Wow, how not cool!
Not cool?
Who is going to shell out the expence for vr tech when valve shows no interest in making the client even accessible.
True we can jump through hoops to make it but its hit and miss and certainly on nvda its not working for me.
So I need to buy jaws to get steam to work in a limited horrible fecking crappy way?
Steam can have all the bells and whistles it darn well likes but its no good if the standard client is basically fucking useless making steam totally crap because valve refuses to move its fat ass.
I am sorry for the rant but until valve actually put the effort in to making steam actually using standard controls, making it work both with the registration on the website and the client for all platforms its still a no go for me.
The website bar the capcha actually works reasonably.
The client just doesn't work and while some have got it to work its not exactly a dependable solution.
Steam is not crap, but valve refuse to aknowledge the disabled.
We don't need a new protocol we need a working client first and formost, I could give less than a nibbled cracker for all this means.
No it doesn't mean I will be  buying a vr set any time soon.
My place is full enough as it is, and even if I was going to get one it wouldn't be for steam.
Valve shows no interest in making steam client the frontend of steam on most devices work and so I will continue to tell everyon that steam is fucking crap till they do.
It won't change anything but if valve refuse under preasure from petitions and complaints I see no reason why any of us should even mention stam in fact why do we mention it at all.
Steam has been and is destined to stay inaccessible, so it should be ignored reguardless of the fact some blind stuff may be on it, and all those that use steam as a sole previder should be ignored to.
Steam has a lot of good features even for us at sonnar but I can not in good concience recomend something that is not accessible and who's company refuses to make what is arguably one of the most accessible clients work.
This vr audio is nice as another thing in the shop but if steam doesn't make its client work then its not like we can take advantage of it, we can't take advantage of standard steam as it is.
And even for those that have found a work around for some stuff how long it will stay is anyone's guess.
I really think either someone needs to get valve to make their client accessible or simply make an accessible client for steam, I am not sure if you legally can and if they can't then tough, if valve refuses I see no reason why others can't make a client, at any rate if valve sue us over it what can they sue us for, making a client which isn't their own when they care little about the accessibility of their own client?
I really don't care to make it some sort of law for this but if it has to be, even if all valve does is allow screen readers to be controled with tolque or something and make all their interfaces using standard accessibility guidelines even if they did that to a minimal extent even if users would still have to write modules afterwards it would be a start.

The library isn't dependant on Steam to use, so it could be used just by itself, with Occulus or any other VR headset independant of Steam. Course, the whole VR scene's kind of screwed up, they're trying to push the idea hard but the price point and console'esk exclusivity crap for what amounts to a glorified peripherial is really hurting adoption.

The thing being is that you need a computer with hardware being able to render a constant 90 FPS for VR or the experience not only becomes unsteady, but sighted people get really screwed up over it. But we'd probably still need a system like that because I'm sure audio is dependant on graphics and shit to work properly, also, then we need the headset and controllers like the vive, or rift, nah, not for something that no one's gonna make games for us over. It's a cool idea, but nothing to get excited about, at least not yet.

@ironcross32
Yes and no, the defining characteristic of VR/AR is that its visually! immersive, purely audio based applications have different requirements and would be both simpler and less expensive as all you'd need is earphones, a motion tracker and gyroscope for orientation. There could be geometry involved for calculating acoustics, surfaces, occlusion, etc. but it wouldn't need to be rendered at all, much like Papa Sangre.

There was actually a hardware teardown [here] done by IHS of the Occulus Rift last year that put the total cost down to 206$, not including the custom Fresnel Lenses, software, and R&D. The most expensive components listed were the 2 AMOLED displays at 69$, followed by 24$ for plastics, metal, hardware, etc. and 22.50$ for circuit boards, connectors and loudspeakers.

Valve might also come across this and threads like this, see the page long poorly spelled bitch fests and get turned right off. Justsayin. VR tech might have also stood a better chance if Oculus and others hadn't been so set on max cash extraction, given that the plan was to sell the HMD for a low price originally, before things got totally bollocksed up