Endless Riff is another social VR app I discovered via the Social VR subReddit community. It describes itself on its website as follows:
Think of Endless Riff as a virtual music community. You can hang with your friends in VR around the music you love. See shows wherever you are. The experience starts on our own island in your own private RV. From there, teleport to festivals, venues, and see artists up close and live. We are building it so we can all come together and rock on. Get ready!
The software is currently available for Gear VR, Oculus Go, and the Oculus Rift, with future support planned for HTC Vive, iPhone, Daydream and Sony PSVR. So I decided to download the Oculus Rift client and give it a spin.
When I started the program, I spawned on a sunny beach just outside a music festival, where I had to register my email address using a virtual keyboard in my VR headset (something I always hate having to do). Then I selected one of six starter avatars and entered the program.
I appeared inside an RV on the beach, where a video screen gave me options. I selected a concert that said it was currently underway (“Live Now!”), and it teleported me to a 3-dimensional bar scene—with the band called Belly playing on a flat videoscreen! It’s quite obviously not live, and it’s not 3D either. All I could do is move my avatar around the bar space while the video was playing. I couldn’t figure out how to exit the bar and return to the RV, and eventually, I had to shut down the Endless Riff software client using the Task Manager in Windows. Not a very impressive first impression at all.
They do have a list of upcoming events, where I assume you can watch live video performances within the app. But really, what’s the point of doing this in a VR headset? I’d rather watch video on my PC screen or on my iPad.
The entire Endless Riff platform appears to be nothing more than fancy window dressing for a music video delivery service! I’m so disappointed.