We’re trying something new! We’ve summarized the Dev Q&A from our stream VOD on April 17 2026 and documented them here, in no particular order.
Thank you for reading!
VRChat Developer Q&A — Friday Stream
Q: Avatar performance gating for group instances forces people over the limit to show as imposters. Why implement this feature versus just encouraging users to limit avatars shown in their own settings? If my system can handle it, this is just forcing me to see more imposters.
A: The motivation isn’t simply better frame rates — average frame rates are going down over time despite hardware getting better, because better hardware just creates headroom for even more complex avatars. VRChat can no longer rely on “your computer will eventually catch up.” This system is the lightest possible pressure we could apply to avatar optimization. The option to let individual users override the gating and show a Very Poor avatar was considered and rejected — if that override existed, the system would mean nothing and couldn’t actually drive optimization behavior. The hope is that if you go to an event and everyone appears as an imposter, you’ll either leave or switch to a performant avatar. This feature was requested by event runners of all sizes, not just giant clubs. The team is asking the community to try it out, see how it works, and report back if the experience feels exclusionary.
Q: An avatar that is Poor ranked only due to having a light — will it show up in a performance-blocked instance just without the light? Will the same apply to performance-gated group instances, and will the warning reflect that?
A: Light is one of the stats that can be stripped fairly gracefully without removing integral parts of the avatar. The exact behavior of the degradation system in group-gated instances is uncertain . It’s recommended to test it directly to find out how it handles.
Q: How optimized is the game right now and what are your thoughts about SlimeVR?
A: The core VRChat platform itself is pretty well optimized. The problem is the users: it’s a UGC platform, and virtually every pixel you see on screen was made by a community member, so performance depends heavily on what people upload. For SlimeVR: it works pretty well. Lighthouse trackers are still preferred, but SlimeVR and other alternative full-body tracking methods are necessary because lighthouses are nearly dead. Fluxpose looks very promising.
Q: Do you guys buy avatars from creators and wear them outside of stream? Has Tupper only ever been seen in the one avatar?
A: Tupper’s current avatar is his main, that’s what you’ll see if you run into him in VRChat. New components are coming for it soon, including the ability to remove some parts he’s not a fan of. Others on the team buy and wear lots of different avatars but tend to settle into one that feels like “them.” One team member showed off a purchased avatar called Nara by Character Bank — originally from another VR game and ported to VRChat.
Q: Will Raycast allow laser tag-like setups where the receiving user has a parameter triggered upon hit?
A: It lets you move a transform to the point of impact, which means you could enable and reposition a contact receiver. Play around and see what you can do — that sounds fun!
Q: Why can anybody steal a print from my hands, but not items?
A: A literal checkbox that wasn’t checked. No known design reason for it. Maybe it could be changed at some point, but for now it is what it is.
Q: Will we ever get an update on EAC and Shadow PC status? It’s been four months with no updates.
A: There’s an ongoing three-way conversation between VRChat, Easy Anti-Cheat, and Shadow PC, and the parties are blaming each other. VRChat could technically turn off EAC or reduce its capabilities on virtual machines, but won’t; doing so would compromise the application’s security. This has to be resolved between the other two companies. VRChat is essentially stuck waiting while that plays out. Nothing can be done on VRChat’s end right now.
Q: VRChat had content gating in the past — why was it removed?
A: Content gating was based on the age entered at registration. People started reporting that they had accidentally entered the wrong age and had no way to correct it. GDPR requires that users be able to correct their personal information, and VRChat couldn’t reliably support that at the time because the age data was too important to the gating system. Once age verification was implemented, the old automatic gating was turned off to avoid putting pressure on that compliance gap. Now that proper verification exists, the plan is to redesign and reimplement content gating properly. It’s a high priority for the trust and safety team, it just takes time.
Q: Are there any plans to have a filter for listing worlds by public instance population rather than by most recent public instance? I often have to scroll through dozens of worlds with only one private instance before finding an actual public one.
A: No current plans specifically for this filter. It’s a known annoyance but not high on any team’s priority list at the moment. Discovery improvements overall are a high priority area, so it could get addressed in that context.
Q: What’s a feature you’re excited to talk about that you don’t think most people care about — your hyper-fixation feature?
A: Most team members couldn’t talk about unreleased things they’re personally excited about. The one concrete answer was a small personal annoyance where the default VRChat home world spawn point was moved in front of the mirror (as part of a successful test to help new users see themselves on load-in), but this causes accidental avatar switches for people if they’re using an overlay. An internal debate about whether to just move the spawn point back or build a customizable spawn object has been ongoing. It’s tiny, it’s annoying, and it is one person’s white whale.
Q: Is there a plan to turn VRcredit into real money? Is there a plan to add stuff to the Steam Point Shop?
A: VRChat Credits can already be converted to real money if you’re enrolled in the Creator Economy program, but you have to go through KYC (Know Your Customer) — a standard fraud prevention process. As for the Steam Point Shop, no current plans, though the team would love to do it eventually.
Q: Would a community creator spotlight social campaign be a good idea in the near future?
A: VRChat already does a world spotlight series on TikTok, roughly one per week, and sometimes features a community rather than just a world. We also expressed gratitude for everyone who worked on Venture into the Unknown, and offered some advice: feedback is rough even when it’s positive — be careful when reading it, especially as a community-facing person.
Q: What is a feature from another social online platform that VRChat doesn’t have that you would want?
A: Multiple answers from the team on this one! Active Worlds had the ability to just drop a JPEG anywhere in the world in front of a friend’s house, which was fun. Second Life’s avatar creation pipeline, watching it develop over time, was always interesting even if it’s become a bit niche. Someone mentioned the FF14 glamour plate system, but noted that Looks (part of the upcoming accessories system) covers a lot of that. More baseline customization without needing Blender was another wish. And the concept of a single, persistent, effectively infinite VRChat world that people could just build onto freely — like Active Worlds had — would be really cool, even if it wouldn’t really work here in practice.
Q: What’s your opinion on wearing earned badges as accessories?
A: Very cool idea. Possibly one day.
Q: Why can’t I interact with the fishing NPC on mobile? Tried clicking the eagle icon and tapping the NPC itself.
A: Try clicking the hand icon when the NPC is in your reticle — that’s the standard interact button on mobile. If it still doesn’t work, join Studio Trickforge’s Discord and report it there.
Q: Do you know what the BGM for the loading cubes was?
A: It was an arrangement made in Ableton by Sai — so original music. Sai would need to give it a proper name before it could be added to the wiki.