Anyland is a social VR experience focusing on worldbuilding and avatar creation tools that allow you to create interactive experiences while in VR. They’ve also implemented an open sharing feature that makes it easy to collect objects from the world and share them with other people. Stephanie Mendoza is a VR developer and artist who has spent a lot of time creating worlds and exploring the gift economy dynamics within Anyland, and I had a chance to capture some of her stories and social experiments.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR
Stephanie talks about the social status that comes with discovering bugs and glitches, documenting her adventures of agency expression and interactions with trolls, and how VR has been helping her have lucid dreams that have featured Anyland’s worldbuilding user interfaces.
Brettspiele haben eine lange Tradition und bereits 2600 v. Chr. versammelten sich die Menschen und spielten das Königliche Spiel von Ur oder Senet. Auch heute sind noch Klassiker wie Schach, Dame, Mühle und Co. sehr beliebt, doch neuere Konzepte setzen häufig auf unzählige Elemente, Gadgets und Effekte, um die Spieler auch im digitalen Zeitalter nicht zu langweilen. Mit Quizmania soll nun ein Brettspiel über Kickstarter realisiert werden, welches VR als Highlight bieten wird.
VR-Brettspiel Quizmania
In Quizmania wird ein Cardboard genutzt, um 360-Grad-Bilder anzuzeigen. Wenn ein Spieler auf einem VR-Feld landet, muss er das Feld scannen und anschließend sein Smartphone in das Cardboard einlegen, um die Hinweise im VR-Bild zu erkennen. Durch diesen Kniff ist es den Entwicklern möglich, dass Spiel stets mit neuen Inhalten zu versorgen, denn die Bilder werden wohl nicht in der App gespeichert.
Auch die Felder für die gewöhnlichen Fragen werden mit dem Smartphone gescannt und anschließend beantwortet ihr die Frage auf eurem Display. Aktuell versprechen die Erfinder, dass es nicht passieren kann, dass ein Spieler die gleiche Frage mehrfach beantworten muss. Durch die App können die Entwickler also zusätzlich auch dafür sorgen, dass das gesamte Spiel spannend und fair bleibt. Zudem werden dem Spiel 45 Action Cards beiliegen, die die Runde etwas auflockern sollen.
AltspaceVR held its final official Good Bye gathering on Thursday, August 3rd after announcing last week that they had run out of money and their investors decided to not invest any more. News of the social VR platform’s closing rippled throughout the VR community over the past week, and some are wondering if it’s any type of bellwether about the overall health of the VR ecosystem. There have been a number of discussion threads on Oculus subreddit, Vive subreddit, and Twitter that had employees chiming in on imminent plans and the challenges of dealing with trolls and harassment in VR.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
I dug through my archives of unpublished Voices of VR interviews to pull out a discussion that I had with AltspaceVR’s Amber Roy in March 2016 talking about the platform’s JavaScript SDK that she was working on at the time. She ended up leaving the company in July 2016 to go to work at Oculus on the React VR framework, but this discussion we had before GDC 2016 highlights the technical innovations AltspaceVR made with integrating web technologies within their social spaces. The platform may have been too early with their three.js integrations as WebVR will be finally officially launching on Firefox this August with the release on Chrome hopefully coming later this year.
At the end of this podcast wrap-up, I share some of my reflections and lessons learned from AltspaceVR including if optimizing for both mobile & high-end PC was too limiting, the potential importance of more robust options for identity expressions and world building, the importance of virtual economies being built into large social VR applications, and the challenges around harassment in VR. I also compare and contrast AltspaceVR with other social VR applications including Rec Room, VRChat, High Fidelity, Anyland, BigScreen, JanusVR, Facebook Spaces, Project Sansar, vTime, WebVR, and Decentraland. Amber also talks about her AmberVR YouTube channel where she plays GearVR games, and the importance of promoting mobile VR applications.
AltspaceVR was a pioneer and innovator in the social VR space creating the first bridge between mobile VR and high-end VR, and they published a video of community members sharing their favorite memories within AltspaceVR:
Here’s my previous six Voices of VR interviews with AltspaceVR since May 2014:
Yesterday was the final official day of AltspaceVR. After hosting a big farewell celebration in which hundreds of people logged on to pay their respects, exchange information with friends, and bask in the final moments of time in the virtual world, the servers are slowly phasing out. Eric Romo, CEO and Co-Founder of Altspace has reportedly opted to keep them running a little bit longer and it’s unclear when/if they’re officially dead, but regardless it’s officially in the sun-setting period as a shell of its former self.
AltspaceVR, at least for now, is no more, even if it is still live in a lessened state.
During the final night I logged on one last time and spent time interacting with, listening to, and observing people as they said their goodbyes to friends and talked to former employees about what the future holds. You can watch the highlights in the video embedded above.
In the video a former AltspaceVR employee named Travis (presumably Audio Lead/Sound Designer Travis Fodor) is seen discussing what the application’s closure means for the future of social VR.
“I’m at home in my underwear filing for unemployment,” says Fodor. “I’m not kidding, I don’t know what we’re doing. We fired up a couple of our servers but we are definitely in low-power mode right now. It’s pretty awesome we’ve been able to have a couple hundred people in these events with literally nobody working it at all.”
But even as sad as everyone is, he urges people to stay positive. “The internet was founded on a bunch of failed startups, so Altspace may be going away, or this instance of what is Altspace…but you’ll be seeing us all again soon in pieces I’m sure,” says Fodor. “No worries in the long run. You guys have a really important job to do, I hope you guys go onto these other platforms and continue to build communities. Unless you build communities then investors won’t pay for those companies to keep going. Example A is us. So make sure you keep building communities, keep spreading the word, keep getting your friends to buy headsets, or else this is not going to work and I really do mean that…The last thing you want to do is stop coming and meeting with each other.”
For me personally, AltspaceVR was important. It was one of the first applications I wrote about in the VR scene when I played Dungeons & Dragons in VR and I’ve always had a special fondness for shared virtual spaces like MMOs and social meetup places such as these. I met my wife in an AOL chatroom when we were teenagers over a decade ago and we recently talked about what it would have felt like if AIM had its plug pulled while we were actively talking on a daily basis while using it. Other options became popular eventually like Yahoo Instant Messenger and Skype, but in the moments following a closure, not having a comfortable daily place to visit feels devastating.
Similar to Star Wars: Galaxies, City of Heroes, Asheron’s Call, and countless other large-scale MMOs that are no longer active, when a virtual world like this shuts down it’s different than when an offline world stops getting updates. These spaces aren’t just there as games or as experiences you try and move on from. These are real spaces and worlds that people occupy, exist in, share, and live inside of together. When they go down, entire worlds are erased. You can revisit a classic N64 or PlayStation game, but you can never revisit a virtual world that shuts down.
When you meet someone in Altspace it’s different than meeting them on Twitter, or Reddit, or a forum. You’re hearing their real voice, watching their real mannerisms with head and hand movements. You can feel someone’s shyness, or excitement, or sadness when they talk to you. Watching people share memories and reflect on their time together in Altspace on the final day was heart breaking.
In the video above, Altspace put together a collection of memories from users. “I have actually made friends in Altspace that I’m closer to than I am with friends in real life,” states one user. “Altspace got me into virtual reality itself and opened my mind to a whole new level of communication and community,” says another.
One user you can audibly hear struggle to get the words out. “I…I just…I get choked up thinking I’m not going to be able to just jump in and talk to my friends. [Altspace] was me going out with my friends every night.”
During the final night I even witnessed impromptu chants and protests. For the most part, people seem to be in agreement that migrating the community to VRChat is the way to go.
Even if a new, better, more feature-rich replacement space pops up or evolves over time, AltspaceVR’s importance won’t be forgotten. We all have a tendency to assign significant emotional attachment to places that we associate with strong memories. When I think about my first kiss, I remember exactly where we were and what my (now) wife was wearing. When I think about the first time I played a video game (Super Mario Bros. 3) I vividly remember the room I was in even though I was only two or three years old.
When I think about the first time I hung out with other people in VR, I’ll remember AltspaceVR, as will countless other people.
The VR community has been reeling ever since the news broke last week about the impending end of AltspaceVR, one of the very first online communities focused on virtual reality. Due to financial troubles, the company is shutting down the service at 7PM PT tonight, on August 3rd, 2017. As one last final goodbye for the fans the company has organized a “Farewell Party” that will last for the application’s final two hours from 5PM PT until 7PM PT tonight.
AltspaceVR’s closure marks one of the first shut downs we’ve seen of an online virtual space. It’s also been widely regarded for the past year or so as one of the best and most flexible ways to meet up and interact with people online in virtual reality.
If you’re interested in being around for the program’s final moments then make sure to log on this evening and see it off into the sunset.
What are some of your favorite moments from the past couple of years that AltspaceVR has been around? Did you use it mostly on GearVR and Daydream, or on the Rift, Vive, or something else? Let us know down in the comments below!
Facebook Spaces has enjoyed something of a muted launch. Released in Beta back in April, the company has quietly been adding new features to the platform while keeping marketing reserved; we haven’t seen it even mentioned on the social network itself yet. Despite its subdued presence, Facebook says that Spaces is “on track” for its internal targets.
That’s what Head of Social VR Rachel Franklin told me when I asked her about the app’s performance last week, but she insisted that Space’s purpose right now wasn’t to grow a huge user base but instead help its creators to learn what makes it tick.
“What we were hoping for is that people would understand just that core bit that we’re trying to go for which is, “Hey you can feel like your present with somebody that you can’t be with that you actually care about and feel like you’re getting a meaningful connection from it,”” Franklin said. “That was that was really the impetus for putting it out early because obviously there’s so much more to do and add features to it and to make it way better but we put it out and just to gauge the reaction.”
For now, Spaces’ success is more defined by stories rather than stats. Franklin tells me about one can that uses the platform to call his Mom from inside VR as she prefers to talk to him as a virtual avatar. “She could actually see his body language and he could bring up photos of what he’d done that day and they could bring up photos of his hometown that he hasn’t visit [in years] and they could feel like they were actually there together.”
Going forward, Franklin says the team wants to hone in on what the user-base is telling them about through about actions and words. “Part of that is people saying “Hey, add more, make more of this” which to me is a great sign because it means OK we’ve got a great kind of core there that we can build on,” she said.
While Sansar, developed by Second Life creator Linden Lab, is billed as a social experience just like AltspaceVR and others, it’s got a unique hook that it hopes will turn into the app into a platform for plenty of new VR content. Users won’t just be able to meet up and hang out in virtual spaces but also build their own worlds using assets from an online store. It’s that creation element that Sanser is opening up for others to test today.
Sansar wants everyone to be able to build their own worlds, not just those with development experience. In its limited preview, the beta saw more than 1,700 creations from its 2,000 users making the virtual worlds they’ve dreamed of exploring. Over 50 users, represented as virtual avatars, can explore these worlds together. Earlier this month Linden Lab announced that it was integrating IKinema technology for natural avatar movement within these worlds.
People that make their own assets will be able to sell them on a digital storefront for Sansar Dollars — which can then be cashed out on PayPal — with the ability to monetize entire worlds coming later down the line. Building worlds is done outside of VR, but then you’ll be able to head into them using your Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.
Take a look at the video below showing how just one of many creators is already using the platform.
This beta will be free for all, though users can get additional creation capacity and customer support for a monthly subscription fee of $9.99. This week Linden Lab will be hosting a range of events to showcase the power of its platform, including tours of certain worlds, a chance to meet celebrated astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and even the chance to shoot virtual hoops with an NBA star.
We’ll be eager to see how Sansar performs in its early days, especially in light of last week’s unfortunate AltspaceVR news.
Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world Second Life, is today launching successor Sansarinto open beta, this time built for the VR era. Though based on much of what the company has learned from running Second Life over the last 14 years, Sansar isn’t exactly a sequel, and instead takes a new approach to virtual worlds.
While Second Life was built as one giant world, Sansar’s architecture is more like a platform. On it, “creators” can host virtual worlds and experiences for others to visit, though those creations are not plopped down in one continuous virtual space; instead they act more like discrete, interconnected virtual environments which can be accessed by browsing the world’s Atlas’.
Each virtual world in Sansar is also its own entry point into the platform. Whereas Second Life asked users to go through one front door, every creation in Sansar will have its own dedicated link which can be shared anywhere and serve to direct someone to a specific experience within Sansar.
Image courtesy Sansar
Sansar has been in closed beta for several months now, and today the platform is opening its doors to all. With support the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows PCs, the so called “Creator Beta” already includes hundreds of places to visit, and offers users the ability to try their hand at making their own.
For novice creators, Sansar allows for drag-and-drop editing, enabling you to craft basic scenes with assets purchased from the Sansar Store. More advanced creators will be able to import assets from “common 3D modelling tools,” thought we’re not sure exactly which are supported at this time.
Each world can host around 35 players simultaneously before automated instancing kicks in to create clones of the world to be able to effectively reach “unlimited audiences,” Linden Lab says.
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Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
Image courtesy Sansar
The company’s business model for Sansar is to let people visit worlds on the platform for free, but charge creators who want to host more than three experiences. Creators too will have mechanisms available to “sell, rent, or charge for access” to earn from their creations. Though still in Beta, Linden Lab is already offering paid tiers for hosted experiences starting at $10/month for five hosted experiences.
That’s a major shift from Second Life’s business model where users rented virtual real estate in the virtual world, allowing them to build in that area of the map.
AltspaceVR was one of the first (now among many) social VR platforms. The app brought people together into shared virtual spaces to talk, play, and share. The platform was host to a range of mini-games like disc golf and sketch off, branded games like Dungeons & Dragons and Boss Monster, and was built for the community to host virtual events.
This week the company announced it would be shutting down on August 3rd after it ran out of venture capital and was unable to secure the next round of funding.
Posting the same message on Facebook and Twitter, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is apparently seeking opinions on whether or not he should save AltspaceVR from shutting down. Luckey’s tweet included a Yes/No poll which at the time of writing stands at 62% Yes, and 38% No, with six days remaining.
Should I try to save @AltspaceVR? (caveat: may not be possible)
Luckey adds, “caveat: may not be possible,” likely implying that the logistics of saving the company might be more complicated than a simple cash infusion.
AltspaceVR co-founder “Cymatic” Bruce Wooden responded to Luckey’s tweet asking him to get in touch if he’d like to talk.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey on stage at Oculus Connect 2015 | Photo courtesy Oculus
Luckey was the founder of Oculus when the company sold to Facebook for $2 billion in cash and stock. Since the acquisition, Facebook’s stock (which made up the bulk of the value in the transaction) has more than doubled. Forbesestimates Luckey’s net worth at $730 million, though it isn’t clear if Luckey’s consideration of ‘saving’ the company would mean him bankrolling AltspaceVR himself.
Luckey’s offer is especially interesting given that his former employer, Facebook (now the owner of Oculus) is making moves in the social VR scene. The company launched Facebook Spaces earlier this year, a place for small groups of Facebook friends to hang out in VR, share pictures and videos, and communicate with friends outside of VR through Facebook Messenger video calls. Facebook Spaces, and other competition in the social VR sector, likely chilled the feet of investors who might have otherwise funded AltspaceVR’s next round of venture capital.
This evening AltspaceVR has announced it will be closing its doors for good on August 3rd. Founded in 2013, the social VR platform was one of the first to come online and connected tens of thousands of users monthly across a range of headsets.
AltspaceVR sent an announcement of the platform’s shuttering to Road to VR by email this evening.
It is with tremendously heavy hearts that we must let you all know that we are closing down AltspaceVR. The company has run into financial difficulty and we can’t afford to keep the virtual lights on anymore. This is surprising, disappointing, and frustrating for every one of us who put our hearts into AltspaceVR. We know it will probably feel similarly for you.
We know many of you have created vibrant relationships in AltspaceVR, so please use the next few days to connect with those friends and hopefully find another way to stay in touch.
Among what’s now a fairly vibrant range of social VR platforms, AltspaceVR had an early mover advantage, opening it’s doors long before the launch of the consumer versions of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The app would eventually be supported by those VR headsets and more, including a monitor-mode for those without a headset.
AltspaceVR brought people together into shared virtual spaces to talk, play, and share. A major part of the company’s early strategy involved an open SDK which would allow developers to use web technologies like JavaScript to build experiences which would extend and interact with the social platform. The platform was also host to a range of mini-games like frisbee, branded games like Dungeons & Dragons, and was built for the community to host virtual events. It also included a browser capability which let users browse the web together.
In addition to community events, the company also hosted their own marquee events, bringing the likes of Drew Carey, Reggie Watts, Janeane Garofalo,Bill Nye, and many more into the virtual world to interact and perform with a virtual audience from around the globe.
According to the company, some 35,000 people used AltspaceVR each month, with users spending on average 35 minutes per day inside the social virtual world, and large events bringing in thousands of attendees. So what happened? The company explains:
“We’re a venture-backed startup. We had a supportive group of investors that last gave us money in 2015. It looked like we had a deal for our next round of funding, and it fell through,” the announcement of the platform’s closure reads. “Some combination of this deal falling through and the general slowness of VR market growth made most of our investors reluctant to fund us further. We’ve been out fundraising but have run out of time and money.”
According to Crunchbase, AltspaceVR has raised nearly $16 million in venture funding over the course of its run, and from significant investors too, like Comcast and Tencent.
Though 35,000 users monthly isn’t anything to sneeze at, the company had yet to begin monetizing the platform, meaning it was relying on venture capital runway to continue building the service. Without being able to raise more money, there’s no way to “keep the virtual lights on,” as the company put it.
So the AltspaceVR platform itself will close its doors on August 3rd, but what about the company itself?
“We’re not really sure yet,” reads the announcement. “The amazing people that worked at this company created some awesome technology – things that we think will be foundational to the future of social VR. We’d love to see this technology, if not the company, live on in some way, and we’re working on that.”
The company plans to host a “final farewell party” on the 3rd, the culmination of which will officially bring the platform to a close; the precise timing of the party is not yet known. More details, including an FAQ, can be found in a Goodbye blog post on the company’s website.
AltspaceVR
