VRChat Unveils In-App Avatar Marketplace As Expected; Here's Some Mixed-to-Positive Reactions from Creators

As I blogged last week, VRChat the company just unveiled an official in-world avatar marketplace where creators can sell their avies. This is a pretty huge move by VRChat, which has been deliberately slow to expand its UGC player economy. There's already thousands of VRChat creators selling avatars on third party platforms. 

One of them, Krample (who I profiled a few years ago here) already has a successful side business of furry avatars on Gumroad, and is tentatively positive on this move:

"I just applied for [the program to join the marketplace]," they tell me. "I do agree with a lot of the points they make about how rough it can be to sell source files on Gumroad and having to walk people through the import workflow... if this really will offer a click-buy-wear solution, rather than needing newbies to work through Unity and Blender to get characters up and running, it'll be great."

A longtime VRChat player / content creator has a mixed opinion:

"It's a very Second Life way of doing it," as they put it to me. "There is absolutely an untapped market for people who want to buy an avatar but don't want to install a game engine just to upload it, or maybe don't even own a computer.

 

"But... for someone like me this has no use. When I buy an avatar, I want the files. I want to be able to throw it in Blender and customize it. This feature isn't that. I still feel VRChat has to clone Gumroad or Booth's services for people like me to give them money instead of Booth and Gumroad.  And they're leaving a lot of money on the table by not doing so. Maybe this untapped no-PC demographic market is enough, I wouldn't know."

That sounds right, especially if the company wants to grow its mobile/Quest/etc. user base. My guess is VRChat knows full well there's already a huge market of VRC content on Gumroad and Booth, and aren't bothering to compete or clone that option (for now).

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Comments

[VRChatPwnsU]

"When I buy an avatar, I want the files. I want to be able to throw it in Blender and customize it."

Well most of the customers don't care for all of that and just want an easy choice of avatar. If they want custom work they can always contact the creator and get one.

This is a good thing as it allows creators to more easily reach their customer base and remove the need to work in Unity to do it.

If anything, the existing creators who have had the lion's share of avatar market in one way or another will now have increased competition.. and LIKE Second Life.. avatar creators hate that...

It also add security so that if you sell someone an avatar from Gumroad or other, they can't just customize it or resell somewhere else, or share with friends etc.