The modern era of virtual reality as we know it started around June of 2012, when John Carmack brought the Oculus Rift to the Electronic Entertainment Expo and showed it off to attendees with Doom 3 BFG Edition.
It ramped up quickly that August with the launch of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter campaign, which featured testimonials from industry legends like Carmack, Valve’s Gabe Newell and Michael Abrash, Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski, Unity’s David Helgason, and David Helgason’s popped collar. That campaign started with a $250,000 goal, and ended its run with more than $2.4 million from backers.
VR continued to build hype in the intervening years, but mostly in the background. There was still no commercial product on shelves by March of 2014, and between the exploding (in a good way) mobile market, the exploding (in a bad way) dedicated handheld and Facebook social gaming markets, and the longest-awaited new generation of consoles commanding many of the headlines, there were plenty of other happenings in the market that seemed to take precedence.
