I’m not sure it was a wise decision to put Age Verification behind VRC+.
I know that age verification isn’t free, but I think it would have been wiser to just have an upfront one-time fee when going to verify your age. Putting it behind VRC+ has (probably unintentionally) confused and scorned a whole lot of users. They seem to be under the impression that you must maintain an ongoing VRC+ subscription to keep your age verification.
Having overheard countless conversations in the last couple of days alone regarding people being angry that it is locked behind VRC+, I would like to suggest you reconsider this approach. I, myself, know I can subscribe for a month and then verify my age, and that would function like a one-time payment, but the confusion and negative PR received from this is not ideal.
It is a little more understandable as a temporary step in the testing phase, but keeping it as such, I think, is not the best course of action.
Agreed!
Looks a bit weird with it being taller. A few of the header bars should probably also be adjusted, the Launch Pad saying “Hi, {username}” with the reports menu being next to it looks a bit weird for example.
If payment is deemed necessary for age verification permanently, maybe add a clear one-time fee specific to age verification, that is included with any purchase of vrc+.
At any time a user can pay to age verify without ever having vrc+, or alternatively if a user currently has vrc+ or has had it in the past, they have their fee waived.
We’re saving so much time and uploading to every content build version with one button click with this one
For real I am super excited to automate the most painful part of uploading. Also the new menu looks great. The sheer amount of tabs down below was staggering XD. Happy it’s getting changed.
Hiding age verification behind VRChat+ forces it to become a functionless bumper sticker. Most adults are unlikely to get verified, and minors pretending to be adults can hide behind the argument that they just didn’t want to pay. Additionally, any other functionality that could be tied into verification, like content gating, becomes completely impractical to implement as a result. This completely undermines the entire goal of this system in the first place.
Furthermore, unless I’m mistaken, there was no word of the verification system — something we’ve known about for a while now — being part of VRChat+ until, suddenly, it was… and now it could potentially remain that way forever? This is a failure of communication and/or coordination at best, and could be interpreted as downright deceiving.
You can’t waffle about when it comes to something that has such broad ranging implications.
Feels a bit shady to imply it is coming to everyone in prior posts and thumbnails only to now say “but maybe not”. The less people have Age Verification, the less effective it is for its purported purpose. I understand not wanting to eat the fee for everyone, but if you actually care about the system, there’s no point in half-measures. You’re kneecapping it at the starting line.
Not to mention it was explicitly stated when plus was first being made you do not want to create VRC+ only instances as it would potentially fracture the community. If this is left as a + only feature, you are just doing that with an extra step.
Let’s hope we can keep chipping away at menu improvements as time goes on (and hopefully an eventual total redesign again, but with more research and user feedback testing).
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The system was kneecapped out of the gate. It was never going to accomplish it’s desired purpose effectively due to it’s nature and required privacy invasion, and it also puts the company in a less than ideal position with it’s business partners.
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They probably saw their books and realized the costs and measured it up to the business politics, adoption etc. VRChat doesn’t really have a lot of money to throw around at things, hence they’ve been focusing on becoming economically viable.
…My honest opinion on Age Verification is that it is a large endeavour that doesn’t really solve what it sets out to solve, and also adds a business risk into the mix. I’m pretty sure they ended up adding it because of constant begging for it over years and recent slander media, and this was in response to that as appeasement.
They should have been more transparent though, if they were, people would be more understanding and respecting. information transparency stocks are up these days considering current cultural shifts.
Frankly it always has been and was always going to be kind of a functionless bumper sticker. A “cool kids” badge, a “look at me i can do naughty things” tramp stamp.
I’m confused by this new UI design and the stated designed reasoning behind the changes.
First of all the image of the “current tabs” looks nothing like what I see either in VR or on desktop, is this the mobile UI? I see roughly half of the tabs in game compared to the screenshot in this post. The screenshots all being different resolutions also makes it very hard to get a direct comparison between the two.
Secondly the “universal header” seems to be much smaller and denser then the current UI tabs, and eliminates the extremely important audio tab and with it the ability to quickly enable headphone mode.
Third how are “VRC+” and “Marketplace” a more “core component” then notifications and settings? I constantly change avatar culling and audio levels based on different activities and get notifications frequently. VRC+ is something you use maybe once or twice a month and Marketplace interactions happen organically when they are relevant in a world or looking at an authors content.
Forth you say the icons were “muttled” and hard to understand for new players but use the exact same icons with no added clarity for the new UI. How does this improve the player experience?
That’s interesting… but who is that avatar in the banner? Maybe we could change our avatar to an OC or use an avatar from a VRChat account photo and display it instead.
We aren’t saying that it isn’t coming to everyone!
It could come to everyone, for free – it also might not. We do not know right now, and aren’t willing to say one way or another, because a decision has not been made.
What we do know is that during our initial testing, demand for Age Verification was so great that since it started, the one question folks kept asking us more than any other was, “How do I get in?”
We wanted to let more people in, but we wanted to:
a). Do so in a controlled way, allowing us to monitor the data about the system methodically; and…
b). Do so in a way that wouldn’t be financially irresponsible for VRChat as an entity!
Tying it to VRC+ is a way for us to do these things for now. Likewise, as someone else pointed out in this thread, it is possible to verify, cancel, and keep your verification, effectively making it a one-time $10 charge.
I’ve been subscribed to VRC+ for as long as it was available, and I think Age verification requiring VRC+ subscriptions would effectively create the “VRC+ Only Instances” many people hoped would not happen.
That alone I feel is a reason enough to not require the VRC+ Subscription in the long term, if at all possible.
(It would also allow for “Only Seen by VRC+ Users” avatars, if the content system is to eventually be tied to it, which again, does not seem like a good idea to me if it requires payment)
The avatar in the thumbnail is Lasyusha by Keenoo. It is one of a series of avatars we have licensed specifically for use across different images and marketing material. You’ll see this one and many others pop up regularly in our material soon.
Playing with the idea of offering age verification only for plus subscribers is a completely wrong idea. In many ways, such verification is necessary and very important. Last but not least, it can also protect clubs from malicious players. It is very likely that people will look for alternatives to VRChat if only plus subscribers are considered for verification. This verification has been long awaited.
It’s very understandable wanting to roll out age verification slowly. Once most of the VRC+ members who want it have it, if you find room in the budget I think a great next step would be to give VRC+ subscribers an invite code or something that we can send or hand out to our friends, like once a month, i can invite someone to get age verified for free. That way, your userbase can make thoughtful decisions about where the most value is in rolling this out, while helping us to take care of those users who are flat broke and keeping our communities united.
The updates to automate building across multiple platforms look great. Echoing thoughts that i hope there’s a straight forward way to select different avatar objects in scene for mobile vs desktop class platforms, but even without that, reducing iOS and Android (and whatever comes next) to one step is nice to have.
