Tag: Chart

UPDATED! A New Comparison Chart of 15 Social VR Platforms (Last Update: April 9th, 2024)

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

I have—finally!— had an opportunity to update my Google spreadsheet of social VR platforms, removing those which are no longer around, and adding a few new ones since the last update, which was several years ago. Please note that this spreadsheet is focused solely on metaverse platforms which support virtual reality, i.e. social VR. If a platform is flatscreen access only (e.g. Second Life), it is not included in this spreadsheet.

Please also note that I will no longer be writing about any metaverse platform which incorporates blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and/or Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

If you are associated with any of these social VR platforms, I would appreciate it if you could please check the entries in the following spreadsheet for any omissions or errors. I will eneavour to keep this spreadsheet as up-to-date as I possibly can. Thanks!

Also, you will note that I have a long, long, alphabetical list of potential social VR platforms which I am planning to add to this spreadsheet, located at the very bottom. If you know of any other social VR platforms that should be added to this list, please contact me with any pertinent details (name of platform, company building it, website, etc.).

Thank you for any assistance you can provide!

Comparison Chart of 15 Social VR Platforms © Ryan Schultz, Published to RyanSchultz.com (Google Sheets version)

Please note: any changes made to this spreadsheet are done in real-time, as information comes in; this link will automatically update every five minutes.

Comparison Chart of 15 Social VR Platforms © Ryan Schultz, Published to RyanSchultz.com, Date of Last Update 9 April 2024 (PDF version)

Comparison-Chart-of-15-Social-VR-Platforms-Last-Update-9-April-2024-Sheet1Download

Please note: this PDF has to be generated by hand, and I will only do it once per day, near the end of the day, if there have been any changes made that day, Therefore, you should consider the Google spreadsheet link to be the most up-to-date content!

UPDATE April 17th, 2024: Upon request, I have slightly updated the Google Sheets spreadsheet so that the column header text now always displays at the top of your screen, even when you scroll down! This means you don’t have to keep scrolling up and down to figure out what a spreadsheet cell value refers to.

Thank you to Mat of the XR Live Discord server for the suggestion, and the explanation of how to set it up! I learned something new today. 🙂

UPDATED TO VERSION 1.3! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A New Comparison Chart of Seven Options for Free or Inexpensive Female Mesh Bodies (Including Senra Jamie)

Now that Linden Lab has launched the beta version of its Senra mesh starter avatars, I decided to take a stab at creating a comparison chart, comparing and contrasting six options for free or inexpensive (L$250 or less) female mesh bodies. (I will probably follow up with a similar chart for free/inexpensive male mesh bodies, female mesh heads, and male mesh heads.)

The six seven mesh bodies I have chosen for this chart are:

  • Senra Jamie, by Linden Lab (UPDATE March 16th, 2024: These are now out of beta test, and finalized to version 1.0)
  • Erika Zero X, by Kalhene
  • Atenea, by LucyBody
  • Classic Meshbody (often referred to as TMP)
  • eBody Classic (free version)
  • eBody Curvy (free version)
  • UPDATE Aug. 4th, 2023: After some hemming and hawing, I have decided to include the open-source Ruth 2.0 mesh bodies in this spreadsheet. You can find a list of vendors for Ruth 2.0-based mesh bodies here (scroll down to the Ruth2 section). While clothing specifically designed for Ruth 2.0 bodies is limited, with a good set of BoM/system alphas, some Maitreya Lara clothing and standard-size clothing does fit.

UPDATE March 15th, 2024: You used to have to pay to join the Erika Mesh Body group to pick up the free group gift of the Erika Zero X mesh body, but you can now join the group for free! I have updated my comparison chart to version 1.3 with this updated information. This is a lovely female mesh body which responds very well to the body sliders, allowing you a wide variety of body shapes, from thin and slim to “thicc” and curvy!

For each mesh body, I look at the following:

  • Price
  • Bakes on Mesh support
  • Bento support
  • Feet options and compatibility
  • Mesh clothing compatibility (please note that all Bakes on Mesh bodies support BoM/system layer clothing; here are some places where you can find those)
  • Mesh clothing availability (obviously a subjective estimate!)

You can view (but not edit) version 1.3 of my comparison chart here on Google Drive. I am open to suggestions for improving this chart, and I expect to keep it (somewhat) updated as the situation evolves over time. If you have any corrections, edits, or suggestions, please leave a comment, thanks!

Here’s a snapshot of version 1.3 of the comparison chart, which you can view and download in full size over on Flickr if you, like me, find the fine print a little too small:

Comparison Chart of Free and Inexpensive Female Mesh Bodies 16 March 2024

Please note that I have deliberately excluded some mesh bodies, for example, the free Altamura bodies you can pick up at various locations (because you cannot change the skin, and you cannot use Bakes on Mesh with them). I have also left out those bodies which have poor or even non-existent third-party designer support. An example of this would be the Ultra Vixen mesh body, which is now only free to avatars under 30 days old and—as far as I am aware—only has clothing that fits it, which is made and sold by the body’s creator.

Looking forward to hearing your comments and suggestions!

Which Social VR Platform Has Been the Most Successful at Raising Money?

Image by Capri23auto from Pixabay

There’s been a very interesting discussion taking place today on the RyanSchultz Discord server. One of the regular contributors to the many conversations that take place there, Michael Zhang, pulled together the following information from Crunchbase:

Today I Learned: Building social VR, MMOs, and virtual worlds are a lot more expensive than I imagined!

From Crunchbase:

-High Fidelity raised $72.9 million over five rounds and is struggling with their recent pivot to enterprise.
-Rec Room raised $29 million over two rounds, $24 million only recently, so they lived off of $5 million for several years.
-Altspace raised $15.7 million over three rounds, went bankrupt and shut down, then revived when bought by Microsoft.
-Bigscreen raised $14 million over two rounds.
-TheWaveVR raised $12.5 million over three rounds.
-vTime raised $7.6 million over one round.
-VRChat raised $5.2 million over two rounds.
-JanusVR raised $1.6 million over two rounds.
-Somnium Space raised $1 million over two rounds.

In comparison:

-Epic Games raised $1.6 billion over two rounds, $1.25 billion coming after Fortnite.
-Mojang’s Minecraft launched in 2003, started making profits in 2007, earned $237.7 million in revenue by 2012, and sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. (Wikipedia)
-Roblox raised $187.5 million over seven rounds.
-Linden Lab’s Second Life raised $19 million over two rounds.

Then, another contributor named Jin put together this graph to illustrate how successful the various social VR platforms have been in raising venture capital (please click on this picture to see it in full size on Flickr, or just click here). As you can see, High Fidelity is far and away the leader in raising money!

Social VR Platforms Raising Money

(In comparison, Decentraland raised 24 million dollars in their initial coin offering. Jin also made a second chart including Decentraland, but I have not included it here because, unlike the other platforms, it does not currently support VR, and it is unlikely to do so anytime in the near future.)

Thank you to Michael Zhang and to Jin for their work!

Comparing Blockchain-Based Virtual World Projects

I am still monitoring the various blockchain-based virtual world projects via their discussion forums on Telegram. In particular, there’s been a lot of chatter lately about the Mark Space project, which I still regard with a high degree of wariness. They may have made some cosmetic improvements to the spaces you can build, but I still don’t think they’re terribly appealing compared to what you can do in Sansar, High Fidelity, etc. Here, see for yourself:

However, a member of the Mark Space team posted the following table to their Telegram channel, comparing their product with other blockchain-based virtual worlds, which I did find of interest:

While I am already familiar with Decentraland, I’ve never or barely heard of some of these other projects before:

  • district0x
  • Metaverse (now there’s a poorly-chosen name!)
  • Cappasity
  • Spectiv
  • Prosense
  • Matryx

You know what that means, don’t you? It’s time for me to go do some investigating and exploring again! I’ll report back on what I find, and just how accurate this chart is.

I leave you with this vague and mystifying promotional video for Mark Space, which makes me wonder what exactly the company is spending their money on—an actual virtual world, or slick advertising to bring in more investors? This sort of thing raises all kinds of red flags for me.

Or, if you really want to see something trippy that pretty much has absolutely nothing to do with the actual product, check out this promotional video for Cappasity!

The level of insanity in this market is breathtaking.