Tag: Twitch

A Quick Guide to the VRChat Communities on Discord, Twitch, YouTube, and Other Social Media (Plus a Couple of Directories of VRChat Maps/Worlds!)

After writing up my recent blogpost about the Second Life blogging and vlogging community, I decided to investigate what social media exists around another popular social VR platform/virtual world, VRChat, which I have been writing about for four years now on this blog.

Blogs

To my surprise, there’s very little in the way of blogging about VRChat; my Google searches consistently pulled up only two blogs which discuss VRChat regularly, my own blog, and Wagner James Au’s venerable blog New World Notes, which has branched out from its original coverage of Second Life to write about other virtual worlds (here’s a link to all of my VRChat posts, and a link to all of Wagner’s).

Discords

As for Discords, there are any number of popular Discord communities:

There are also the following Discord servers, which have a VRChat section or channel:

Directories of VRChat Worlds

As I have written about before, it can be difficult to find good directories of VRChat maps (i.e. worlds) to explore (other than the Worlds listing in the VRChat client itself).

There is a Japanese-language website called The World of VRChat, a website directory for VRChat worlds (if you turn on Google auto-translate in your Chrome web browser, it works well enough). I don’t know how up-to-date it is kept, however, and I have been unable to find any other website directories like this one.

The World of VRChat Website

Also, VRChat user CatRazor has created a very useful Discord server called VRChat Maps, where users can post their favourite maps to various channels. Check it out!

The VRChat Maps Discord server

If you know of any other VRChat map/world directories which exist outside the VRChat client, please drop a comment, thank you!

Of course, it was the Twitch and YouTube livestreamers who first brought attention to VRChat, so it only makes sense that the overwhelming majority of the social media out there about VRChat is on Twitch and YouTube.

Twitch

There’s a very active VRChat community on Twitch, with dozens of livestreamers. Your best bet is to go exploring, and see whose content appeals to you!

Just a small sample of the VRChat streamers on Twitch

YouTube

There are hundreds of people who regularly post videos about VRChat to YouTube. Feedspot maintains what it claims is an up-to-date list of the most popular VRChat YouTubers, but I have discovered that many of the people on this list haven’t posted VRChat videos to YouTube in many months, if not years (for example, Nagzz21 is listed, but he stopped posting videos about VRChat a year ago, citing the U.S. FTC’s COPPA legislation).

There are so many VRChat videos on YouTube that it is possible to create subcategories! For example, there are many YouTubers who focus on slice of life or “man in the street” interviews:

Here’s a couple of examples of YouTube videos from iListen and iamLucid, to give you an idea of the content you can expect in these interview videos:

Other VRChat videos tend to be edited or unedited recordings of shenanigans happening on the social VR platform. Your mileage may vary; some of funnier or others, but overall it comes down to your personal sense of humour. Here’s the results of a keyword search for “VRChat” on YouTube; dive in! If you’re looking for the most popular VRChat videos, start here (but be warned; some of these are not for the faint of heart!).

Do you know of any resources which should be listed here? If you know of a Discord server, a YouTube channel, or a Twitch channel, or some other social media that should be included in this blogpost? Then please feel free to leave a comment, thanks!

NeosVR on Twitch: Cheerful Chaos Reigns

I’m going to say this again: NeosVR is a social VR platform to watch.

NeosVR recently started a series of Twitch livestream broadcasts where Nexulan plays the role of genial host, gently herding a group of avatars from place to place within NeosVR to demonstrate various cool experiences and features. Tomáš Mariančík (a.k.a. Frooxius), the extremely talented software developer who is building NeosVR, comes along for the ride. They’re doing this to gain followers on Twitch and promote awareness of their social VR platform.

Nexulan

Among the amazing things demonstrated on the most recent livestream were:

  • a working grappling hook to allow an avatar using it to swing from place to place like Batman or Spiderman;
  • a planet launcher that launches custom-designed mini planets into space, where the planets have gravity and you can actually run around the entire circumference of the planet (including being upside down at the “south pole” from the perspective of other users);
  • an actual milkable cow—you pull on the udder and the milk fills a pail!

The livestreams really show off the capabilities of the platform. There’s a wonderful sense of cheerful chaos (even anarchy at times) in these videos. It looks like fun, and it makes me want to explore NeosVR more!

If you’re interested, you can download the software for free from Steam. They also have an active Patreon page, where they are pulling in almost $2,000 a month in donations from supporters!

I leave you with a relatively recent 4-minute promotional video for NeosVR, narrated by the lead developer Frooxius. I’ve posted this before, but it’s worth watching to get an overview of the project if you’re new to it:

If you are interested in following the development of this project, you can follow NeosVR on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, or you can join their Discord server.

Are Bounty Programs the Future of Virtual World Promotion?

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You can be a Bounty Hunter like Dog!

As many of you already know, I am a participant in the Virtual Universe (VU) Initial Coin Offering Partner Program. In exchange for writing regular blogposts about VU and cross-posting them to different social media, I get paid in VU tokens. (It’s currently the only way I can earn tokens before VU launches later this year.) This is a good example of a bounty program, in which volunteers get paid in in-world currency for undertaking various tasks.

I just recently learned that Decentraland also has a bounty program in place through Gitcoin, in which they pay users in MANA for such tasks as creating video tutorials, writing blogposts, and talking about the Decentraland project at game developer events.

And Linden Lab is now participating in Twitch’s new Bounty Board program in order to further promote the Sansar platform:

Bounty Board is a way for creators to browse and accept paid sponsorship opportunities (AKA bounties) directly from their Twitch dashboard. With Bounty Board, Twitch handles the relationship with the brand and finds sponsorship opportunities for you. Twitch will also handle your payments, so you can concentrate on streaming and growing your community.

We’re kicking things off with a closed beta with Partners in the U.S., where we’ll be experimenting with bounties from Twitch and select game developers. Every few weeks, we’ll be onboarding groups of randomly-selected Partners from the waitlist as well as some targeted Partners based on the specific bounties available.

And of course, High Fidelity has been paying participants in their monthly stress testing of the platform. In two months, I have already earned two $20 VISA cards I am planning to use on Amazon to buy some books for myself!

Bounty programs seem to be popping up all over! We might be seeing the start of a trend here. If you’re interested in promoting your favourite virtual world, check to see if your preferred platform has a bounty program in place. You may as well earn some in-world (or even real-world) currency while you’re at it!

Twitch, YouTube, and VRChat

According to a recent online article by Polygon, a website that covers the gaming industry, The social VR world VRChat has attracted a lot of attention recently because of YouTubers and Twitch streamers:

Considering that VRChat is only available on Vive and Oculus Rift, the player base is still limited. The reason VRChat has skyrocketed in popularity is because of YouTubers and Twitch streamers who have brought attention to the game. One YouTuber in particular, Nagzz21, uploads near daily videos with his time in VRChat. These include weird dating scenarios, oblong takes on popular gaming avatars, drama happening between players and groups in VRChat, and exploring all the different realms.

His videos have become so popular that VRChat Inc. has subscribed to him and promoted a view of his videos.

Unlike Sansar, which has focused so far on human avatars, VRChat (like High Fidelity) allows users to create non-human avatars (which requires some level of technical skill). The Polygon article notes:

Watch any VRChat video and there’s one thing that sticks out: It’s chockfull of characters that you already know. There are strange versions of Spongebob Squarepants, Pickle Rick from Rick and Morty, an assortment of Pokémon and too many anime characters to name.

This is one of VRChat’s biggest draws. Using a combination of character models, VRChat Inc.’s software development kit and Unity, players can create their own (unauthorized) avatars based on other popular figures from games, television, anime and movies.

…Multiple characters from popular culture, including Hank Hill from King of the Hill and Pikachu from Pokémon, can be seen interacting with one another. Players are able to pet Pikachu and Pokémon trainers can be seen in the distance. Much of the game’s appeal comes from players recklessly mixing and matching characters from various franchises and assuming their persona, virtually. Think cosplaying but without the expensive costume and in the comfort of your own home.

Obviously, this feature is a massive draw for some people. I’ve even had one Facebook commenter state that she will be making avatars for VRChat exactly because of that freedom to create whatever kind of avatar she wants, rather than create for Sansar. Of course, there is rampant IP theft happening in VRChat; the lawyers are going to have a field day if somebody tries to sell a Pikachu or Mickey Mouse avatar! Right now, it’s the wild west in VRChat, and everything is being given away for free.

Anyway, I thank what Sansar really needs is a few Twitch or YouTube livestreamers with a sufficiently large audience. For example, the phenomenally popular YouTube personality PewDiePie has posted a video of his VRChat adventures that has pulled in 2,828,337 views so far!

Of course, PewDiePie has over 58 million subscribers and makes millions of dollars from his YouTube channel! If I were to start YouTube livestreaming in Sansar, I would not have nearly the same pull! So the key here is not to get just anybody to start livestreaming Sansar. The key is to get a livestreamer with a large audience to start playing in Sansar.

As I have mentioned before, High Fidelity has already started a handful of livestream shows to promote their social VR world. To date, none has quite taken off like the VRChat streamers’ shows, but hey, at least they’re trying their best.

Of course, Drax and Strawberry’s Atlas Hopping remains relatively popular, and both Strawberry Singh and Draxtor Despres livestream each episode to YouTube. And just this month, Sam and Boden Linden launched another planned monthly show where they visit and comment on Sansar experiences. It’s a promising start.

So, what do you think it would take to get someone like PewDiePie to visit Sansar and livestream it? Anybody have any favours they could pull in??