With the recent update, the community has been worried about a full NSFW/nudity blanket ban for all content, even in private instances. However, I am worried that a potential blanket NSFW ban like has been theorized would actually, truly kill this game. Beyond the personal judgements, there are many who have found lifelong partners, gotten married, and started lives from the social expression in this game, and sexuality is a healthy part of adult social interaction.
My proposal (an all-or-nothing proposal):
content rating in G/M/AO format like Second Life
An NSFW (AO) content access dlc, like CVR
Mandatory parent account/parental control for <18 players, which locks them out of M+AO content
More aggressive monitoring of player age reports, possibly with a separate report line (a la Discord Trust & Safety)
I think these additions would make the game much safer for everyone who is on it, and would reduce the issues with grooming and underage exploitation the game currently has. A LOT of alarm bells can go off a LOT faster if these things were in place, especially since it can be easy to age someone based on behavior and voice, and notice when they’re somewhere they shouldn’t be. It would also increase safety inherently for clubs and groups.
Of course, there is no solution that can keep children completely out of an online space. It becomes increasingly apparent, however, that limiting consenting adults from certain forms of social interaction online and completely sanitizing a chat platform has historically never, ever been the answer. I know there are those in VRC Team who have heard personal accounts on how the game has used to foster deep and lasting bonds.
This solution, I believe, would be thorough enough to protect VRC legally, as well as protect children in general.
I agree. No thought was put toward the adult user-base who wants more than a game targeted at squeezing money out of children - like Roblox.
For the people who have long distance relationships or have partners who travel for work; VR Chat was the best way to experience that kind of intimacy when apart.
There are many various approaches to how mature content could be addressed in VRChat, outside of a flat ban on it, which many in the community do not want, the first step of course is age verification.
Allowing mature content requires there be a verification system in place, this way you can only allow those who have been age verified to view/use said content. The verification method would be ultimately up to the Devs but there are many options available and this is not the focus of this Post.
With Age Verification in place, there are two methods I can see being best specifically for VRC:
Incorporating a ‘Mature’ option in Unity, any body part, texture, or other that is mature in nature can be marked as ‘Mature’, via a tickbox or naming convention, the client/servers can detect and filter appropriately, with of course a PG alt texture slot available.
These parts would be disabled/not visible in public instances or non-verified clients, and even for those verified an option to disable mature content could be added onto the UI.
Much like we currently have a ‘Quest Backup’ avatar that only quest users see, why not have a Mature avatar, with PG avatar backup which non-verified users see.
These kind of solutions would allow people who wish to see or display adult content to do so openly, and those who are not age verified or do not wish to see it to not be able to. It doesn’t address the whole issue, voice for example, but it would be a big step up from the current, and not divide the community by simply banning it.