VR surged (mainly in the form of VR cafes) in the late 90's, only to fall into obscurity, much like 3D film surged in the 50's, 80's, and 2010's before subsiding. VR now seems to be subsiding again (the number of new VR titles released on Steam has declined year-over-year for several years now). When will it return, and for how long?

3D film offers an added level of immersion, but the technology has had peaks of popularity interspersed with longer periods where it was very niche. Anaglyph 3D boomed in the 50's, but couldn't handle colour. Polarized 3D boomed in the 80's and could handle colour, but often at the expense of reduced brightness and resolution as well as increased prices. IMAX 3D soldiered on, but 3D was all but absent from mainstream movies until the 2010's, when active shutter 3D become popular alongside polarized 3D. Today, only the occasional movie is offered in 3D, and that's declining. Few cinema's are investing in new hardware for 3D projection.

The pattern repeated because 3D always added drawbacks and expense. Films were either made with it in mind (e.g. By deliberately shoving things into the viewer's face) or they just let it passively enhance things. The former made films gimmicky and limited their audience. The latter left it to audiences to choose whether 3D was worth the drawbacks. Audiences decided it wasn't time and again. A 2D window into another world was immersive enough. Studios keep coming back, roughly every three decades, because it seems like that's how long it takes audiences to start getting excited for the same gimmicks again.

VR is currently expensive, uncomfortable, isolating, and (for some) nausea inducing. Any one of these is worse than the sum total of modern 3D's drawbacks: You have to wear glasses, pay $5 extra, and hope the theatre's projector is bright enough. My bold prediction is that VR and 3D will both eventually succeed and stick (perhaps in the same package!), but only when the technologies are without significant drawbacks or extra expense. VR technology has made exciting progress since the 90's but, like 3D, it's not ready to stick yet.

The harsh reality is that, even if somebody were to make a quantum leap forward in VR technology tomorrow that solves all its major drawbacks, it would probably still be years or decades before audiences are willing to reconsider the opinion of VR they've formed over the last several years. People need to forget before they're willing to reevaluate.