In its current state, many people would consider virtual reality as a work in progress. Very rarely will you hear about the latest technological advances in VR on mainstream news sources such as television and radio.

When most people hear about VR, their first thought is video games. But although gaming is one of the most popular uses for VR, it’s being used in multiple industries, as Gregory Schipano reports.

Virtual reality user Oscar Tortul says that he’s always been a gaming enthusiast, but discovering VR through watching YouTubers play with the technology got him excited, as it opened up a whole new way to experience games.

“I saw a lot of YouTubers play with them, it looked super fun, and I knew one day I wanted that because I am an enthusiast in games and I wanted to buy a VR headset to experience that experience, I guess,” he said.

Gaming increased the popularity of virtual reality, but as it became more popular, people began to realise the potential of using VR in fields other than gaming.

VR is currently being used by armies to simulate situations during training, but could it be used in other industries as well?

Mr Tortul believes that VR will one day be seen in almost every industry.

“In schooling you could use it to take on tours and excursions… If you want to become a surgeon you could probably use that to experience a surgery and practise surgery,” he said.

From his own experience, Mr Tortul explained that current VR has a few downsides that he thinks need to be addressed, in order to see the popularity of VR increased even more.

“It’s annoying to wear for a long amount of time – you get sweaty, it’s too bulky, I find myself hitting my head sometimes and it’s just too big, and I find that the nausea and imersiveness you get in the game is a bit of a downside because I’ve found myself getting sick and nauseous over playing games for too long,” he said.

VR graphics right now are not the greatest, and to run any sort of VR application that has believable graphics, you need a top of the line computer which will cost thousands of dollars.

Mr Tortul believes that in the future VR will be extremely affordable and feel almost real.

“I think with gaming it’ll bring way more into the future, the games right now are pretty good and really immersive but 10 to 20 to 30 years from now I feel like it would be an amazing experience, you’d be fully submerged into virtual reality,” he said

Experts have talked about the idea that virtual reality could eventually become so realistic that you don’t even realise you’re in a made-up world.

With the introduction of VR being used in Army training and some classrooms around the world, we can only imagine what the future of virtual reality will hold.