Infographic: Social VR's Current Size on Steam (September 2019)

Here's the most up to date look at social VR activity on Steam, by far the largest platform for core gamers -- click to embiggen. Infographic art and design is by the exquisitely talented Danielle Feigenbaum, creator of the Nylon Pinkney is Online comic. As of last month, in terms of peak concurrent users, VRChat remains the 800 pound Knuckle, with Rec Room maintaining its distant second place.  

There was also a small surprise bump for Linden Lab's Sansar:

just your typical company meeting in our new @hellokitty-themed Sanrio World~

supercute. super srs bzns. pic.twitter.com/P7T9CLiLV2

— Sansar ➡️ TwitchCon (@SansarOfficial) September 27, 2019

After concurrency rates that averaged in the mid two figures (yes, that low) for most of the year, Sansar peak concurrency for September jumped to 220 last Friday. Thanks, at least in part, to a VR dating show hosted by online celebrity Jesse Cox and probably more key, the launch of an official Hello Kitty experience (see above). So whether Linden Lab maintains numbers near that peak concurrency remains to be seen.

Meantime, VRChat's CCU numbers have remained consistently in the high four figures/low four figures throughout the year -- though notably, have rarely reached the peak achieved during its peak meme popularity in early 2018.

About the artist:

Indie comic artist and illustrator Danielle "Nylon" Feigenbaum documents dubious adventures in SL, VRChat, and online worlds beyond for New World Notes. Her work has also been featured in Old Pal and the book Blocked: Stories from the World of Online Dating.  Follow her <a

Comments

[Pulsar]

Yes, the "concurrency that averaged" gives a better idea of the platform than a rare peak inflated by a special event; like HiFi did, reaching over 300 during events, when usually there was just an handful of people online outside those events.
Sansar is doing the same.

And this was another of the biased and deceiving answers that LL staff gave in the previous AMA on Reddit, as well as when they answered the adult content in SL is "under 5%". While they make events in Sansar that reach those peaks, it remains true that normally there are only few people online.

Otherwise, with a 220 concurrency peak vs 300-500, you would think Sansar is just behind Rec Room now. In fact the average on Steam for Sansar remains about 20, while Rec Room is consistently over 200. Thus Rec Room is actually about 10 times more popular than Sansar on Steam. Even counting people not using Steam and looking directly in Sansar, Rec Room average concurrency is various times more than Sansar.
Rec Room peaks are consistent as their daily averages and the peaks come naturally (like in VRChat or Second Life). In the past months, VRChat had consistent averages of about 6k and peaks ranging between 8 and 10k.
In Sansar, instead, people are attracted only momentarily by an occasional (and short lasting) special event. I mean, they used Hello Kitty/Sanrio this time! It's a brand with millions and millions of fans worldwide, we aren't talking of Jane Doe. It's another big name that Linden Labs tries to partner with or to do something with, to promote their platform.

220 people for Hello Kitty during TwitchCon 2019 on September 27... And after the event, tumbleweeds as usual.
Right now there are about 10 people online in Sansar and today peak on Steam was 20.

[sirhc desantis]

ser Pulsar has a point when one OS grid beginning in 'G' is currently showing 19 online in 15 diff locations. @23:49 CET so adjust as needed.

Really can't get anything from the cute graph apart from - well that all looks small.