‘The Museum of Other Realities’ Free to Visit for The Next 2 Weeks

The Museum of Other Realities (MOR), the immersive multiplayer art museum for virtual reality, is temporarily open to the public for free in celebration of select British XR artists, who are presenting their works via a special showcase called The Immersive Arcade.

The Immersive Arcade: The Showcase is being hosted on MOR, which is free to download on Steam from now until March 26th.

To visit the showcase, which is the first of multiple volumes, you’ll also need to download The Immersive Arcade DLC, which is also free on Steam.

Once you’ve downloaded both items, you simply need to pop on your SteamVR-compatible headset and head to The Immersive Arcade showcase on your righthand side. MOR is exclusively available to VR headset users, and there is no 2D option like with other social VR platforms.

The showcase, which was built in partnership with Kaleidoscope and Digital Catapult, features four installations:

  • Common Ground by Darren Emerson, East City Films: Common Ground is a VR documentary narrative exploring the history, politics and human face of the current crisis in the UK housing system.
  • The Invisible by Darkfield: Imagine you could make yourself invisible. What would you do with this remarkable talent? Could you resist the temptation to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting? If you cannot be seen, how can you be held responsible for anything? Meet the invisible man and choose your path.
  • Fly by Charlotte Mikkelborg, Novelab: From a multiple award-winning VR team and Oscar-winning special effects team, Fly enables you to become a time-travelling pilot – from the earliest imaginings of Leonardo da Vinci and his ornithopter, to the Wright Brothers’ success on Kitty Hawk Beach and, ultimately, into one potential future of flight.
  • Notes on Blindness by ARTE, Atlas V, Archer’s Mark, Novelab: In 1983, after decades of steady deterioration, John Hull became totally blind. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began documenting his experiences on audio cassettes. These original diary recordings create the basis of this interactive non-fictional narrative which is a cognitive and emotional experience of blindness.

These are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of art installations available on the platform at any given time. In addition to a mind-boggling amount of interactive art, the platform also hosts regular in-game events such as a talk by Drew Skillman and Patrick Hackett of Skillman & Hackett, the original studio behind Tilt Brush.

The Museum of Other Realities typically costs $20, so it’s a great opportunity to get in and get social with fellow art lovers. The app is also available on Rift through the Oculus Store and SteamVR headsets through Viveport.

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‘Rec Room’ Plus Members Can Now Exchange In-game Tokens for Real Cash

Rec Room wants to create a functional digital economy which would let creators generate content for the social VR app and sell it to others for cash. The studio took a big step late last year by allowing its premium members to to sell their creations for in-game tokens. Now those users can exchange their hard-earned tokens for real cash—with a few caveats.

At the time of this writing, one ‘eligible token’ is worth $0.0004, making it equivalent to $400 per million tokens, the studio outlines in a blogpost.

Eligibility is a bit of a sticking point; tokens that are earned through commerce like selling digital items or keys to user-generated rooms can be exchanged for real cash, while tokens earned playing the app’s mini-games cannot. All tokens work for in-game purchases just the same however. Here’s how the studio describes the situation:

Eligible tokens are those that were earned from selling Premium Inventions and Keys; You can view them on your Rec.net profile page. Sorry, but you’re not cashing out of the tokens you earned while glitching 3D Charades. When it comes to spending your tokens in-game, your eligible tokens will be used last. For example, you’ve earned a total of 500 tokens from playing Paintball and 1,000 tokens selling Keys. You’re so happy about your success that you want to buy the ‘I <3 RR’ shirt that costs 600 tokens. When you make that purchase, it will first use the 500 tokens earned from Paintball, then use 100 from Keys. We built it this way so that you can continue to spend your tokens but retain as much of your eligible earnings as possible. Neat, huh?

For now the studio is putting a cap of 25 million tokens exchangeable per month, or a cool $10,000. Tokens can only be exchanged once per month, and in denominations of one million tokens, which is probably there to weed out people looking to scam a quick buck.

Rec Room also outlined a few additional ways to keep the would-be malefactors at bay. To earn real money, you have to meet these requirements:

  • Your account is at least 30 days old
  • Your account is not a Junior account
  • Your account has a verified email address
  • Your account has an active RR+ membership
  • You haven’t been banned in the last 90 days
  • You are not actively restricted from selling

Other VR apps have tried putting the cart before the horse with their digital economies in effort to recreate the success of Second Life, but Rec Room’s approach seems to have more potential than most if only based on its over one million monthly active VR users and many more joining on traditional consoles, mobile devices, and PC. The studio says it hopes to pay out $1M to creators in 2021 through its token exchange program.

It’ll be interesting to see how Rec Room grows from here; the whole token-to-cash exchange is likely a manual process with plenty of human oversight for now, but that may not always be the case as the company scales up to accommodate more creators looking to make a living.

To kick off its nascent economy, Rec Room will be hosting a sales contest, called ‘The Ink Inc. March Sell-a-thon’. Rewards of over four million tokens (~$1,600) will go to top selling rooms and premium inventions. Check out the contest rules here.

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‘Bigscreen’ Launches Ad-supported Movies for Free On-demand Viewing

Bigscreen today announced is bringing ad-supported movies to the free social viewing platform, which will allow users to watch select films for free.

Bigscreen first brought paid on-demand movie rentals to its virtual cinemas early last year, which was the result of multiple partnerships with movie studios such as Paramount Pictures.

Now Bigscreen is bringing free movies hosted by PlutoTV, which much like their streaming TV content, will have intermittent ads sandwiched in between. A big difference between steaming TV and the new ad-supported film service is that films can be watched on-demand, and in any Bigscreen environment.

Image courtesy Bigscreen

Film availability depends on your physical location, however Bigscreen says content coming to US-based users includes Arrival, Seabiscuit, Clueless, Nacho Libre, Adventureland, Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity 4, It Follows, “and more.” The studio says it’s adding new films each month.

“Bigscreen has added many integrations with streaming services over the past year, such as Twitch, PlutoTV, and Adult Swim,” the studio says. “We plan to integrate more streaming services in the future, [and] we’re actively working on built-in YouTube support next. As previously announced, we are also developing a Friends System and a new technology to enable large groups of people to stream ultra-low latency video in VR.”

The new ad-supported film is coming to all supported platforms today, which includes SteamVROculus RiftOculus Quest, and Oculus Go.

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‘Bigscreen’ Brings ‘Rick & Morty’, ‘The Eric Andre Show’ & More to Free TV Selection

Bigscreen, the social viewing platform for VR headsets, just launched a number of new free TV channels including Rick and Morty, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Samurai Jack, Robot Chicken, The Venture Bros, and The Eric Andre Show.

Bigscreen first added its TV livestream back in July 2019, which at the time brought over 50 channels to the free app. With its recent additions, users can now select from 172 channels—all of which are available for free in public rooms. Some channels are region-specific, but a majority can be viewed from anywhere.

“Today’s new TV channels all have an age restriction on it, requiring users to consent that they are 18 or older before entering,” the studio says in an update. “Bigscreen’s built-in Parental Controls also allow parents to prevent their children from entering any of these 18+ rooms, public rooms, or social situations.”

Besides being able to chat with others face-to-face, Bigscreen also lets users rent 3D movies, watch your own local media through its internal video player, and mirror your desktop into a room—letting you watch and share practically anything you want in VR.

The studio says there’s plenty of new features coming down the pipeline for 2021 too. A Friends System is still in the works along with built-in YouTube support, and the ability to make private TV-viewing rooms. The studio is also set to roll out new servers which it says will “dramatically improve the video/audio streaming quality.”

Something users have been asking for a while now is a Remote Desktop feature, which will allow you to stream your Windows desktop to Quest. Thankfully, that’s also slated to arrive sometime in 2021.

The update is now live across all supported platforms which includes SteamVR, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, and Oculus Go.

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‘Rec Room’ Now Has Over 1 Million Monthly Active Users

It was only a month ago when social VR platform Rec Room reported it crossed the two million annual VR user mark, an important milestone worth celebrating along the app’s five-year journey. Its developers tell Road to VR that Rec Room has seen a significant uptick in users recently, as it now reports over one million monthly active users on the platform.

Rec Room’s success comes from a number of factors; it’s free, it benefits from wide distribution VR headsets and traditional monitors, and it includes cross-platform play too. It’s also incredibly fun. Rec Room not only lets you socialize face-to-virtual-face, but it focuses on providing compelling games such as its co-op Quests, a battle royale-style shooter, and a host of minigames. The admittedly slick first-party content sits right alongside stuff created by the community too, which includes anything you can imagine.

In addition to supporting all major VR headsets, Rec Room has broadened the number of compatible non-VR devices since its launch in 2016. It now supports non-VR users across PS4/PS5, Steam, iOS, and Xbox, where it’s currently listed as the number one top free game.

Shawn Whiting, Rec Room’s Head of Community, Retention and Growth, told Road to VR that given today’s news, virtual reality users are actually a relatively small percentage of overall users. They are remarkable dedicated though, Whiting tells us, and they’re still growing.

“Our VR daily active users spend an average of 2.7 hours in Rec Room when they visit,” Whiting tells Road to VR. “Quest 2 is about half of our VR users [and] VR growth has been amazing the past few months.”

Still, despite its increased popularity on non-VR devices, Whiting says that creating a thriving VR community is still key to “building the metaverse.”

And by all accounts, that’s what Rec Room is really after—making a rich virtual environment where not only fun and games can exist, but also someplace where life happens. The studio’s plan to create a functioning in-game economy is only one such step, which could make it financially viable to work as a content creator for the game. That’s a good way of mobilizing creators to make cool stuff and retain users who want to spend money on accessories and exclusive content.

Besides bumping past one million monthly active users, over the weekend the platform reports it’s hosted 45,000 concurrent players, which at its peak made it more populous than many of Europe’s micronations, such as the Principality of Monaco, Liechtenstein, or San Marino. Ok, that’s a bit of a silly comparison, but no more silly than completely recreating Among Us in VR.

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‘VRChat’ Launches Premium Membership, Now in ‘Early Supporter’ Phase on Steam

Social VR platform VRChat has rolled out a premium subscription service which brings a few new extras to users looking to support the free app.

Called VRChat Plus, the membership includes some neat side benefits. In its Early Supporter phase though, the service seems more of a way to financially support the platform than anything.

VRChat is available on multiple platforms, however Plus is currently only available through Steam for now, with additional platforms planned for the future. At the time of this writing, the benefits of VRChat Plus include:

  • Nameplate Personalization – personalize your nameplate with an icon you create. Snap a pic in VRChat or upload your own image on the platform’s website.
  • More Avatar Slots – Everyone on the platform has been recently upgraded to 25 favorite slots, however Plus members now have 100 avatar slots.
  • Supporter Badge  –  A Supporter badge is added to your profile. Sign up now and that badge is upgraded to a permanent ‘Early Supporter’ badge.
  • Increased Trust Rating – although the way Trust Ratings are calculated is a mystery, which is to prevent people from gaming the system, you’ll benefit from a higher default Trust Rating.

The company says it’s also actively developing “many new features” for subscribers such as enhanced invite messaging, UI skinning, and “more.”

New Plus members will also get free time as an introductory offer during the Early Supporter phase. The base subscription fee is either $10 a month or $100 per year; members paying month-by-month will get a free month, while buying the whole year in advance gets you three free months of Plus.

Whether you couch it as a way of funding the app’s creators, or paying to get those little extras to personalize your experience, it’s clear VRChat needs to go farther with its Plus membership if it wants to generate long-term value for subscribers. Granted, it’s still in the Early Supporter phase, so it’s possible something more substantial is in the pipeline.

And there’s good reason to flesh out Plus if the studio wants to capitalize on one of the largest pools of players in VR. VRChat recently hit a spike in user numbers in late October, reaching a new record of 24,000 concurrent users. The developers say the spike was driven in part by the launch of Quest 2 and its virtual Halloween festivities, which eclipsed the platform’s previous spike of 20,000 concurrents in 2018 when the app first went viral.

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‘Rec Room’ Now Lets Premium Users Sell Creations for In-game Currency

Rec Room announced back in September that it was working on a way for its users to earn real cash by creating content for the game. In a recent update, the social VR platform has now taken its first big step in generating that functional economy by letting premium users sell their creations for in-game tokens.

The new feature is currently only available to Rec Room Plus members who pay an $8 per month subscription fee to get things like in-store discounts on items, more slots for avatar outfits, and a monthly bonus of 6,000 tokens for free—something the developer says is worth $10.

Now, Rec Room Plus members can earn tokens too by putting their individual creations up for sale, which can be created in-game with the help of an object called the Maker Pen. Premium members can also now sell keys, which can be used to unlock multiple items or experiences in rooms.

Sellable items include things like avatar outfits, decorative objects, weapons, furniture, gameplay circuits, and skins for the user’s private ‘dorm room’ home base area. The minimum price set on items is currently 500 tokens, while the max is 10,000.

Currently there isn’t a fixed exchange rate from hard currency; the larger the amount you buy directly in the store, the greater discount you can get, with the top package costing $50 for 35,000 tokens, or $1.43 per 1,000 tokens. All users can earn tokens by playing games and winning weekly competitions too.

Image courtesy Rec Room

And although there’s currently no way to convert back from token to hard currency, the studio said back in September that, in the future, users would be able to do just that, even saying its users could potentially “support themselves” by being full-time Rec Room creators.

There’s still plenty of questions that need answering before that happens though. For now, a premium membership means cash is always flowing in the direction of Rec Room’s coffers, however it will be intriguing to see how the company makes the leap to real-world economy in the future and that cash starts leaving the platform. With a bustling user base, cross-platform support with all major VR headsets, and an ever-growing set of in-game maker tools, Rec Room is well positioned though, maybe even more so than past attempts by the likes of High Fidelity and Sansar, at one point considered the spiritual successors to Second Life.

It’s still largely uncharted territory for a VR game of its size however, especially one so widely distributed across multiple locked-down store fronts, such as the Oculus Store and the PlayStation Store. How they handle things like gambling, money laundering, and other illicit behavior will be something to watch out for, as users now have an impressive amount of agency in comparison to when the game first launched back in 2016.

– – — – –

If you’re interested in becoming a creator and earning tokens, check out the game’s community commerce guide on how to get started. Rec Room is available for free on PC, PS4, SteamVR headsets, PSVR, Quest, and iOS. A version for Xbox is also in the works.

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‘Bigscreen’ Expands Platform for Creators with New Green Screen Environment

Bigscreen, the social screen-sharing app for VR, is striding into new territory with its new green screen environment, which aims to let creators repurpose their avatars for anything from Zoom chats to YouTube videos.

The platform has a number of theater environments that are great for chatting, viewing videos and playing games; since there’s no user-generated environments, it can’t really be used for much else though.

Now you’ll be able to replace your background with anything you like, opening Bigscreen’s possibilities beyond its use as a video-viewing social app.

Using Bigscreen’s Green Screen

Virtual environments make everything easier from a setup standpoint: you won’t need a physical green screen, web cam, or adequate lighting—that’s all taken care of in-software.

Firstly, the new green screen environment can only practically be used on PC VR headsets. This is because Bigscreen’s third-person ‘Selfie Stick’ and ‘Streamer Cam’ capture tools are only available for SteamVR-compatible headsets and Quest 2 via Link. The original Quest is said to receive the Selfie Stick tool in the future.

Bigscreen supports Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, all Windows VR headsets, Oculus Quest and Oculus Go. Find out how to download it for free here.

In addition to the obvious requirement of a SteamVR headset and VR-ready PC, you will also need a third-party capture tool like OBS, which is a free desktop recording tool with native chroma key software built in. There’s a quick tutorial from Elgato on how to use the chroma key function on OBS if you need help setting it up.

Make sure to have the latest update installed on Bigscreen, and go to the ‘Green Screen’ options under the ‘My Room’ tab, which is in the ‘Environments’ section. Set up either a selfie stick or streamer cam and start recording. And there you have it: your avatar superimposed on any background you like.

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Rec Room Xbox Support, Terrain Editor And Vehicles Confirmed Ahead of Facebook Connect

Social VR platform Rec Room gave an update on growth and announced several new features today, including a terrain editor, a vehicle system and a Rec Room Xbox port.

A new video was posted that details ‘The Future of Rec Room‘, which comes just a few days before Facebook Connect, the annual conference where Facebook makes its big VR and AR announcements for the year. Given we’re likely to hear more about social VR competitor Facebook Horizon this week, Rec Room’s timing is likely no coincidence.

Rec Room now has over 3 million player-created rooms and games, with over 40 million room visits per month. The social VR service has also seen significant growth, with the community tripling in size since this time last year.

The biggest new features announced were the terrain editor and the vehicle system. The terrain system will allow users to go further with their environment creation and make entire worlds. Any custom terrain can be implemented into users’ rooms and games. While the video shows PC footage, Rec Room confirmed to UploadVR that the terrain editor will be available across all platforms when it launches and will support in-VR creation.

Similarly, a new vehicle system is also being added to Rec Room, allowing users to create their own vehicles, such as go karts, race cars, bikes and buses. It will support attaching players to vehicles and carrying passengers as well. You can see some prototype footage in the video above, but keep in mind that there’s no release date for either of these new features yet.

Rec Room will add in some form of economic system in the future as well, which will allow Rec Room creators to be paid for their work. Details on how it will operate are scarce for now, but Rec Room’s Cameron Brown said that the aim is for users to “be able to support [themselves] by building cool stuff in the Rec Room metaverse.”

Rec Room Xbox Confirmed

Rec Room will also be releasing on the Xbox ecosystem, including cross-play with all other VR and non-VR platforms. There’s no set date for the Xbox release, but those who are interested can sign up to Rec Room’s newsletter to hear more when the time comes.

Rec Room is available for free for PC VR, Oculus Quest, PC VR, Steam and iOS. 

Facebook Expands Access to ‘Venues’ Beta Ahead of Connect Next Week

Facebook dropped the Oculus prefix for its social VR event viewing platform, rebranding it to simply Venues—another ostensible move to minimize the Oculus name (eg: Facebook Connect now, not Oculus Connect). Now the company is widening access to Venues in preparation for their upcoming flagship social VR offering, Facebook Horizon, which will likely have a bigger reveal at Connect this year.

Update (September 11th, 2020): Facebook is talking up its Venues (Beta Early Access) app in a recent blog post, releasing more information on what to expect from the social platform.

“There’s a new lobby where you can socialize before, during, and after the show—because we all know that one of the best parts of an event is chatting about the experiences with others who were there,” the company says.

Facebook says Venues will also include interactive emoji expressions, confetti rain, fist bumps, high fives, and the ability to take photos and selfies.

Access to Venues is being expanded to more people, Facebook says, and will continue “in the coming weeks.”

Original Article (August 14th, 2020): Now simply named Venues, an early access beta version of the social VR app is currently rolling out. The app is being released to only a few users at this time though, so you may not find that big blue ‘Download’ button on Venue’s new Oculus Store page.

Although likely still a work in progress, many of the avatars appear to be very similar, if not identical, to the ones seen in Facebook Horizon promo material.

Facelift notwithstanding, Facebook is still using Venues for social live event viewing, including sports, concerts, and standup comedy. Although we haven’t had a chance to go hands-on yet, the Beta Early Access version seems to include a more robust avatar creator and multiple environments, including lobbies for informal chats and more intimate viewing areas for groups.

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Notably, Venues still requires a Facebook login, something that seems to have created a backlash from users on the original app, which may explain its nearly a [2/5] star rating. That’s unlikely to change, as Facebook Horizon inevitably brings Oculus users ever closer to the mothership.

Neither Facebook Horizon nor the new Venues have general release dates yet, so there’s no telling how the two will hook into each other. We’re hoping to learn more at Oculus Connect 7, which will be held digitally this year.

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