Platforms for People #8
Briefs on Social VR in the Metaverse
Social VR Platforms . . . . . . People . . . . . . Companies . . . . . . Society
Guest Article
Learning a Second Platform, and a Third, and a Fourth, and …
November 12, 2021
I am a middle-aged man experiencing life as a kid again, even healing old life wounds with a crash course in mindful presence.
VR-1, a Tiny Taste
I put on a VR headset for the first time in 1992. I remember throwing ping pong balls at another player when a Pterodactyl
swooped in and carried me away. Next thing I knew, my 2 minutes were up and the guy was saying, Hope you had fun! Next in line.
I knew I would be doing this again sometime.
VR-2, Games
I didn’t know it was going to take 25 years, but it was worth it for apps like Moss, Zombie Training, In Death, Call of the Star Seed, and Half-life Alex
VR-3, People
I found one app called Altspace that wasn’t really a game. It was real people looking like cartoons in unreal worlds.
I met people there. I talked to a guy with a thick Brooklyn accent who told about a VR concert where he got to be in the front row for the first time ever. Another guy showed me a maze world together but when I tried to solve it, I fell through the floor and never found him again.
VR-4, Meditation
Two years later I went back and noticed a big menu full of events. Meditation? In a VR headset? I joined, got hooked, and I’ve now logged about 1000 hours during Covid.
It feels like all the best parts of being in school again. Meeting so many people, making so many friends and learned so much, all compressed into a short period of pandemic time.
VR-5, What’s Happening Now
I don’t know how the whole Metaverse is going to develop. I don’t think anybody does in spite of how much they say they do.
But my time on one social VR platform, Altspace, has made me curious. There are dozens of other places where people can connect in VR — what else is going on?
I set my self a goal. Sign up, install and check out as many social VR platforms as I can in one binge. Here’s my first few stops, more later:
1:00pm Help Club
Less than 15 minutes to set up, get oriented and find a meeting scheduled for later that evening, when I still hoped to be binging.
1:30pm Engage
These avatars are super lifelike, not cartoony but rather look and move more like real people.
There were two events going on, but the chemistry class was locked and the other one meant figuring out a ticket system. So I went to a premade world with a chess board set up in a park next to a river. It was lovely but lonely, no one there.
Engage does feel like a place where you randomly meet people. You go there for a purpose.
2:00pm Rec Room
The orientation was a bit lengthy and did not prepare me for anything that was about to happen.
If you have not experienced “gamer culture” this place will give you a crash course. In the first minute there was
- music blasting through the avatar next to me
- a young person speaking in a burp voice
- another person singing a song they were making up
- spawn camping, which blasts people when they are not ready and is considered not-cool
- and swearing, a lot of it
Without knowing any rules or controls I ran into the thick of this environment filled with trees and buildings dodging arrows and rocks and bullets. Lots of people saying random things but no one talking to each other or explaining the rules.
I would say the average age is about 8–13 and the world is pure madness. It was also fun, but I also have game roots that prepared me for what was going on.
- by Codey Baker
I like Social VR because of People. Do I Need to Care about Jake Paul and Bloktopia?
November 12, 2021
That’s a, “No, but …”
If you are interested in social VR because you like to connect with people and that’s basically it, stop here.
If you are also interested in VR as a test bed for new business relations, new social relations, and new methods of governance — all of those themes are being played out in Bloktopia.
Worlds come and go fast, especially crpto plays, but Bloktopia feels different. It is an impressive virtual space, but unfortunately not for Quest and mobile headsets. In time.
Meanwhile they have a nice 21 million story skyscraper that is something like the Library of Alexandria for all things crypto. There are anchor tenants. It is a place and it has presence.
It also has star power. You can say what you want about Jake Paul, but he’s no flash in the pan.
He was famous on Vine at 17 and infamously axed by Disney by the time he was 20. Didn’t slow him down. He’s a draw. People are interested in him. It’s interesting that he and his brother Logan turned to boxing. They’re not terrible.
Bloktopia has a list a primo crypto investors most of us have never heard of. Most of us have heard of Jake Paul. That turns out to matter.
There are many entries in the Metaverse derby already. Codey Baker visited just a few in his binge and generally enjoyed them all. What will differentiate them?
Not just celebrity. Engaged celebrities who take what they do seriously. That will be part of it.
/Platforms for People #8 — previous issue, Platforms for People #7
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The Social VR Platforms, Companies, People, and Society tabs at the top of the article are linked to our growing base of very brief, right-to-the-point pieces about social aspects of the Metaverse.
Platforms for People is currently produced by Tom Nickel. I welcome contributions and expect that a publishing collective will emerge.
