using Marvelous Designer (picture taken Oct. 10th, 2019)
I realize that this very long list (with now over 160 entries!) can be a little overwhelming, and I do apologize for its current state. In 2023, I do plan to reorganize it by category to make it easier to navigate, but it is a rather time-consuming task, like herding cats. Please bear with me; the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has thrown a monkey-wrench into this project!
The following spreadsheet covers what I consider the “Top 16” most popular social VR platforms (and yes, “popular” is subjective):
For an updated and expanded comparison chart of the features of sixteen social VR platforms, please click here. Please note that the original version of this spreadsheet was compiled in November 2019 and it is now definitely out of date, and also note that this chart was partially updated by Dr. Fran Babcock in November 2021—thank you to Dr. Fran Babcock for her assistance! I will be updating this spreadsheet in 2023, when I have time.
UPDATE March 6th, 2021: If you are looking for a searchable directory of VR/AR/MR/XR products for corporate collaboration, have you checked out the Directory of Collaborative XR Platforms, which aims to be a central repository of detailed information about XR collaboration products and platforms? I aspire to organize and categorize this list to such an extent as the XR Collaboration website!
UPDATE March 18th, 2022: I have discovered yet another list (and accompanying detailed infographic) by a consulting company called Metaversed, called The Metaverse Directory: Virtual Worlds from A to Z. I quite like the way Metaversed has organized and categorized its inforgraphic, in a way which is strikingly aligned with my own way of thinking about the topic! More information here.
I will be keeping this list of virtual worlds, social VR apps, and metaverse platforms up-to-date as I cover both old and new products, as a sort of comprehensive index to my website (you can find definitions of these terms here).
Please note that there are two categories of metaverse platforms which I will not endeavour to cover on this list:
- Products aimed at the teen/tween market (mostly on mobile devices, e.g. IMVU); and
- Purely sexually oriented or “adult” virtual worlds and social VR
Why? Well, I’m not interested in either category, and I will the herding of those particular categories of cats to other people 😉 I’ve got my hands full as it is!
As well, from now on, I also will no longer be writing about any of the “buy a virtual piece of Earth” blockchain projects (e.g. SuperWorld)—here’s what I think about all of those projects. I believe that all of these projects are, at best, ill-advised investments, and at worst, outright scams to part people from their hard-earned cryptocurrency.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Although I have mentioned and written about a number of virtual world/social VR platforms on this list which DO incorporate blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), please note that I have, up until now, tended to focus only on those projects which ALREADY have an actual working platform, where you can create an avatar to visit and explore NOW: NeosVR, Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, and Somnium Space. I have not really written much about projects which have yet to launch, because frankly so many of them are vapourware!
However, given the current burst of enthusiasm for all things blockchain/crypto/NFT and metaverse (particularly after Facebook/Meta’s repivot to become a metaverse company in October 2021), I will endeavour to expand my coverage of such platforms in 2022.
UPDATE March 28th, 2022: I have decided to separate out the metaverse platforms incorporating blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and/or Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) into a separate category on this page, to make them easier to find. Please scroll down to the bottom of this list, or CLICK HERE.
And please remember to do EVERY. SINGLE. SCRAP. of your research before investing a penny in ANY blockchain/crypto/NFT project! Caveat Emptor!
You might also be interested in my new list of non-combat, open-world exploration and/or puzzle and/or life simulation games. For example, Fortnite recently launched Party Royale Island, an open-ended, non-combat extension to the phenomenally popular online game, as a means for gamers to socialize and a venue for concerts.
UPDATE August 18th, 2020: In response to this press release, I am personally boycotting Meta (formerly known as Facebook) products and services, including the Horizon Venues, Horizon Workrooms, and Horizon Worlds social VR platforms. However, I will still write about them on this blog—just not from a first-person perspective. More information here. I am DONE with Meta, and I refuse to come back unless the company reverses its decision to force its VR headset users to have accounts on the toxic Facebook social network. (FURTHER UPDATE, June 30th, 2023: I have purchased a Meta Quest 2 wireless VR headset for work, to evaluate the unit for possible addition to a virtual reality lab project I am working on for my university, and my review of that device is here.)
List of Social VR/AR and Virtual Worlds Which Do *NOT* Incorporate Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, and NFT Technology
Platforms marked with an asterisk (*) support users in VR headsets. Please note that in some cases, VR support is experimental or still in beta.
Platforms marked with a dagger (†) are those still-rare platforms which support users in augmented reality (AR) headsets, such as the Microsoft Hololens or the Magic Leap One. Please note that I do not consider cellphone-based “AR” (e.g. Pokémon Go) to be true augmented reality.
- Aardvark*
- Acadicus*
- Active Worlds (the granddaddy of all virtual worlds, launched on June 28th, 1995, and now twenty-seven years old!)
- Alcove VR*
- Alloverse* (not yet available)
- AltspaceVR* (UPDATE Feb. 6th, 2023: AltspaceVR will be shutting down on March 10th, 2023.)
- Anarchy Arcade*
- Anyland*
- Apertus VR*
- Art Gate*
- Arthur*
- Atom Universe
- AvaCon
- Avakin Life
- Avatar Chat† (formerly called Social; the first social augmented reality app, for the Magic Leap One headset)
- AviLife (not yet available)
- Bean VR* (which appears to have closed down)
- Beloola
- Bigscreen*
- Blue Mars (now closed, as far as I know)
- Breakroom* (by Sinespace)
- Capsa*
- Cheerio*
- ChilloutVR*
- Cisco Spark in VR* (Cisco shut down this project in October 2018)
- Cloud Party (officially closed in 2014 after they were bought out by Yahoo!)
- Cluster*
- Community Garden* (now closed; as of Oct. 30th, 2018, this platform has been merged into Somnium Space)
- Core
- Dance Central*
- Dimension10*
- Districts* (not yet available, as far as I can tell)
- DiveReal*
- Dream*
- Dreams (a game and world-building platform for PlayStation)
- Dual Universe (I would classify this as an MMO/MMORPG instead of a virtual world)
- Edorble*
- Elysium VR* (not yet available)
- EmbodyMe*
- Endless Riff*
- ENGAGE*
- EpicLive* (not yet available)
- Eventual VR*
- Ever, Jane
- The Expanse*
- Facebook Spaces* (which closed on October 25th, 2019)
- Flowtropolis* (not yet available)
- ForeVR*
- FRAME*, by VirBELA
- Fundamental Surgery* by FundamentalVR, a surgical training platform
- Galaxity*
- Gather (a 2D virtual world with video and audio)
- Geekzonia* (which appears to have closed down)
- Glue*
- Guru Gedara*
- Half + Half*
- Helios*
- Help Club* (a new social VR platform for peer-based mental health and addiction intervention and support)
- HEMOSY and Project Polis* (still in early development)
- High Fidelity* (the pioneering social VR platform, which shut down on Jan. 15th, 2020; please note that the New High Fidelity is a completely separate product, a 2D space with 3D audio, which launched on May 22nd, 2020, and has been implemented on a number of metaverse platforms)
- Hoppin’*
- Horizon Venues* (formerly called Oculus Venues; for Gear VR, Oculus Go, and Oculus Quest users)
- Horizon Workrooms*, a collaborative VR platform for remote workteams launched by Facebook on August 19th, 2021, for the Quest 2
- Horizon Worlds* (formerly known as Facebook Horizon; now open to the public aged 18+ in Canada and the United States)
- Hypatia*
- Hyperfair VR*
- Immersed*
- IMVU
- Inlight Spark*
- InsiteVR*
- InWorldz (This grid closed on July 27th, 2018.)
- Islandz Virtual World (the successor to InWorldz; closed in February 2019)
- JanusXR* (formerly known as JanusVR)
- Jel
- Kitely (an OpenSim grid, which has also announced that they are working on a fork of the open-source High Fidelity software code)
- Lavender*
- LearnBrite*
- LivCloser (intended to be an adult virtual world, from what I can tell)
- LiveLike*
- Manova* by XRSpace
- MasterpieceVR*
- meetingRoom*
- MeetinVR* (not yet available)
- MegaCryptoPolis
- Metrix VR*
- Mozilla Hubs*
- Museum of Other Realities*
- Myst Online: Uru Live (although I would classify this as an MMO/MMORPG rather than a virtual world)
- Nanome* (a social VR platform for molecular design in chemistry)
- NeoWorld
- Neutrans*
- New Art City
- NOYS VR*
- Oasis* (an adult virtual world, now closed)
- Oasis* (different from the first Oasis, a Chinese platform akin to VRChat)
- Occupy White Walls
- Oculus Home*
- Oculus Rooms* (which closed on October 25th, 2019)
- Online Town (a 2D virtual world with video and audio)
- OpenSim based virtual worlds (e.g. OSGrid); here’s a list of active OpenSim grids
- Overte* (a free and open source social VR platform based on the original High Fidelity source code)
- Oxford Medical Simulation*
- Pararea*
- Planet Theta* (not yet available)
- Playable Worlds (not yet available)
- Pluto VR*
- PokerStars VR*
- Prospect*
- Raspberry Dream Land* (currently invite-only)
- Rec Room*
- Redpill VR*
- REMIO* (a full-service social VR company for business)
- Relm (a browser-based virtual world for support groups, team meetings, and life coaches)
- Remotely
- NEW! Sept. 21st, 2023: Riff XR
- Roblox*
- ROND
- Roomkey (formerly called Teooh)
- RP1 (a business-to-business service offering shardless scalability to other metaverse projects)
- Rumii*
- Sansar* (a social VR platform developed by Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life; recently sold to Wookey, the platform has pivoted to focus on live events)
- SapphireXR*
- ScienceVR* (offering web-based social VR on science and literature topics)
- SculptrVR*
- Second Life (Now 19 years old, and still among the most commercially successful and popular virtual worlds to date, with approximately 900,000 regular monthly users during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic)
- Seed (an MMORPG/virtual world hybrid, still in development)
- Sinespace* (a Unity-based virtual world that supports VR)
- Skittish
- Spatial*† (a social augmented reality/virtual reality app for work collaboration)
- Spatiate† (a social augmented reality app for art creation)
- Spinview
- STAGE*
- Stageverse*
- STYLY*
- SurrealVR*
- Teemew
- Teleporter*
- There.com
- Threedium
- Tivoli Cloud VR* (a fork of the open-source High Fidelity software code, which closed in February 2022)
- Topik*
- Twinity
- Utherverse/Red Light Center (an adult virtual world)
- UXR.ZONE*
- VirBELA*
- Vircadia* (formerly known as Project Athena, a fork of the open-source High Fidelity software code; )
- Virtual Paradise
- Viveport Verse*
- Vizible*
- VR Conference* by Mixtive and Telia
- VR Triber*
- VR Trivia Battle* (formerly known as Kiss or Kill)
- VRAVO!*
- VRChat*
- VRLand*
- vSpatial*
- vTime XR* (formerly known as just vTime)
- Wave* (formerly known as TheWaveVR)
- The Wild*
- Wonda VR*
- Worlds Adrift (I would classify this as an MMO/MMORPG instead of a virtual world; they announced they were closing in July 2019)
- 3DX Chat* (an adult virtual world)
List of Social VR and Virtual World Projects Which Incorporate Blockchain Technology: Cryptocurrencies and/or NFTs
Platforms marked with an asterisk (*) support users in VR headsets. In some cases, VR support is experimental or still in beta.
Non-NFT Metaverse Platforms with a Cryptocurrency
- NeosVR* (already available; a cutting-edge social VR platform with an associated cryptocurrency called NCR, which is planned to be the in-world currency; please note that Neos does not have NFT-based virtual real estate, or use NFTs at all)
- Sensorium Galaxy* (not yet launched; this ultra-high-end social VR platform uses the SENSO cryptocurrency to purchase avatars in their online store; as far as I am aware, Sensorium Galaxy does not use NFTs)
NFT Metaverse Projects (Past, Present, and Future)
- Aether City (a dead project)
- Ceek*
- Cryptovoxels* (already launched; a blockchain-based virtual world that supports VR)
- Decentraland (already launched; a blockchain-based flatscreen virtual world, among the first such successful projects)
- The Deep (dead project)
- Ethernia (a very funny parody of a blockchain-based virtual world project; not real!)
- Hanai World (not yet available)
- Heaven Land (not available yet)
- MARK.SPACE (dead project)
- MATERIA.ONE* (formerly called Staramba Spaces; another dead project)
- MetaWorld* (not yet available; please read this investigative report from Engadget before you invest)
- MetaWorld (not yet available; yes, another metaverse called MetaWorld, this one from an Australian company! There are actually six different platforms called MetaWorld; you can find links to all of them here. Honestly, people, use some imagination!)
- Mona
- The Sandbox (a blockchain-based virtual world; not yet available, although they recently completed an alpha test of the platform)
- Somnium Space* (already available; a blockchain-based virtual world that supports VR)
- Stan World
- SuperWorld (an example of a “virtual world” where you use cryptocurrency to buy and sell virtual real estate parcels which correspond to actual, real-world locations on Earth; here’s what I think about all of these “buy a virtual piece of Earth” projects)
- Terra Virtua (a project which appears to have shifted its focus to NFT collectibles instead)
- Victoria VR (not yet available)
- VIBEHub
- Virtual Universe* (a rather promising-looking social VR/MMO hybrid with some innovative features, which unfortunately folded after failing to reach its ICO target, a rather common outcome for these projects, I fear!)
- Wilder World (not available yet)
- XANA (“coming very soon!”; not available yet)
Well, I figure this is pretty much the canonical listing of social VR/virtual world platforms. Have I missed any? It’s like Pokémon, “gotta catch ’em all”…if you have heard of one that I haven’t covered yet, please let me know via the Contact page of my blog, thanks!
