New World Notes

VRChat Attracts Community of Deaf Users & Supporters Who Communicate With Unique, VR-Based Signs

This new video from Syrmor, VRChat's best embedded reporter, is easily among his very greatest; it's also one of the most profound and impressive use cases of social VR I've ever seen: A community of Deaf people and their supporters who meet in VRChat to communicate with each other via VR-based sign language. I capitalize "Deaf" thanks to this Google Doc from Helping Hands, "a community to encourage anyone who wants to learn sign to be able to interact with various Deaf communities and cultures inside VRChat", which explains:

Deaf: Deaf (with a capital ‘D’) refers to embracing the cultural norms, beliefs, and values of the Deaf Community. The term ‘Deaf’ should be capitalized when it is used as a shortened reference to being a member of the Deaf Community.

As that suggests, the Helping Hands community is seriously dedicated to supporting its members online: 

VRChat Reporter Syrmor, Who Has More YouTube Subscribers Than VRChat Has Users, Steps In Front of the Camera

Here's the latest VRChat interview from Syrmor, the platform's best embedded reporter, another poignant slice of virtual life, this one of a woman whose real life relationship fell apart because of the virtual world, where she found someone new. It also comes with a surprise: The Canadian dude behind Syrmor's avatar cat avatar appears on camera to read fan mail -- yes, he gets actual fan mail on paper from the post office, that's how beloved he's become -- and introduce the VRChat segment:

"I wanted to test it out with this recent video and see how it went but I think it's something I'll do more consistently from now on," he tells me. "It just gives me an easy way to talk to the audience since I never really communicate with them I'm gonna try it with the next video too and see how it goes."

Makes sense. Now with nearly 700,000 subscribers on YouTube, Syrmor almost certainly has more followers than VRChat itself has actual users:

Rec Room Always Intended as Cross-Platform & Not VR-Only, Says Company's Community Head

As Rec Room for iOS went to open beta, I mentioned how some community members have grumbled that the social VR world seems to be moving away from being VR-focused. But Shawn Whiting, head of community at Rec Room, tells me that that's never actually been the case:

"We think of ourselves as a virtual social club," as he puts it. "We're always expanding to new platforms since playing with your friends is what makes Rec Room so fun. We're always looking to increase the opportunities players have to hop in no mater where they are or what device they have."

I think it's fair to say Rec Room (as with Sansar), marketed itself some years ago with more emphasis on VR, until it became clear that few people wanted to buy a virtual reality rig. But since Rec Room was among the few social VR games on Steam back then, my sense is the small community of early adopter HMD owners fervently embraced Rec Room as "our platform". But Sean insists it's always been architected for cross-platform:

VRChat Hiring "Virtual Economy Manager" to Roll Out In-Game Currency & User-Generated Content Marketplace... But Not Deal With IP Infringement?

Since you're reading New World Notes, this is likely a great job opportunity for many of you; for everyone else, it's news that VRChat is planning to launch an in-game economy and currency with a user-generated marketplace:

We’re looking for someone to lead the development of VRChat’s virtual economy, currency and marketplace... At VRChat, we’ve got ideas about how we’d like to move forward with our economy [emph. mine], but we’re looking for someone with experience to help guide and lead the effort. As our Virtual Economy Manager, you’ll be responsible for the oversight, development, release and management of VRChat’s virtual economy, currency and marketplace.  

"We've got ideas" is a pretty open admission that VRChat management would like to have a virtual economy, but hasn't thought through all the implications that deploying a virtual economy would require. Another sign of that:

Syrmor Rising: VRChat's Virtual Reporter Attracts Massive Community, Real World Meet-Up With Worldwide Attendance

#syrcon2019 meet-up - photo by Gabrielle

How beloved are the VRChat interviews of Syrmor, the social VR world's best embedded reporter? Here's how much: Right now in Toronto, nearly two dozen people have gathered from around the world for what they've dubbed #Syrcon2019, a meet-up that the young Canadian filmmaker had nothing to do with at the start.

"I didn't organize it," he tells me, laughing. "It was a bunch of people on the Syrmor community Discord became friends and decided to do a meet up and it just got larger and larger until it became know as Syrcon."

They arrived from the United States and his native Canada, and from far farther parts: "Twenty people have come from a bunch of different places like Finland, Germany, and UK", he tells me. Yes, Finland. ("I didn't even know that country was real!", Syrmor says with ironic wonder.) 

"I'm meeting up with the people in Toronto but I didn't organize it or anything... We've rented out a bar and have plans for a bunch of things around the city," Syrmor goes on, "And they all get to meet friends that have made appearances in my vids."

As anyone who's seen Syrmor's interviews knows, they're uniformly funny, sweet, and positive (if also often sad and poignant). So notwithstanding VRChat's reputation as a hovel of trollish a-holes, the Syrmor community has followed that lead, becoming a chatty, social community -- one that's even inspired some real relationships:

I'm Finally in VRChat as Hamlet_Au -- What Should I Do Next?

I swear any time I create a new account on a new-ish platform, some total tool has always already taken "Hamlet" as an avatar name before I can grab it for my own. But no worries: Connect with me on VRChat as Hamlet_Au.

I'm logging in via Oculus Quest, so I my options are somewhat limited compared to the full Oculus/Vive client, but so far, the new account creation process is not horrible. I like how you start in a lobby all your own, and have an option to teleport to a small, private home location all your own. (Second Life, by contrast, has always been plagued by an on-boarding process where your avatar is dropped into an orientation area used by multiple players, then plopped into a Welcome Area usually teaming with many more multiple players, who tend to make the Welcome Area unwelcome AF. Most people quit SL, disoriented and intimidated, somewhere in this process.)

On the down side, VRChat's account creation process is still very beta and user-unfriendly for anyone who is not already a hardcore gamer, so there's a lot to be improved. Anyway, that's my early experience. Who else reading these words is in VRChat? Please connect with me in-world and share your experiences and tips in Comments!

Rec Room/Against Gravity Site User Demographics: 174,000 Uniques, Mostly Male, Notably Older Than VRChat Site Users

SimilarWeb, my go-to resource for online/mobile data, just shared with me some exclusive user data for the site of Rec Room/Against Gravity (the studio behind the social VR platform). While this doesn't give us direct user data on Rec Room the download client itself, it gives us a pretty good estimate on unique users over time, and demographics. So:

Total unique visitors over the last 12 months globally are 174,130.  That would track with my estimate that Rec Room probably has about 20,000-30,000 active monthly users.

As above, over 3 in 4 users are female, with the largest age cohort (34%) being 25-34 years old.

Compare and contrast that with SimilarWeb's VRChat site user demographics: 82% are male, with the largest age cohort (43%) being 18-24 years gold. This suggests Rec Room's user base is on average older than VRChat's user base, with 1 in 3 users aged 35 or older. Not surprising, since Rec Room is much more VR-centric than VRChat, and VR rigs aren't cheap -- typically, people outside college age can best afford them.

Rec Room/Against Gravity site demographics by location are also worth a look:

SL Should Adopt VRChat's Avatar Rankings -- And SLers Should Be Less Like Barbie, More Like Elizabeth Warren (Comment of the Week #2)

Great conversation in this post praising VRChat's new avatar optimization rankings (from Excellent down to Very Poor, for avatars over 70,000 triangles) -- including this great comment from reader "Finni Graves", who agrees with reader "Cake" that Second Life should adopt these rankings:

I've invested a lot of my SL esteem in the whole crazy avatar adornment scene. Then one day, after trying to navigate a horrible shopping event, I've got to stop being so selfish and hogging so much resource. What's the point of looking good, if I don't feel good? These ridiculous mesh bodies, heads, hair. clothes, and accessories are literally sucking the life out of our SL. We must simplify ourselves because this whole hamster wheel isn't working.

Cake is right. All of us need to be graded harshly and it is our duty to ask ourselves, " do I really need this?". It's also the duty of content creators to make consumers aware of the optimization of their products and to guarantee it. They should have to be graded too, at least on Marketplace. 

Finni says SL's many fashion bloggers should advocate optimized avatars and stop promoting resource heavy avatars which degrade the performance for everyone around them. And then, notably, likens these reforms to the plans put forth by the US Presidential candidate who's leading the charge to reform the American economy by penalizing people whose greed hurts society and the environment:

Why VRChat Players Love Looking at Themselves in VRChat-Based Mirrors

In case you were wondering what inspired Nylon Pinkney's latest comic about VRChat, reader "Cake" has some more context for you in Comments:

The mirror is a big social area in your typical VRChat room. People stand in front of it and talk like they would if they were primping with friends in a bathroom. Shaders also look slightly different in different maps depending on what you're using--so even if you have one set for your avatar, you still go to the mirror to check out what you look like on that particular map.

That's actually a fascinating analogy, and does a lot to help explain VRChat's popularity:

Nylon Pinkney Is Online - Why Virtual Mirrors Are Popular in VRChat