Gabriel Moss gives us great insights on losing weight in VR and OC5

Today with much pleasure I interview Gabriel Moss, a great VR enthusiast. As he will explain to you, he has a lot of different roles in the VR community, mainly related to VR content writing. He writes for various magazines, like for instance VR Scout and VR Fitness Insider, while slowly growing his own platform at Gluten Free VR.

He is the journalist that interviewed me regarding Beat Reality on VR Scout, but our posts are not made as an exchange deal: we just met on Twitter and found interesting what the other person had to tell, and so we thought it could be great letting our readers know the story of the other person. I found very interesting the fact that Gabriel has lost lots of pounds thanks to VR: while enrolling in the gym wasn’t something appealing for him, VR, thanks to its ability to make him move while having fun, has helped him in staying fit. That’s amazing. Then I also discovered he has gone to OC5, so, being envious of him, I also asked him how it was going to such a cool event and what were his impressions.

Do you find these topics interesting? Well, then, keep on reading!

Hello, Gabriel! Present yourself to my readers…

I’m a tech journalist, content marketer, blogger and ghostwriter who has a deep love of immersive technology and video games! I used VR to lose over 50 pounds (23kg, AN) in the past year, and I’ve also used it to build social connections that later became real friendships at Oculus Connect 5 last month.

I know that you are a huge fan of fitness in Virtual Reality. How has this passion born? And what results has it taken to your life?

I started playing VR games like SUPERHOT and Echo Arena for exercise in October 2017, when I was going through a deep bout of depression and illness. I had a feeling my new Oculus Rift (now one year old!) would make me happier and better-functioning in general, but I had no clue that it’d completely transform my entire life and physiology to the extent it has.

Don’t you think that exercising at home in VR playing games has drawbacks like not meeting people at the gym or not having people controlling you are doing the exercises in the right way?

I’d argue that the tradeoff to not meeting people at the gym is having the ability to zoom in and out of your workout session whenever you want. Whenever I play a game — any game, be it Skyrim VR or Windlands 2 or Beat Saber — I put on a 40-pound weighted vest and get extra resistance. I never feel like anybody is judging me, and the games themselves have their own “forms” where, unlike traditional workouts, the games themselves will nudge me in the right direction. Also, online games tend to have active communities that come together outside of the game. Let me use Oculus Connect 5 as an example; the Echo Arena people were very tight with the Echo Arena people, the Onward people were very tight with the Onward people, and so forth.

What would you advise people wanting to take your same road?

VR has something for everybody, so I won’t rule anybody out as a potential headset owner. I’ve made the argument in the past that you could use VR to replace the gym membership, but nowadays I’m not too sure. There’s a real benefit to going to a gym and getting all of the weights and the social atmosphere. Besides, you’ll see VR enter the gym market shortly with Black Box VR. It’s really more about whether you want convenience or you want a gym; VR is convenient, but it’s offering something totally different than any traditional workout. While I’ve lost a lot of body fat playing, by no means do I have the toning or sheer bulk to match people who go in and heavy lift for an hour a day at a gym. It’s more like, ‘Hey, do you like video games? Great! How about video games where you become the avatar and move around in 3D to rack up a steady calorie burn?’

It relies on that trick of full immersion to work as a fitness tool. So, who would I advise take my exact same road? Somebody who needs to burn fat, who’s just not going to hit the gym on a regular basis no matter what they do. VR absolutely slays it for that person.

Your passion for VR has recently taken you to Oculus Connect 5. I’ve never been to a Connect… so let me feel the sensations of being there… how has it been?

It was actually my first convention. I always wanted to go to one, so when the invite rolled up in my inbox I knew I had to take the opportunity and go all-in. I was not disappointed.

While the convention itself was a series of rushing between very long lines and rapid-firing business cards with people in those lines, the excitement was palpable and I’d do it all over again this week if I could.

Have you tried the Quest demos? Have you enjoyed them?

I did. I tried SUPERHOT, Project Tennis Scramble, and Dead & Buried. All of which felt so smooth for me as a Rift owner.

What’s your overall impression over the Quest?

I think it’s exactly what we’ve been waiting for. At the very least, it’s what standalone VR needs to be as of Gen 1. If Oculus launches the Quest with games like Rec Room, Echo Arena, and Beat Saber, then that’ll be really fantastic for first-time VR players to get that content right off the bat. While some people complained about tracking issues and controller drift in their demos, I really didn’t notice any of that. Take SUPERHOT for instance; I was able to let myself loose and be totally visceral in a way that I normally wouldn’t on my Rift. The experience was special enough to make me really want a Quest of my own, simply for the freedom afforded to me by going cable-free.

What are the thing about OC 5 that has gone almost unnoticed and you instead think it is very important?

I think John Carmack’s talk on the second day, and his availability to developers wandering around in the crowd were both very important. He wasn’t giving the general audience anything new or ‘sexy’ so to speak, but smart developers flagged him down and absorbed as much of his knowledge as they could.

Besides that, I’d say the previews for Defector and Stormland for the Oculus Rift were fantastic. I loved watching the Onward Grand Finale, which got its own room with a dinner banquet. Oh, and Vox Machinae released on the Oculus Store! Note: It’s very, very good.

How do you think that Oculus Quest and other OC5 announcements can change fitness in virtual reality?

As I said, the Quest allowed me to get much more visceral while playing SUPERHOT. My movements were much more open, intense and natural. As if I were playing a sport, rather than navigating around a cable. I think it begs to be seen how each game developer implements the openness afforded by the Oculus Quest’s cable-free 6DOF tracking. I really want to see more arena-scale arrangements, like what they’d set up for the Dead & Buried demo.

What are your future plans?

I plan to continue building bylines and forging inroads with the rest of the VR community for the foreseeable future. My goal is, and always was, to shed light on VR’s nuances for the average person to read about and go ‘Wow! That’s really cool!’

What’s your vision for the future of VR?

In less than five years, VR headsets will be a widely accepted form of computing, like smartphones, tablets, or gaming consoles. In less than ten years, additional implements such as haptic suits, gloves, full-body tracking, eye-tracking, and omnidirectional treadmills will penetrate the VR market as need-to-have companion accessories.

How do you envision the future of fitness in VR?

Well, you sort of need to run to operate an omnidirectional treadmill, right? Exercise doesn’t come for free!

I’m half-kidding. I think more and more people will be receptive to teleporting their entire bodies into their video games, once games of a consistently higher quality make VR a must-have platform for gamers. With better haptic gear that can create resistance, athletes will be more likely to use VR to practice and play sports, and/or complete entire workout drills.

Anything else that you want to add to my readers?

Keep finding ways to add value to VR. If you’re reading this, it’s highly possible that we’ll cross paths or at least run into one another’s work. This is a really great community right now; albeit small, but it’s really us who get to form the foundations and decide where this industry goes. No matter who you are, whether you’re a developer or a person on the sidelines deciding whether to get a Samsung Gear; there’s something in VR for you right now. Let’s wrap up VR’s infant years and really make them count. Also, I always love to connect with people on Twitter (@GlutenFreeVR).

Thanks for interviewing me, Tony!

I loved this interview a lot because I could really feel Gabriel’s passion for virtual reality, since it is a technology that has completely revolutionized his life, giving him enthusiasm and a new physical shape. Every day, this technology surprises me for what it is able to do, for how it is able to make the world a better place. Personally, I still prefer going to the gym, because I can meet new people there, because there are instructors that help me in exercising better and also because after having spent a whole day in virtual reality, I just want to detach from all this virtual reality and make something real 🙂 . But I agree with Gabriel that VR can really help people in losing fat or at least starting exercising by having fun playing an awesome game like SuperHot. The hard part of exercising is starting getting the habit… and going to the gym can add too much friction to the process. Having fun at home can be a nice solution to this problem. And it’s great to know that the Quest can help in all this process!

I really thanks Gabriel Moss for this interview and I hope to meet him in person one day, maybe at some cool event like Oculus Connect 6 ;). It would be amazing!