Social VR

Opportunities and Challenges in the emerging

Metaverse

Jason Moore, April 2020

 What is Social VR?

• Meeting new people, interacting with friends and family, sharing

information, creating economies, building societies: in Virtual Reality
• Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the internet from within an immersive
virtual reality environment.
 “

“The Metaverse”
Neal Stephenson, “Snowcrash” (1992)
 “The Oasis”
An entire alternate world, in
a shared virtual
environment.

Ernest Cline,
“Ready Player
One” (2011)
 What is “The Metaverse”?

• Currently, the Metaverse exists as a set of un-connected social VR ‘worlds’

• Futurists imagine a day when they are connected OR there is a single

dominant ‘virtual world’ (like today’s Internet)
 Early Adopters
Origins of virtual worlds

• World of Warcraft (2004) and other MMPORGs

• 100 million accounts in 2014
• $10 billion in revenue by 2017

• Second Life (2003) - Linden Labs & Philip Rosedale

• 1 million users
• Art, education, religion, science, relationships, music and performing arts,
politics
• GDP $500 million in 2009
Current players in Social VR
 Some popular “Metaverses”

Second Life
Sansar
High Fidelity
AltspaceVR
EngageVR
Hubs by Mozilla
Facebook Horizons (beta)
 Challenges

No current Metaverse has solved the #1 problem: financial model

How does a Metaverse sustain itself?

Advertising? Data mining/selling? Transaction fees? Subscription?

#1 Problem: user base is still very small

 Current Social Media vs Metaverse
User Base

Facebook: 2.5 billion monthly active users

Twitter: 330 million monthly users
Youtube: 2 billion monthly users

AltspaceVR: 35,000 monthly users

VRChat: 4 million created user accounts
 Sansar
High hopes…. but failure

Created by Linden Labs / Second Life creators

Seen as the natural “VR” extension to Second Life
Popular from 2018-2020
Hundreds of VR “experiences”: games, educational, art, movie
theaters, music, dancing

Recently sold: could not create an economy

Sansar
 High Fidelity
Major investors…. major disappointment

Philip Rosedale (founder, Second Life)

Novel approach: Open Source, decentralized, user owned
Blockchain and cryptocurrency
$35 million investments from industry
Biggest achievement: holds record for most users in a space at the
same time: 420 people
2020: ran out of money, folded entire company (open source though)
High Fidelity
 Rec Room & VR Chat
Not technically a “metaverse” but definitely “social VR”

Rec Room: focused on gaming: paint ball, ping-pong, poker,

charades. Well received by critics: elgant, ‘just works’ ‘lots of fun’
User base: kids. $5 million investment, ‘building a user base’

VR Chat: $10 million in investment, 4 million user base. “grow user

base and figure out $$ later”
 Rec Room - new developments

• Users are starting to use ‘game making’ tools for new purposes
• Quests and narrative stories are starting to pop up in Rec Room
• We will explore together
Rec Room
VR Chat
 AltspaceVR
A blend of social, corporate

Startup in 2013, bought by Microsoft in 2017

Slow to start, massive uptick during Coronavirus
B2B: meetings, seminars, conferences

Freemium model: free to users, businesses pay for extra features

Altspace VR
 EngageVR
Singular purpose: Education

Meetings, classes, lectures, events, training

Intuitive, easy, natural learning curve
Host up to 50 users in same shared space
Library of content: 3D models, animations, environments: easy to
create educational content
Desktop and VR modes: accessible to many more users (play video)
EngageVR
 Hubs by Mozilla
disrupting social VR

Web based VR - experimental and emergent

The internet browser as the VR platform?!
Wildly simple and intuitive
ANYBODY can join: PCVR, wireless VR, mobile VR, desktop, phone
and tablet too!
Massive uptick during Coronavirus
Hubs
 Neos VR

• Most ‘cutting edge’ and progressive metaverse engine

• Developed by 1 person, Frooxius. Very small dev team
• Other metaverse engines require 3d Model makers to use other
applications (Blender, Maya) and import those ‘baked’ assets into a
platform, where they can be explored. Neos allows you to create inside
the platform. Real-time, multi-player world building: this is very new
• Neos also allows for more sophisticated types of model making and
scripting.
 What’s Next?

• HMD development: cheaper, lighter, more comfortable

• User base must grow, obviously
• Financial model: nobody has cracked this (Sansar, High Fidelity..)
• Will it follow traditional SM business model? Data mining, advertising.
• Will it be Open Source, a basic right, a free utility?

•
Social VR for Storytelling
What is the connection between Social VR and Storytelling?

• Game engines - they can be used to make worlds and add interactivity
(scripting)
• Social: audiences are already there, just waiting for content
• Collaborators: social VR includes many creative types: 3d modelers,
programmers, actors, avatar designers, musicians, etc.

• Social VR allows storytellers to use these resources to create stories of all

types.
 Interactive Storytelling

• Any story in VR can be interactive - the world itself is interactive, it’s a

natural union.
• HOW interactive can the story be? It’s up to us, the storytellers
• Audiences inside VR stories want one thing: agency. They want to feel a
part of the story, not just an observer.
• Interactive storytelling in VR combines elements of film, live theater, video
games, and more.
 Next Research Assignment
Media Review: what stories exist and what are their
strengths and weaknesses?
 Look for Stories

• Browse your Quest library and try to find stories, either free or paid (if you
like)
• View/experience the story more than once. First time, enjoy. Second time,
critique.
• 360 video is OK, but “6DOF” is preferred
• Documentary, fiction, experimental is fine: but it should be a ‘story’ not a
game.
 Short Presentation
• Make notes and be prepared to present 5-8 minutes
• Create a simple powerpoint slideshow, 5-8 slides
• Use powerpoint, keynote or slides.com
• Import your slides into slides.com
• Click “Present” and look for “Present Live”
• copy that URL and send it to me in an email
• I will add your presentation to our classroom
 Short Presentations

• These are for NEXT WEEK (and the week after)

• Send me your URLs by next Tuesday, Sept 29th
 What to Critique?

• Begin with your overall impressions of the experience/story

• Consider how engaged you were and what helped/hurt that
• Think about your own agency: did you have any? What type?
• How could the experience ADD more agency?
• Would more agency help or hurt the experience?
• If you were to create your own version of the experience, what would you
do differently?
 Social VR
Opportunities and Challenges in the emerging
Metaverse

Jason Moore, April 2020