How the VR-game VRChat became a social phenomenon
Let’s go back to summer 2016. Niantic studio Pokemon Go AR game was a megahit then. Tens millions of young people armed with smartphones walked the streets of cities around the world — all for the sake of “catching” rare pokemons. The popularity of Pokemon Go, however, plummeted a few months later — now Niantic is preparing a similar product, but already in the “Harry Potter” universe. Meanwhile, his Pokemon Go appeared in the VR industry — VRChat application from the studio of the same name. Let’s talk about the success of the game in more detail.
VRChat: steps to popularity
VRChat is a social multiplayer game, grounded under the virtual reality headsets Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. You can join the project without them, but the “diving effect” with a flat picture, of course, you will not achieve. VRChat is available only in the Steam Internet store, while for the time being the developers are not ready for the “early access” program — the final version of the project.
VRChat appeared on Steam in February 2017 and for a long time stayed beyond the breadth of mass. In many respects it resembles an MMO from the early 2000s. Second Life. VRChat — a kind of virtual world with dozens of mini-worlds / levels for every taste — what kind of entertainment people like. Some arrange a disco, the second perform with a microphone in a bar, others play on a tropical island that allegedly imitates the East African country of Uganda. The requirement of voice communication is mandatory, otherwise how else will you communicate with VRChat users? Or rather, with their three-dimensional avatars. In VRChat, by the way, a sound system is implemented, taking into account the distance — as in real life, someone who is far away from you, you simply will not hear. Strangely enough, comical videos with gameplay of the game have on YouTube good performance on views.
To date, VRChat on Steam has downloaded over 2 million people. The number of positive reviews on the product page is about 9 thousand. At the same time in VRChat during the last month about 7 thousand users play, judging by the statistics of steamcharts.com. How did it happen if, before December 2017, VRChat installed less than 400 thousand times?
The reason is obvious — memes and a wave of publications in social networks and thematic resources, as in the case of Pokemon Go. Among the most popular characters VRChat — deformed Knuckles, red echidna from the series “platformers” about the hedgehog Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog). It was created by YouTube-blogger Gregzilla in early 2017, and the 3D model was much later produced by Tidiestflyer, user DeviantArt.
Now modelers of Knuckles were flooded with VRChat — echidna run around and say the same phrases with an African accent: “Let me show u da wey”, “Do not know da wey”, “She is da queen” and some others. Most of them are borrowed from the amateur Ugandan militant of the Wakaliwood studio called Who Killed Captain Alex, which has become the source for many Internet jokes. Initially, “Ugandan memes” popularized the community of the shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but they got the development of VRChat.
The first jump in public interest in the VR-game happened at the end of December — as a result, the audience grew several times in less than a month. VRChat sells themed products like T-shirts, one after another clips about the project makes the most popular YouTube blogger PewDiePie, people on the forums write that 2–3 hours in VRChat convinced them to shell out for the headset Oculus Rift / HTC Vive. Of course, part of the community is toxic (this is the problem of many over-the-top online games like Dota 2), however, the developers try to fight it — in order to ensure that no one is offended by newcomers. In particular, a group of moderators, who follow the order in the worlds-hubs of VRChat, was established. Other measures are planned.
The VR market
To date, the Ugandan Knuckles is the most recognizable meme of the gaming industry. It is unlikely that the VRChat developers intentionally planned a marketing strategy related to it, most likely, they were just lucky.
Generally, the creation of games on VR is a complex and costly business, it’s not for nothing that the market is carefully probed by famous studios from the category of Epic Games, CCP Games, Crytek, Ready at Dawn and so on. They share the statistics extremely reluctantly. According to SteamSpy, on Steam only a few adapted for VR projects overcame the milestone of a million downloads (mostly about 5–10 thousand units). The first such game, which brought authors over $ 1 million, was the recent shooter Raw Data from the American studio Survios. 90% of developers are engaged in marketing applications on their own, which probably leads to modest sales. According to some sources, the average cost of developing a VR game is $ 70,000. In 50% of cases, the authors manage to return the investments.
Our company VRT World is aimed at launching a global marketplace for VR with a handy SDK and API, as well as an emulator that allows testing the software for compatibility with various virtual reality headsets. This will lead to a significant reduction in costs. And increase profits — because the marketplace will be based on the block, with a transparent distribution of income between the developers and the platform and the minimum commission.
The second goal of VRT World is the organization of a network of VR-parks throughout the world. In part, it has already been implemented — since December in Moscow, operates a park Z8, plus partners sold licenses to open 30 more parks in Europe. The maximum program is the launch of 170 such establishments in Asia, North America and Europe for four years.
Obviously, these plans are not feasible without adequate investments. That’s why VRT World intends to go to the ICO on February 27 — March 27, “hardcup” — $ 16 million. The pre-sale of the platform tokens confirmed the investors’ interest in the project — in total about $ 1 million was received. The blockchain-based marketplace with a set of useful tools will reduce the cost and speed up production of VR-games, meanwhile the network of parks will make virtual reality massive. The efforts of VRT World will lead to a real revolution in the market — VR will become firmly established in the gaming industry, and will not rely solely on “hype” and memes, as it was in the case of VRChat.
