What is the roadmap looking like for VRChat in 2024 and beyond?

Hey VR Chat family,

Hope everyone’s doing well! :milky_way: I’ve been a part of VRChat for about 7 years now, and I gotta say, it’s been an amazing journey seeing how this platform has evolved over the years.

So, I’ve got a few burning questions on my mind about the roadmap for VR Chat in 2024 and beyond. Specifically, I’m curious about the impact of mobile on the platform. Surely this is going to have a huge impact quite possibly more than even the PC and Quest side.

I’m also interested in is the possibility of increasing the quantity of users per world on a more consistent basis. I mean, special events are great and all, but it’d be super cool if we could have larger gatherings more frequently. Is it just a matter of beefing up processing power, or could communities and organizations pitch in with their own hosting power to make it happen?

And speaking of making things happen, let’s talk about the financial system. I know there’s been some beta testing with creators, but what’s the holdup in rolling out this system to everyone? Also, are there any plans to reconsider the percentages for creators? I mean, compared to other platforms, the current setup feels a bit… well, let’s just say less than ideal. It’d be awesome if VR Chat could offer something more competitive to help creators thrive, something at least at parity with the systems we use to commercialize our VRChat content currently which provide a much higher percentage of return that what VRChat has proposed.

VR Chat has acquired a cool $95 million in funding through the most recent Series D of $80 million in 2022, which is seriously impressive. But hey, investors aren’t exactly known for their infinite patience, right? So, what’s the plan for the future? Are we aiming to keep growing independently, or is there talk of joining forces with a bigger player like Valve, Meta, or Google? Just curious to know what the long-term vision looks like.

Anyway, I just wanna wrap this up by saying a huge thank you to the VR Chat team and our amazing user community for all the hard work you’ve put in. Seriously, you’ve created something truly special here, and I’m grateful to be a part of it. Can’t wait to see what the future holds!

Cheers,

Annias

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Hey, can’t help but notice it’s a little quiet in here. Any responses would be welcome @ VRChat folks.

The VRC Teams doesn’t always respond.

For the roadmap, you can check what they have on the canny page at https://feedback.vrchat.com/

For the financial, i think they are working on the individual payment system so people can do tips for events to someone or a creator.

For all the money and partner thingy, they will probably not reveal those kinds of information randomly.

For the world cap, that’s usually limited in the first place to avatars being super heavy anyway. And they push updates to limit that in the latest update. https://ask.vrchat.com/t/developer-update-14-march-2024 I know Tupper experiments sometimes an increase for words.

Hope it helps you a little bit.

Anecdotally I haven’t noticed any mobile users out in the wild yet. I assume they would look like desktop users with the mobility they have, but have Android tag

I’m beginning to believe the glory days of VRChat are past us. I have no real data to go by (they don’t actually post data do they)? But I see a) disillusion creeping in from the outside and b) nothing really being done from the inside.

I do not speak for everyone (clearly) but we don’t need more mirrors, pens, stickers or avatar slots. I’m a plus subscriber and seriously considering just dropping it. I get nothing for the money that could be considered remotely useful.

More importantly I see no indication that anything remotely useful is on the horizon. The feedback system here is near the top of the worst list and I’ve been using the Internet since before it was a thing. I spent $12 per hour to access CompuServe (in the 80’s) because I thought it was worth the money. Estimates put the adjusted cost at $45/hour in today’s money.

I’m close to predicting that some other entity will step up to challenge VRChat. I don’t know who and I don’t know when. We’ve seen lots of examples of disruption over the decades and VRChat could follow in the footsteps of Sears when Amazon gets into the game.

Correct me if I’m wrong but recent public announcements by VRChat highlight their restructuring of their management hierarchy. That is always a clue… getting more managers that don’t use the product into positions that decide what gets put into the product.

And avatars and emojis sounds like a good idea to them because that is what their 12-year old nieces and nephews are talking about.

I could be wrong (obviously) but I’ve been in the IT industry for more than 40 years and I can usually smell when trouble is brewing.

What sort of data are you thinking about? If you don’t want to trust thier data on users online, there are numbers from steam.

I do think that world persistence is going to change things.

I am curious as to why you’re attributing mirrors and pens to VRChat, I do find pens quite useful sometimes but the world’s have them.

Most companies don’t publish the numbers and Steam wouldn’t know if I installed it, if I’m a plus member, etc. Don’t they only know about sales by Steam? So are those numbers increasing, decreasing or steady over time? Is it an “installed” count? Check on AltSpaceVR it isn’t running any more but the installed count is steady.

I haven’t suggested that mirrors and pens are the only things present, clearly they are not. There are lots of user suggestions about improving pens and the updates have included new (or more) emojis and basically “silly” things when so much more could (easily) be offered.

I’m doubtful that persistence will have any meaningful impact but we don’t have to speculate. If you know where the data is available we can views the changes when persistence arrives.

But this isn’t a pure numbers game, businesses with large user bases have gone under in the past. Software installs isn’t the measure of success any more than the number of Blockbuster video stores indicated how they were doing.

So perhaps you can address the OP’s questions. How is the creator community stuff going? Do you have any sales figures?

If the mobile app was cool wouldn’t there or shouldn’t there be a YouTube video (or two) demonstrating it? If I wrote such an app you can be sure I would include the link and perhaps even start a thread about it.