and set up and put away the shit.

My setup routine: pick up HMD and controllers, start gaming.

Takedown: put down HMD, plug controllers in

Helluva process, I tell ya

 

[magnumpy]

marijuana is an evil gateway drug

 

[Fbh]

I imagine less people would some weed if getting into it required a $1000+ PC with a $500 headset

 

[CyberPanda]

 

[Enjay]

You can tell she's never smoked before.

 

[Puskas]

My dumbass read it as Amy Wong.

 

[GermanZepp]

So anyone here smoked weed and played VR? I'm intereted in what happens. Some regular games on weed are awesome.