Hey! I’ve recently come across Derafrog’s video talking about VRChat world creation and was particularly interested in the part of the video talking about World Categories. World creators and users in the video mainly agree that the categories are redundant and only focused on popularity.
Inspired by big’s post, I would like to start a discussion about such. While this is part of a bigger problem; World Discovery, I want to focus in on world categories in particular and the discussion of the actual usefulness of them, how to improve them, and anything under the “world category” umbrella.
Feedback posts regarding World Discovery
Trending/Hot Section is hurting ambitious Worlds
World Discoverability Worsened
In the August 17th 2023 Developer Update, VRChat mentioned that they’re doing some experimenting around world category changes, and that leaves us with the categories we have today. There haven’t been any updates since.
How can VRChat improve the world categories?
If you expand below, I comment on every world category and my ideas for new categories and improvements.
How I would improve world categories
Current Categories
VRCat’s Variety Box
When Main Menu 2.0 went into open beta, many world creators expressed that they felt world discoverability was made worse. VRChat’s band-aid solution to this was VRCat’s Variety Box, a worse version of its previous prototype: Explore Worlds.
Its goal is to act like a launch pad for the rest of the categories on the page, but it basically works as a glorified and worse random page. I don’t think I’ve ever used it or anyone else for that matter, and the fact that it is the default category when clicking the world page is not good. I think it should be removed entirely.
Trending & Popular
What is going on here? These categories are basically the same thing, what is the difference? They even share the same banner. Just keep the trending category and get rid of popular.
I think the category is good overall, but the worlds in it stay the same. I don’t believe some of these worlds have been “trending” for years.
Avatar Worlds
At the time of writing, I’ve noticed that there is only Avatar Worlds - Trending now. Before they were “new” and “random” variants of it, I’m glad they are removed, they served no purpose.
Why there even is an avatar worlds category is beyond me since we know the community doesn’t care for them, they rather use the avatar search worlds instead. I’m fine with the “Avatar Worlds - Trending” tab being available until VRChat adds a native avatar search feature.
Games - Active
I think this is a great category, the only complaint that I have is that it needs to be moderated more. There are worlds in here that are not game worlds!
New & Noteworthy
This is the best category VRChat has, and it’s one of the new ones too! Highlighting these types of worlds are great, it’s basically a curated new category.
Spotlight
The Spotlight categories for each platform are another great category. The 2 flaws I have with it, is that it doesn’t get updated, and the PC spotlight has cross-platform worlds in it, which it shouldn’t. The worlds in these categories haven’t been updated in years!
Community Labs
This tab will exist until Community Labs gets removed or reworked. I like the category, but as of late, I haven’t been checking it out.
New
A simple concept, just the new worlds that graduated from Community Labs. I think it’s good, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets removed in a couple of years time.
Updated Recently
Another simple concept, same opinion as the new category.
Random
See above.
Categories they should bring back
Active
The Active My Platform, Cross Platform should be brought back. This is what the popular category should be like and with the added benefit of seeing what’s active between platforms. (Feedback post)
New categories ideas and reworks
Yearly Rewind
The premise of this category is to be released during the month of December, highlighting the most popular new worlds of the year.
Ability to change the default category
There should be a way to change what category is shown to you when first opening up the world tab. (canny soon™)
Save searched
A pretty hidden feature of VRChat is the ability to save a search, when you save a search, a category appears in the “My Worlds” section with the saved search. My suggestions to improve this feature is to remove it from the “My Worlds” section and move it onto the main list with the option to have it sorted by popular and not relevance. Also, make it scroll infinitely. (canny soon™)
Top Earning
This will probably be my most controversial opinion. But this category will just be sorted by the worlds which are earning the most from CE. And it will probably benefit VRChat in the long run.
Conclusion
Well, that is all I have to say about this, thanks for reading. 
But my opinion is subjective, and I would love to hear other users thoughts on how world categories should be. Thanks for reading!