Visionarium is not a game. Games contain meaningful gamelike interaction and game loops, which are absent in this software. This software is a VR exclusive "acid trip" simulator where you listen to some godawful music and wave your controllers around as you bumble pointlessly through a "trippy" art environment that Andy Warhol's dog would be embarrassed to have thrown up. There's no gameplay, this is an "art experience", which is a codeword for "the local art gallery took out a restraining order so they had to pay $100 to post their junk on Steam as if it's a game".
For those unfamiliar with what actually makes something a game, a "game loop" describes the interaction and feedback a gamer has when playing a game. Tetris, for example, has a game loop where a random block appears, the gamer interacts with the block to position it, and then the game decides if that finishes a row or not, increases the players score if any rows were completed, then gives the gamer another block to position. Counter-Strike has a game loop where a player seeks another player, tests their skill against that player by shooting them or being shot, the computer rewards the player if they win, and then if the player survives, they repeat that loop. There's no loop here, no true interactive feedback. It simply is not a game, it cannot be "played".
This has misleadingly been launched in the "Games" section of Steam instead of the "Software" section. This is a common mistake for developers who are new to Steam, or don't understand the difference between games and software which isn't a game. It seems this software published incorrectly as a game is simply lack of experience/knowledge of the correct process.
Here's a link for the process to publish non-game software on Steam:
[url=https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithPublishing?issueid=925]Steam Developer Help With Software Publishing[/url]
It's unfortunate this process was not known about/followed, resulting in a software application being published in the wrong place.
This seems to have been made a VR exclusive to prevent any comparison with non-VR 3D games (actual games), a comparison that this software art exhibition would fail very badly at. Developers must learn that while VR is great, if the only thing that makes their product great is the VR, then the product isn't great at all.
The software has a lot of flashing effects/strobes, the kind of thing that can cause harm to epileptics, but the developer declined to put an epilepsy warning on the product. If you suffer from anything like that, you should avoid this art exhibition.
In an attempt to excuse the low quality of delivery here, the software makes a big point of having a nice soundtrack. If the business plan for software is to compete with Spotify, which is free and has effectively unlimited music, all of which is better than the music here, it's failed before it even started. Gamers can listen to the Spotify for free. A software product cannot be seen as recommendable just because it competes badly with listening to the radio or to MP3s.
The poor quality of this software is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak user number was only 4 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only user activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 actual, real games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality product is to be expected.
Visionarium has the far too high price of $10 USD, for which you could easily get any number of real, older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the software, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $10 asking price for this game could get you games like "Subnautica", "Final Fantasy XIV Online" or "Monster Hunter World". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. There's also thousands of free, superior quality games on Steam.
Publishing things which aren't games on Steam in the Games section as games is misleading to gamers and somewhat harmful, because it pollutes the Steam marketplace and takes away visibility and market exposure for genuine game developers who do the right thing and make games for gamers.
