VRChat: Escape From Reality

I N F O R M AT I O N ARCHITECTURE

HYUNGJUN CHO SEUNGBEOM HAN YUHYUN KIM T E M P LAT E BY I S S U U

S C R E E N S H O T S TA K E N BY T E A M M E M B E R S

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TABLE OF

CONTENTS 4 8 10 12 24 30 40 42 52

INTRODUCTION GAMEPLAY VIDEO DOCUMENTARY NETNOGRAPHY RESEARCH DESIGN IN-GAME INTERACTION AND OBSERVATIONS O U T - O F - G A M E I N T E R ACT I O N S A N D O BS E RVAT I O N S INTERVIEW USER INTERFACE HEURISTICS CONCLUSION

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COV I D - 1 9 AND M E TAV E RS E

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hat was once deemed as science fiction is becoming a reality before our very eyes.

As technology and connectivity rapidly evolves, so do our discussions of a concept known as ‘metaverse’. Builtin.com defines metaverse as a “persistent, shared virtual realm - like an evolved, more-immersive internet.” The internet has allowed players across the globe to connect with one another, from emails to socializing in virtual reality. With the advent of technologies such as virtual/augmented/mixed reality, cloud, and artificial intelligence, there are many who anticipate the metaverse as the internet’s next frontier.

There are many prominent games and platforms already in the market that have metaverse ambitions and/or traits.

Some examples include Roblox, which has over 120 million users, Animal Crossing, Minecraft, and even Fortnite.

These games have one thing in common, in that it brings people all across the world into a single shared virtual space, a key fundamental idea behind the metaverse.

Although none of these games have reached the level of pervasiveness and immersion of a true metaverse illustrated in science fiction such as the film “Ready Player One”, they are getting closer, and more and more tech giants and other investors are getting onboard this journey and embracing the almost inevitable coming of the metaverse.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has made physical socializing and interacting more difficult. With more people staying at home and outdoor social events diminishing, many have looked to the internet as an alternative means of socializing and for many, a haven and shelter. Online social games have seen significant rises in player counts during the pandemic and have brought discussion of the metaverse back into the spotlight.

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A BO U T V RC H AT

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nother prominent game that is frequently brought up during discussions of metaverses is VRChat. It was initially launched in 2014 for Microsoft Windows and Oculus, 2017 on Steam, and 2019 for the Oculus Quest. VRChat took over the internet in 2017, with endless related content and memes circulating online. Although it no longer has the same amount of online surface-level hype surrounding the game, VRChat managed to maintain its growth and popularity throughout the years since.

VRChat is a free-to-play virtual reality social game, where users from all around the world can take the form of fantastical avatars, join virtual world servers, and interact with the environment and other users, mainly through voice chat and VR gestures. For the most part, the game does not have an inherent story nor inherent in-game objectives like many other games, and instead rely on user-generated content. Users are able to build their own worlds and avatars using the Unity engine and VRChat’s Unity SDK. Users can do all sorts of things in the game, from simple socializing in virtual lounges to playing custom game modes in user generated maps. VR devices are recommended for maximum experience, and tracking is supported up to full body tracking including body movements, lip-syncing and eye tracking/blinking.

However, the game is also playable for those who do not own VR devices, who can choose to play on their computers with their keyboard and mouse.

V RCHAT : ESCAPE FROM REALITY

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G A M E P LAY V I D EO D OC U M E N TA RY

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video thumbnail hyperlinked

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N E T N OG R A P H Y R ES E A RC H D ES I G N

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R ES E A RC H QU EST I O N S

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ith the current global real-life society struck by the pandemic, an untact way of life has risen up as an alternative lifestyle.

VRChat serves as a very strong alternative reality, as it can be implied from its name. Therefore, we would like to observe and research how cyberspace can work as an alternate realm of interaction, and the role of user interface and experience design within virtual reality to fulfill that task better. In summary, how does VRChat serve as an alternate reality for social interactions?

R EC RU I T I N G P LA N

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he target user group we researched is non-exclusive in that much of the observations and interactions took place with players regardless of their demographic and technological attributes, for a more comprehensive and non-selective research.

However, as keyboard and mouse users ourselves and the fact that not a lot of research has gone into the non-VR device users of VRChat (whom we will from here forth refer to as “desktop users”), we also dedicated a portion of our research for desktop users as well. Because of the challenges in interviewing strangers in a game, for the interviews, we recruited some of our friends who play VRChat.

R ES E A RC H P RO C ES S

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he research methodology we abided by was netnography, the modern interpretation of ethnography, an interpretive research method through participant observation. The research processes are the following: in-game and out-of-game observations and interactions, interviews with players, and an overall heuristic evaluation of the game world. Various data was documented through journal logs, transcriptions, screen recordings, and screenshots.

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IN-GAME I N T E R ACT I O N S AND O BS E RVAT I O N S

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P R E L I M I N A RY R ES E A RC H Seungbeom’s First 2 days in VRChat

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he first thing you have to do when starting the game is to choose an avatar. Then, the game makes you complete a short tutorial, which teaches you very basic movement controls. As someone who has played a lot of FPS games, these controls felt natural. My first impression was quite positive, as it felt fresh and was a departure from the usual games I played.

The game loads you in a private area after the tutorial, a small hub where you can get a feel of the game.

You can check yourself out in the mirror, change your avatar, pick up and throw furniture, and draw in the air using markers. There are also numerous portals in the hub that teleport you to other “worlds” in VRChat.

I decided to take this time to customize my avatar. I realized customizing in VRChat (in-game) is simply scrolling through preexisting avatars and choosing whichever one you want to be. Considering how easy it is to switch avatars, and the vast array of avatars you can choose from, I realized that in this game, your avatar is not something you have to focus a lot on, as you can be one avatar one second and then another the next second. Unlike other games, your “character” and “identity” doesn’t really matter, as you can change it on a whim. For now, though, I decided to be a giant mushroom for the simple reason that it was ridiculous.

After some messing around, I browsed through the list of worlds and I entered a world called “The Black Cat”, which I learned is a cozy lounge where people just chill and hang about. I loved the jazzy music and the general cozy and warm atmosphere the lounge had. The avatars these players were using were extremely diverse. From tiny anime rabbits to giant alien monsters, the view was nothing short of extraordinary. As I approached a group huddled around a table, I began to hear voices - human voices coming out of these fantastical creatures. Based on the voices, they were mostly male, quite young, and English-speakers.

They were talking about something and nothing at the same time. It was just random spurts of sentences and ideas with equally effortless and random responses.

There was swearing, there was shouting, there was laughing. I decided to turn on my mic for the first time, turn on my mic to say a few words, “where are you guys from?” I noticed there were a couple who turned their heads, but there were no specific responses - just a continuation of the random conversations they were having. The first time I got an actual response was when I asked this medieval warrior “what are you doing?”, to which he replied, “nothing much bro.” It may have been a simple dialogue, but it filled me with so much happiness. This simple conversation made me feel like I was officially a part of the madness that is VRChat. The crazy community that made internet headlines a few years back. I may not know any of these weirdos but being a part of this small huddle in the lounge made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself.

It was not long after, I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. The 3D environment, along with the relatively narrow field of view and the occasional lags, seemed to mess with my head, and I had to quickly exit the game. The nauseating feeling did not go away after I turned my eyes away from the screen and as a result, I needed to get out and get some fresh air. I felt this was a good time to call it a day for VRChat. I may not have experienced much, but I still felt like I experienced a whole other world.

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T RY I N G T O I N V I T E F R I E N D S I N TO T H E SAME WORLD Hyungjun’s Experience

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s our team started playing VRChat for the first time together, we decided to meet inside the VRChat world. We tried to add each other on the ‘social’ tab and join into the same instance. However, I’m not certain

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whether it was a bug or I did something wrong, but we couldn’t add each other on the friend list. We tried the second option, where we chose a popular world and got into the same room and manually met each other. This option too, was not successful since only an non refreshable list of 5 of the instances were shown per person and all three of us had no common instance to join into. We had to turn off the game and re-login at the same time to finally join a common instance. Only after meeting up were we finally able to click on each other’s character and send a friend request.

Yuhyun’s Experience

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did not think joining the same instance would be that hard. The search feature did not work as I expected! Not being able to google the instance number with a world name was such a crucial factor to our failure. I wonder what the best way would be to add friends in this game. In retrospect, I guess our best shot would have been finding a world with less than 5 instances so all of the instance options pop up on our screen to choose from.

Seungbeom’s Experience

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ith the current global real-life society struck by the pandemic, an untact way of life has risen up as an alternative lifestyle. VRChat serves as a very strong alternative reality, as it can be implied from its name. Therefore, we would like to observe and research how cyberspace can work as a substitute of or supplement the real world society, and the role of user interface and experience design within virtual reality to fulfill its task better.

In summary, how does VRChat serve as an alternate reality for social interactions?

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P L AY I N G A M O N G U S I N V R C H AT Hyungjun’s Experience

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here were 10 players in the room with teenagers, or so-called ‘squeakers’ as the majority of the population, who would enjoy continuously speaking rather than listening. As soon as they entered the room, they started swearing at every ‘uncool’ thing they saw and bragged about how ‘cool’ they are. They seemed to have little understanding of how loud their voice would be to others if they put their mouth too close to the microphone. All these characteristics combined, the group investigation session was a disaster. Though I saw an impostor slaughter an innocent crewmate right in front of me, I could not win over their voice and make a statement. I tried to control the crowd with reasonable and calm speech, which was muffled by the reckless chunk of voice.

Another interesting aspect to look at was the interactable objects. It was an interesting implementation of a top-down view Among Us into a first-person view VRChat, but the fact that avatars vary in height and not all the players use the VR device caused some trouble. Some avatars were too high or too short to interact with certain objects that were too low or high for them. Also, there was a mission for the crewmate where they had to slide their identification card into a card reader: the player had actually had to pick up the card pressing the left-click and slide it by swinging their mouse. This was a very, very hard task for a keyboard & mouse user, and I had to spend more than 2 minutes on this simple task, eventually getting stabbed in the back.

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Yuhyun’s Experience

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fter the 30-minute long hassle with VRChat’s system of adding friends in-game, we finally met each other in-game and decided to play “Among Us”, an online multiplayer social deduction game or as known as mafia game that was a cultural hit after global breakout of COVID-19. In Among Us, Impostors, or the mafias, have one task and one task only: to kill regular crewmates without blowing their cover.

Crewmates, on the other hand, get assigned tasks to perform. When a murder is reported or when someone presses a button that calls for meeting, everyone gets teleported back to the main meeting room to vote on a suspicious person, eventually kicking them out. A VRChat world creator known as ‘Jar’ ported the popular game into VRChat, which is what we played.

So it’s natural for the first meeting to be called some time after the game begins. However, it was called immediately and we were brought back into the main meeting room. Someone pressed the call meeting button because one of the players was using the furry avatar and he who called the meeting did not like it. So the furry was voted out. His last words were “I will come back!” and he did. At this moment, we realized what kind of raw experience we just stepped into.

So he actually came back. Did he cheat on his death? Or did he simply exited the world and came back in using the horrible search feature? I still do not know. The game went on. I got to play as both the regular crew and the impostor for the duration of the game. Whenever a meeting was called, chaos was born. There was this one kid, and I’m calling

him a “kid” with confidence judging from the tone of his voice. This kid probably thought I was suspicious from the fact that I did not speak for the whole session. He kept approaching me and made weird noises, which made me make my mind not to turn the mic on. Anyways, we could play some games, at least.

So the first experience of hanging out with people in VRChat can be summarized into a few sentences with few assumptions. It’s like gathering people to play a game of tag or monopoly at the local playground when we were young. Somehow the playground has lured kids from all over the globe.

Just like people from different regions and countries have different rules for those common games, the whole experience is made with trial and error headed for cooperation and communication.

Seungbeom’s Experience

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here isn’t much else to be said regarding our experiences in the Among Us game world. Although the social aspects could be a mess at times, what really impressed me was the user interface. The map in the waiting room (where people end up after being killed or after the round is over), is quite fantastic. It shows the real time location of each player from a topdown view, and one can also view the gameplay from each remaining player’s first person view. It is clear who the imposters are and who aren’t from the labels next to the map.

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MURDER M Y S T E RY Seungbeom’s Experience

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rom the creator of the Among Us world in VRChat, Jar, is another popular game world called Murder 4. It regularly appears in the ‘hot’ tab in the World menu and can be frequently seen in online gameplay content videos.

Much like the Among Us world, the quality of Murder 4 is high and very well-made. There is a secret murderer in the group, and the non-murderers must find all the clues spread throughout the map before the murderer kills everyone with a knife he or she can pick up. Amongst the non-murderers is a detective, who can use his or her gun to kill the murderer, which means the murderer must be sneaky with the kill without altering the licensedto-kill detective.

During my several playthroughs, I noticed a tendency of players to huddle in one of the rooms where the detective is, and this makes for some interesting and intimate communication possible between the players. If everyone was moving around independently, there won’t be much communication, but because everyone is huddled, a mini social community forms in the middle of the game while the murderer roams the house looking for rogue prey.

This game mode was more approachable compared to Jar’s Among Us world, which requires a basic understanding of the original game to get into it. But, as approachable as it is, it lacks the depth that can be experienced in Among Us, which is understandable, as it comes from a unique standalone video game, unlike Murder 4, which is loosely based off of a popular and light real-life party game.

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VR K A R AO K E Hyungjun’s Experience

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ne of my hobbies was to go out busking, but the COVID-19 crisis doesn’t allow me to sing in public anymore. Tired of singing alone, I entered the Karaoke world in VRChat. Upon entering, people were singing along to the instrumental music. There was a wide screen in the middle of the room that was playing the karaoke video on Youtube, showing the lyrics.

Some people were just chatting with each other regardless of the song and some people were just listening to other people singing. This reminded me of an American karaoke bar I saw on American TV series, where some people take the stage and sing while others just talk with their company.

I looked around the map to see how the system works. It seemed that only the songs implanted by the map maker could be played.

Songs were hung on the wall in the form of albums and their name is displayed once the player drops their crosshair on it. There was a categorization system and a list to navigate through the songs more easily, but it seemed quite complicated since you have to roam around the map to find the song you want. If the player clicks on the album of the song they want to sing along to, the music comes out from the screen right away. I saw some players trolling with this system where they changed the song right before the previous one reached the climax, dampening down the crowd. To block these trolling from happening, some worlds gave only the ‘instance master’ the authority to play and pause the song.

It was an interesting experience to sing along with people, chatting about which song to play next and how Coldplay is one of the best artists after singing their song ‘Yellow.’ Some players throwed guitars and microphones at me while I was singing ‘Castle on the Hill’ and gave me a friend request. Though I politely turned down the request since I was not used to this kind of socializing, I chatted with that player for quite some time while I was in that instance until I went to bed.

TO U R I N G A RO U N D B E A U T I F U L LY B U I LT WO R L DS Hyungjun’s Experience

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o look around how other people made their worlds, I took a tour around the beautifully built maps. The first map was ‘Your Throne’ by the creator, ‘_Asylum.’ This map had a big throne and a hallway, with some weapons displayed on the wall.

The lighting and the detail of the props were carefully designed in this map.

The next world was the ‘Black Cat’ by ‘spookyghost’ which has the most players among all the VRChat worlds. The concept of this world is restaurant and bar, and people mostly just talk with each other and socialize.

The interior actually resembles the restaurants you can see in real life, with the woody textures of each object, walls and floors very sophisticated and well designed.

‘The room of the rain’ by ‘Ivaj15’ was my next world choice. As the name suggests, it is basically a room with a balcony in the rain. If you look out the balcony, you can find that this room is actually in space and you can see the stars.

The room itself was very simple with a woody wall and floor, couch, a bed and some carpets.

What was interesting about this map however, was that users could actually configure the graphic settings. After tweaking with some options, the room turned into a very cozy place to chill in.

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hen I got into ‘Spirits of the Sea’ by ‘Maki Maki.’ This world is a cabin of 3 floors and an attic surrounded by the sea. The cozy interior with wooden pillars and couches contrasted by the surreal outerior delivers a very special feeling. Users were chilling at their own cozy places, talking to each other, and some people were just chilling by themselves at a place they found comfortable ‘Midnight Rooftop’ is a map by ‘ImLeXz,’ which is a rooftop on a skyscraper in a city that reminded me of Hong Kong. The rain is constantly falling as an environmental noise. Its warm atmosphere also delivers a cozy feeling and users sit tight and talk to each other.

If you want to chill in a club environment, ‘Just B Club’ by ‘Blue-kun’ might be your choice. With a cyberpunk-like interior of red and blue neon lights, there are NPCs in an anime avatar to guide you through the map. There is a waiting place, bar, dancing floor, beer pong table, pool table, terrace and private rooms on the top floor. With EDM playing in the background, there are actually some activities you can do other than just talking with random strangers (mostly better if you have the actual VR device).

It was interesting to find out that most maps tend to be cozy and relaxing, maybe because the main function it has to perform is a gathering place for strangers to come and talk to each other.

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WO R L DS MADE IN KO R E A Yuhyun’s Experience

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ince I followed Korean user-made guides, I naturally took a tour around the Korean worlds during my research. The collection of world recommendations by Korean users were either made of worlds created by Korean or worlds loved by Koreans. I visited the 2 most famous worlds: the Hwabon Station and the Tutorial world.

Hwabon Station had one remarkable feature: 3rd

person POV to see your character in action without standing in front of a mirror. The world was filled with great scenery for photos. I think this proves the argument that Korean users put their effort into having beautiful avatars and taking nice screenshots with them.

The Tutorial world served as a place to gather and meet. During my several visits to the world, there were always people willing to socialize with others in front of the mirror, which acted like a social hub for almost every Korean world. One interesting fact was that there were several non-Koreans in the room as well. I wonder how they got into that world and why they were hanging out there.

CHILLING IN VR Seungbeom’s Experience

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ne of the most popular things one can do in VRChat other than striking random conversations with others or engaging in predefined game modes, is to simply ‘chill’. There are numerous worlds designed specifically for chilling and relaxing but the most iconic and popular is the Meroom world created by the user ‘Meru’. The setting is an indoor apartment, but what makes this world so fit for chilling is the extremely cozy atmosphere and ambience of the world. The dim yellow lighting, professional interior design, and the various mini-features in this world make for a very interesting experience.

You can change the mood lighting of rooms to your preferences, you can change the radio music, you can also play and watch videos on the TV in the TV room alone or with your buddies or even strangers. Although you’re technically free to do whatever you want, there is almost a subtle understanding between the players that enter this world that this world is a place to chill and be quiet. Most players seem to follow this hidden rule and usually stay quiet and still in a spot of their choice, and just chill. I have also encountered a few instances of what I assume to be online dates, with two players sitting together on a romantic spot in the apartment in very intimate poses.

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CO M M U N I CAT I N G W I T H P EO P L E Hyungjun’s Experience

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alking to random strangers in real life might not be an easy task for some people. I am one of those people who find it hard to approach total strangers. I thought maybe cyberspace might be an easier place to hang out with random people since not much information about me or the other is explicitly open, which I thought was wrong.

In real life, if you talk to a person who looks like a girl, you would expect to hear a female voice. Though my analysis and expectations might be wrong from time to time, the odds would be rare. However in VRChat, even if you talk to an anime character with long hair, beautiful face and obscene body, the chances you will hear a mature male voice is pretty high. The scenery of female high school characters talking in a teenage male Texas dialect voice was quite shocking for me to comprehend. Not particularly accustomed to this culture yet, hyping up the courage to talk to a stranger in this VRChat world was quite a hard challenge for me.

The fact that most of the people were already talking in groups was also one of the obstacles I had to overcome. Those people seemed to know each other very well and were talking about some topic that I had no clue about. Under those circumstances, all I could do was quietly sit down near them and hope for someone to notice me and drag me into the conversation.

It was rather more comfortable to just roam around doing random things that the world supports. There was a higher chance that someone would find me interesting and come talk to me. That was my first ever communication with a stranger in the VRChat world, when someone approached me when I was throwing a plate of pancakes at the mirror. The stranger picked up another plate of pancake

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from the bar and started throwing it at the mirror too. Then I picked up his plate and threw it back at him, which suddenly turned into a catch game. After some throws and retrievals, we started a conversation about where we live in, how old we are and what time it is over there. It was quite an interesting experience to be honest, where a 26 years old Korean is talking to a stranger - a 22 years old girl in Oklahoma.

It’s not something that you can experience that easily in real life. After some brief silly conversation, she was too tired to continue farther and went to bed. Depressed from the absence of my first VRChat friend, I logged out of the game too.

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CO M M U N I T Y

Discord

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Subreddit

here are numerous private and public discord servers out there either directly or indirectly related to VRChat. These discord servers serve as social hubs for fans of the game to communicate with one another outside of VRChat. There is one official main discord server created and moderated by VRChat itself, and we took a look inside to see what happens inside.

There are numerous channels in the server, from announcement channels to ‘questions and answer’ channels. There are channels devoted to Udon, avatars, world building, in-game support, beta testing, etc. There are even language-localized channels for international players as well. In addition to general conversations, players can share their custom VRChat creations in the discord server, such as their avatars and worlds, and share their experiences in VRChat with others.

There are rules to the server, which are enforced by the moderators, who have the power to ban.

Rules include prohibitions of harassment, hatespeech, NSFW content, political and religious subjects, etc.

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here are also a lot of VRChat subreddits on Reddit, but there is one official subreddit created and moderated by VRChat itself. This subreddit generally contains memes and share-worthy in-game footage. Once in a while, there would be posts centered around productive discussions, but most of the posts that make it to ‘Top’ are mostly memes and funny footages, which is not surprising considering the fact that it’s Reddit.

Some other subreddits related to VRChat include the OculusQuest subreddit, the VRGaming subreddit, the VRchatAvatars subreddit, and more. Some of them are directly related to the game and some of them are not, but all of them are not moderated by the VRChat team itself.

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CO N T E N T C R E AT O R S

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ince we were new to the community and lacked friends to observe, we also took a look at streamers of YouTube and Twitch who play VRChat. One of the streamers we focused on was PianoCat, a South Korean YouTube/ Twitch personnel with over 200 thousand subscribers.

As his name suggests, PianoCat uses a cute anime-styled cat girl avatar as his representation. Yes, it is a HE. However, it isn’t catfishing. His subscribers and fans already know that there is a grown man behind their beloved cat girl.

This may wow non-VRChat players or people who are unfamiliar with the current trends on the internet among younger generations. Even Yuhyun, a youngster herself, doubted her eyes when she discovered this girl-on-outside-man-on-inside personality. We wondered how people are using something that even contradicts their real image in a game where the main activity is to socialize with people and make friends.

We explored other VRChat content creators on YouTube as well, such as ChrisQuitsReality, who as of this writing has almost 600 thousand subscribers and VR Lolathan, who has 850 thousand. Many of their content comprises their adventures in VRChat either with their personal friends or random people they meet online. Because of the very random and surreal nature of socializing in the game, it isn’t hard to come across content-worthy moments. A lot of these VRChat content creators use VR avatars instead of their real

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selves when talking to the viewers. This is understandable as a lot of their content is focused on VR and aimed towards VR users.

With modern facial and motion tracking technology becoming more accessible, this can be easily done with the proper equipment and software. Many of these big creators also have their own discord servers where members can communicate and sometimes play with the creators themselves, which also serve as content material for these content creators.

C U STO M AS S E TS Custom World Building

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-Seungbeom

t is possible to create, upload, and share custom worlds in VRChat. In fact, the majority of public worlds in VRChat are those made by regular users, and many of them are stunningly well-made. The reason many people can create worlds for VRChat is that it uses a very popular game engine/software called Unity. Unity is one

of the most popular tools game developers use to make games, and it is quite user-friendly, which makes it approachable for non-game developers as well to make virtual content. The VRChat team has multiple SDKs that regular users can download and import to their Unity projects to create custom content that is compatible with the VRChat game itself. Unity supports many third-party asset creation tools such as the popular free 3D modelling software Blender, which many use to create the 3D models you see in VRChat. After you design the models, you import them to Unity, and by using the provided SDKs, you can ultimately upload and publish your content onto VRChat for the world to see.

As an avid user of Unity, I was excited to try making my own world. You are required to use the version of Unity used by VRChat, which as of this writing is version 2018.4.20f1. After installing the correct version, the next step is to download the correct SDK for VRChat integration. There are three that are available, two of which are for world building and one which is for avatar customization.

One of the two SDKs for world building is an older version of their newer SDK, which uses a custom programming language and interface called Udon, created by the VRChat team itself. Traditional Unity users may at first prefer to stick to the older SDK, but once you take the time to learn how to make use of Udon, it is easy to understand why VRChat decided to make this. It is exponentially easier to make things happen using Udon, as it doesn’t require as much knowledge of programming as the older SDK. A lot of the interactions can be “programmed” using visual nodes instead of actual coding, and this allows for a lot of non-programmers to get into world building in VRChat.

The next step after choosing your SDK is to import

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Custom World Building it into the Unity project, and then logging into the VRChat network via the SDK in Unity. Many first time users may be stuck in this step, as you are required to have a trust ranking of at least “New-User”. To achieve this ranking, users generally have to spend several hours in-game, conversing with others, visiting different worlds, and making/adding new friends. This requirement can be bypassed by paying for the VRChat+ subscription, which costs around 13k Korean won per month. VRChat+ members are automatically granted the New User rank and can start uploading custom content onto the VRChat servers.

I, as an official New User, started experimenting with the SDK in Unity, and created a ground on which you can stand on, a spawn point you spawn in, and a sliding door, which you can press to slide open. The SDK allows for easy client testing, as you can open the world in the VRChat client to see how the world will look and feel in the actual game. I was mildly surprised to see how easy it was to create and test worlds through Unity, and I have to congratulate VRChat on creating a very user-friendly interface. Although easy to get into, to make an actually good and high quality world is another story. Anybody can create floors, walls, and simple doors, but to create worlds that people will actually spend time in, whether due to their features, designs, or aesthetics, it requires talent, knowledge, and experience in Unity, 3D modelling, and texturing. I decided to scrap my simpleton world and leave the world building to actually talented creators out there.

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Customizing Avatars

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-Yuhyun

RChat is currently providing its own SDK with Unity for users to upload their own avatar on VRChat. I decided to see how it works as someone who’s new to Unity. If I had some knowledge in 3D modeling, I could’ve created my own character with Blender or any tool of my preference, but that wasn’t my option.

I followed a beginner’s guide which was available on VRChat Minor Gallery of dcinside.com. From the guide’s hyperlink, I could access the free 3D models from Booth.pm, an online market where people can upload their creation and sell it to the public.

I decided to begin practicing with a free avatar in case I feel like this is out of my league.

The free avatar I picked was a cat girl named Nekonekosan. I downloaded Unity from the official website and went through the tutorial before unpacking the model. And even before starting with my cat girl, I made a mistake.

It was right that I needed Unity to upload my avatar, but I didn’t know that I needed a specific version of Unity. Unity 2018.4.20f1 is the only version that is compatible with the current game, but I downloaded the latest version which was version 2020. So as expected, it did not work. The instruction on what version of Unity is needed was on VRChat’s official website with links to download SDK, and I missed it the first time.

Downloading the right SDK was also a problem for such a newbie like me. There were 2 versions of SDK: SDK 2 and SDK 3. The website only provided a very basic distinction between SDK 2 and SDK 3.

The description may have been useful for people with knowledge of Unity and SDK, but not for

Asset Marketplace

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me. I downloaded both versions, and when SDK 2 worked, I settled with it. As far as I understood, SDK 3 supports new worlds and avatars made with UDON, a VRChat’s own 3D modeling tool. I even looked through the webpage of my chosen avatar on Booth but did not find anything related to compatibility with versions of SDK. Moving on to the actual modeling package I got from Booth. Booth is predominantly Japanese, and it wasn’t good news because I have 0 knowledge in Japanese as well. Thanks to modern technology called Google Translator, I managed to download the texture pack used for my Nekonekosan.

After all these hassle and error messages that told me there were some compilation problems, I managed to get the right version of Unity, SDK, and the texture pack and successfully uploaded my cat girl to VRChat. This has been my avatar ever since.

There are more things to do with Unity regarding the avatar customization: altering the clothes, adding or removing accessories, and changing the colors of hair, eyes, etc. I called it a day after uploading my avatar, but I could get a glimpse of what avatar customization looks like in VRChat.

-Yuhyun

rom Professor Heejeong Kwon’s commentary on our project progress, we learned that there is an in-game world called VKet, short for Virtual Market in VRChat. I actually visited the world map of VKet2 in VRChat.

The world was empty with no visitors since the VKet works like a real life trade show or exhibition where companies put up a booth to promote their products and the VKet2’s season already ended.

Still, I was able to look around the remaining world used for the show.

The show area was made of a collection of 3D modeling booths. Each booth had mannequins of their models and ways to access their website through clickable buttons or QR code, etc. It had a specially modified map system where the player can see the overview of the whole show area and I am pretty sure the map itself used to be interactable. (It did not work for me though, probably due to the update in VRChat regarding UDON) In VKet2, I saw less than 10 brands. I expected to see more markets open so the scale surprised me a little bit. Also, I speculated that each brand at the VKet were somewhat well-known 3D modeling manufacturers rather than individual creators.

Other than whole body models, accessories like cat ears and head bands were available for trying out.

Unfortunately, since holdable objects stick to the arm’s fixed position for desktop users, I could not try it out.

-Seungbeom

I

n addition to in-game virtual marketplaces, there are also online marketplaces accessible through ordinary browsers. A place many would start looking for VRChat assets is Unity’s very own Asset Store, which has a lot of pre-built models on sale and also tools and resources that can help people create their own avatars and worlds in Unity. There are quite a few other asset websites as well, and the more popular ones are Japanese, such as Booth.pm, and V-Market.work. These assets can be quite costly, but considering how in-demand anime avatars are and how 3D modelling is not as easy and ubiquitous as 2D sprites, the premium pricing is understandable.

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PA R T I C I PA N T S A & B Summary

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uhyun interviewed 2 of her friends to gain further insight into the user experience in VRChat. Here we call them person A and person B. Both of them are female in their 20s.

Person A is the kind of person who spends time chatting and communicating rather than improving her skills to be a better player or playing competitively against other people. Yuhyun expected her to like VRchat since she likes social activities in games.

Yuhyun’s mini-hypothesis was proven wrong. Although person A has a play style more focused on social activities, she did not feel the need of VR in adding fun and improving her virtual friendship. She simply felt that it would be much more fun if she and her friends met in real life.

She also expressed tiredness from the unfamiliar experience of VR in general. Due to the fact that she is a very casual gamer (and she wears glasses), she did not feel comfortable in VR space enough to enjoy hanging out yet.

One noticeable thing from her interview was that she did not have a good impression on the player base of VRChat from the beginning, leading to her unwillingness to play. She thought that the players of VRChat, specifically Korean players, would be either people who use and like inappropriate avatars or people who are very young.

Person B spends most of her time looking for new games to play while enjoying every end-game content in any game she has been playing. Yuhyun guessed that she would not like VRChat since she prefers games that are fun and is more familiar to games with well-planned and tested UX that should have raised her bar.

Yuhyun’s mini-hypothesis was proven wrong again.

Even though person B had a lot of experience with many different genres of games, she was genuinely interested in the genre of VR because of her love towards gaming. She said yes when Yuhyun asked her if she would continue playing VRchat if any of her friends invited her. She expressed some negativity toward the player base as well but she remained positive towards other aspects like being able to customize the avatar/world and having high degrees of freedom.

She also did not mind the clunky user experience that much because she was so used to navigating all kinds of menus in different games that the unique structure of VRchat did not stand out distinctively.

She also had some experience with VR devices in the past although the interview was conducted using the desktop version.

Some common factors Yuhyun noticed from the 2 interviews were that they were unwilling to communicate with complete strangers in public worlds and they liked the freedom of choosing whatever avatar they wanted. These two major factors, fear of strangers and freedom of customization, will be touched again later.

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A, Newbie player, female in her late 20s.

Have you ever played any game like VRchat in which social activities are the main focus of the game?

I haven’t played anything similar to VRchat.

But my usual play style is centered around chatting with friends and socializing with them rather than the game contents themselves.

What games have you played in the past? Anything you spent a significant amount of time on?

I’ve been playing Cookie Run Kingdom on mobile recently.

I’m a long-time player of Korean RPG Mabinogi.

I have some experience with the fps genre as well like Destiny Guardians.

What was your first impression of VRchat?

The user interface was bad.

Sending a friend request was way too hard. It was shocking to find out that you can only add friends by meeting them in game physically.

It seems like it is hard to play with your already existing friends. Nice to meet new people though.

Avatars are cute.

What aspects of the user interface were the worst?

The search feature. It doesn’t work.

The main menu was something not seen often in other games.

English only What are the good points of VRchat?

Nice to talk with voice easily. It is rare to see voice chat provided by the game unless it is fps fighting games like the Overwatch.

Nice to alter the avatar with a few clicks. Cute avatars had surprisingly cheap prices. (She personally had experiences with Mabinogi in which players have to spend a lot of money to decorate their character.)

Looks like a good game to kill some time. Like walk-

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ing around good worlds and taking screenshots. + She added that she wouldn’t play VRchat by herself so that she has to make new friends in game. She pointed out the danger of befriending strangers online.

Would you play VRchat if one of your friends asks you to join?

Honestly, I’d rather tell her to come out to the local coffee shop to have a real cup of coffee and talk in real life.

Yes, if the person who asked lives so far that we can’t easily meet and hang out in real life.

(Continuing from the previous question) Why? I don’t have a VR device. Too many features are limited for non-VR users.

Even with a VR device, wouldn’t you be able to do all the things that you can do in VR in real life…? Like talking and playing board games…

So you are saying that you’d rather hang out in real life than VR? Yes, except for having an avatar. I’d play if I could have the avatar I want.

Otherwise, yes.

What would make you play VRchat? Maybe owning a VR device?

I’d play it if there were more games and worlds that are inclusive towards desktop players.

Like games that can be played only with mouse movements and keyboards. Or voice alone. + She added that she actually had a very bad impression towards the Korean VRchat player for their vulgarity and inappropriate play style/avatar.

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B, Knows VRChat, Gamer, female in her late 20s.

Have you ever played any game like VRchat in which social activities are the main focus of the game?

No. It wasn’t fun.

What games have you played in the past? Anything you spent a significant amount of time on?

MMORPGs like Final Fantasy 14, Lost Ark. Many RPG games.

AOS genre such as Cyphers.

Played decent amount of Overwatch (hyper FPS) Except for tycoons.

What aspect of any game do you value the most?

It has to be fun. A game needs to be fun.

What was your first impression of VRchat?

Huge need for friends in real life to start together or lead new players.

(Continuing from previous question) Why? because it means that I do have friends in the game. + she added that she would definitely purchase a VR device if she gets a chance. She was interested in the VR technology itself and she said she might play VRchat to kill some time. But she pointed out that she wouldn’t buy an expensive VR device just for VRchat.

Would you be more tempted to play VRchat if you had a VR device?

I’d play it without VR device if i have friends But I wouldn’t spend much time in VR chat whether I have the device or not because it feels like a waste of time when there are good VR games in the market other than this.

Would you make friends on VRchat?

No. +She was in a tight spot surrounded by “squeakers” when I logged in to play the game with her. Maybe that’s what set her first impression.

What do you think about the user interface?

Not the worst.

Has what it needs.

Still, unfamiliar with the structure Some features don’t work. (search, add friends, etc) What are the good points of VRchat?

It’s free If someone can design and model something themselves, then it should be fun to play with their own creation Would you play VRchat if one of your friends asks you to join?

Yes

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P A R T I C I PA N T S C & D Summary

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eungbeom interviewed two friends, one of whom was a newbie, and the other a slightly more experienced player. Here we call them person C and D respectively.

Person C had a fairly ambivalent perception of the game. Some aspects he really enjoyed was how expressive he could be in the game and the various interactions the game enables its players. However, he felt the tutorial and UI could be improved, as the former lacked substance and the latter was unorganized and missed some features that could really help, such as world descriptions. He felt that in order to really enjoy the game, one had to know the ins and outs of the game more, with tertiary knowledge like Unity skills. He felt there was so much the game had to offer, but the game did not intuitively convey these features to newbies.

Person D had a relatively positive perception. He felt the game was satisfactory insofar as it fulfils its purpose (VR socializing). He felt the game did its job well, and that he personally enjoyed his time in VRChat. He didn’t notice anything particularly frustrating like the first interviewee.

Some commonalities between the two responses were how they first got into the game (through streamers and youtubers) and that socializing in a virtual environment with other players, which is VRChat’s main purpose, is implemented well and can be interesting and enjoyable.

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C, Newbie, male, college student.

How old are you?

25 How long have you been playing VRChat?

1 week Any experience with other VR games?

Visited VR cafe once and played zombie shooter Any experience with other social games?

Social: Social games on FB like Yoville First impressions on VRChat?

It was technically liberating in terms of social experience. I liked how expressive one can be in the game.

The freedom of interaction and expression made it an interesting experience.

If you know what you’re doing, inclusive experience.

If not, very exclusive How did you first get into the VRChat?

Seen videos of streamers and youtubers. Liked the meme possibilities.

How do you normally spend time in the VRChat?

Mini games

Any frustrations with its UI? Lots of frustrations with UI Lots of aspects not intuitively expressed to the player, regarding both terminology and features/knowledge Alienating experience if you’re used to browsing online with lots of info Similar to walking down the street, seeing a lot of things, but not knowing what they are until you get inside Like going on tour and seeing all these buildings but not having a tour guide Any plans on playing VRChat further?

Maybe. Feel like you need to know somebody who really knows/plays VRChat How can the UI be improved?

Better categories Clearer descriptions Simple elements like log off buttons not intuitively located UI was just a bunch of tabs Organization needed Worlds could use descriptions when displayed in UI

What are the good points of VRChat?

Feeling of actual interaction What do you think needs to be revised with VRChat?

The UI can be improved Tutorial is limited, only movement Based on stuff seen online, there is so much you can do. But to do that, you need tertiary knowledge like animations, and etc.

Like being thrown into a game of football without knowing how to dribble or kick

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D, has VR, male, post-grad.

How old are you?

25 How long have you been playing VRChat?

1 week Any experience with other VR games?

Visited VR cafe once and played zombie shooter Any experience with other social games?

Social: Social games on FB like Yoville First impressions on VRChat?

It was technically liberating in terms of social experience. I liked how expressive one can be in the game.

The freedom of interaction and expression made it an interesting experience.

If you know what you’re doing, inclusive experience.

If not, very exclusive How did you first get into the VRChat?

Seen videos of streamers and youtubers. Liked the meme possibilities.

How do you normally spend time in the VRChat?

Mini games What are the good points of VRChat?

Feeling of actual interaction What do you think needs to be revised with VRChat?

The UI can be improved Tutorial is limited, only movement Based on stuff seen online, there is so much you can do. But to do that, you need tertiary knowledge like animations, and etc.

Like being thrown into a game of football without knowing how to dribble or kick

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Any frustrations with its UI? Lots of frustrations with UI Lots of aspects not intuitively expressed to the player, regarding both terminology and features/knowledge Alienating experience if you’re used to browsing online with lots of info Similar to walking down the street, seeing a lot of things, but not knowing what they are until you get inside Like going on tour and seeing all these buildings but not having a tour guide Any plans on playing VRChat further?

Maybe. Feel like you need to know somebody who really knows/plays VRChat How can the UI be improved?

Better categories Clearer descriptions Simple elements like log off buttons not intuitively located UI was just a bunch of tabs Organization needed Worlds could use descriptions when displayed in UI

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US E R I N T E R FAC E

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UI Analysis

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- Hyungjun

ne of the biggest issues I had when I first logged into VR was that the interface was totally unfamiliar to me. I am a hard gamer and have played throughout many games and have experienced interfaces of quite a volume. While most of the game interfaces took the form of a list, VRChat’s menu interface consisted of buttons, with a taxonomy hard to intuitively understand.

The hierarchy of the information architecture seemed to be mixed up, and some menus redundantly appeared, confusing the users with the workflow. Functionality of the search function and the graphic settings menu was also not sufficient to fulfill the task the users wanted.

It can easily be inferred that this type of interface was built for VR device users, where their operation of the cursors would relatively be less accurate

than keyboard & mouse users, since the amplified shaking of their hands would make it harder for them to point exactly at their desired spots. Plus, a deeper information architecture would make it more cumbersome for VR device users than keyboard & mouse users, since they have to move their arms and hands for navigation and operation, whereas it would only take a simple movement of fingers and wrist for a keyboard & mouse user.

However, applied the same interface as the VR device users, I was confused about this unfamiliar and somewhat not ineffective interface as a keyboard & mouse user. Had we had more time, it would have been nice to actually build an improved interface of our finding and actually apply it ingame and see if it actually solves some of the problems the keyboard & mouse users had.

UI Redesign

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- Yuhyun

efore changing our project objectives to deeper, richer research on VRChat itself, our team wanted to redesign the UI of VRChat for desktop users like us to improve the overall user experience. I created some low fidelity designs that summarized Hyungjun’s Analysis in the previous section. Although we decided to go back to research, focusing on UI served as an opportunity to study design principles.

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H E U R I ST I C S P LA C E MAKING

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nlike many other games, due to the heavy emphasis on user generated content in VRChat, much of place-making is under the world creator’s control. As a result, place-making can vary world by world. Because VRChat takes place in a 3D environment, from a first-person perspective, controlling a 3D object in world-space, with omnidirectional movement and look-direction available, much of our general understanding of hodological space can be applied to VRChat as well.

Wayfinding In-Game Tools that display the user’s current position Some worlds include real-time maps that track the positions of users in the world and display them with markers. For example, in the Among Us world, a user’s current position can be seen by opening the map, a 2D top down map that shows the user’s current whereabouts. There is also a section of the world that allows users to check the general whereabouts of other users as well. Additionally, the global user interface tells users which world and seed (tag) they are in, which informs the user not only which world he or she is in, but also the instance of the world in the server.

Tools that display the user’s orientation Since the worlds resemble real-life worlds, it is not that difficult to calibrate orientation. Tools such as compasses, although not provided by default, can be implemented in user generated content, which can aid orientation. Proximity voice chat features also can help with orientation calibration if using headphones or surround sound speakers.

Tools that log the user’s movement Although logs of user movement aren’t available to users by default, this too can be implemented in user generated contents. For example, in the Among Us world, when a player dies in the game and is then transported to the waiting room, the player can see in real time the movement of other players still alive in the game. Their positions are tracked and displayed on the top down map.

Tools that show the user’s surrounding environment These tools are again, not provided by default, but are commonly seen in user generated worlds. Topdown-view maps are common, and some are interactive and as mentioned before, can have real-time updating features such as displaying user locations in real time. Map and world alignment is aided by these features, especially for the more general reference / minimalistic maps.

Guided navigation systems Many worlds come with signs and information screens that help newcomers navigate around the world. In addition to these static signs, there are more dynamic navigation tools as well, such as those indicating where users should go in real-time on the screen, which updates as players change directions.

Like other aforementioned tools, more elaborate navigation systems can be implemented through user

generated content, such as world-space AI guides. For example, in Among Us, to help players with navigation, dynamically positioned arrows appear on screen as part of the HUD indicating where players’ next ingame task is located.

Navigating Cyberspace There are five base elements users take into account when navigating cyberspace: paths, edges, nodes, landmarks, and districts. These elements can differ based on what world players are in, as different worlds offer different forms of these elements. For example, in the Among Us world, the hallways serve as paths, its walls serve as edges, the different rooms serve as districts, the location of tasks scattered throughout the rooms serve as nodes, and landmarks include notable locations such as the cafeteria, where all meetings take place, and the waiting room, where people who die wait for the round to be over.

Although the 5 base elements of each world depend on how the creator designed the world, one noticeable place or object, to be more specific, was the mirror.

Almost all worlds dedicated a portion of the world to include mirror features (it works just like mirrors in real life; it shows how you look which you normally can’t see). The mirror acts as a node because it is where people gather together to look at their reflection and communicate with each other. Since there is always a cluster of users in front of the mirror area, it can possibly do the job of a landmark by being memorable and recognizable from a distance.

Another global object that serves as an element of navigation is the portal. Players can set up a portal on their location that takes any who enter to a world of the portal owner’s choice. If the worlds can be considered nodes, the portal can be considered a path.

In addition to world objects, the UI acts as a crucial navigation element. Users can choose, enter, and exit worlds through just using the menu system.

Place-making Although many of the worlds in VRChat have characteristics of traditional non-places such as airports and crosswalks, because these worlds are worlds players actively decide to enter for a specific personal purpose, whether it’s to socialize with other players or to just chill and admire the environment, these worlds can gradually become actual places for players, as they develop memories and personal connections within and with the worlds, the people in the worlds, and the environments.

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H E U R I ST I C S

CO N S I ST E N CY Internal Consistency

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n VRChat, there is some degree of internal consistency, as anywhere one goes in the game, there is a global user interface that provides users with the same information and features, and a consistent movement control system. This is thanks to the external consistency provided by the documentation of VRChat, which includes the SDKs that are required to make content for VRChat. As world creators are required to abide by the SDK’s restrictions and hard-coded scripts, regardless of the world, the controls are consistent, such as those for movement, voice toggling, and gestures.

The HUD is also consistent, such as the popup instructions for interactions, the voice toggle icon, and the labels above other users. The global UI is also consistent in every world, with the same features and buttons available for users regardless of the world they are in. For example, the way to friend another user through the UI is consistent in all worlds. This internal consistency makes visiting and experiencing other worlds and interacting with other people in different worlds a fairly smooth process.

This being said however, there are also plenty of internal inconsistencies as well, but this is a result of worlds being made by different creators with different purposes. Some worlds have more features than others, some worlds have in-game objectives players are advised to follow while others don’t.

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External Consistency

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here is also some degree of cross-platform external consistency as well. Firstly, the VRChat website has an identical aesthetic to that of in-game. Players can log in through a browser to access some of the information available to users in-game as well. For example, I can log into my account on a browser and see my list of in-game friends and what in-game world those friends are currently in. Furthermore, I can browse through the list of worlds on my browser as well. The documentation provided by VRChat for those interested in making custom content are in the usual standard dev-style documentation format, which makes it aesthetically and technically approachable by other developers.

Metaphor Analysis

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here are many aspects of the in-game controls that can be understood from a metaphor analytical point of view. For PC users, implementing the “WASD to move and move mouse to look around” design like almost every other first-person game can be considered metaphorically well designed. The floating menu screen however, although familiar for VR users, can be quite disorienting for desktop users, since it is not an interface used widely in desktop-focused games.

Furthermore, many worlds that are available in VRChat are made with inspirations from actual places, games, and things. For example, the Among Us world was made heavily inspired by the original Among Us game, which allows players to easily get into the world with their preexisting knowledge and template understanding of the original game.

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Taxonomy

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ecause the global user interface is so powerful in that most of the features and information available for players are inside the menu interface, the taxonomy of the game can be understood by analyzing the taxonomy of the user interface, which can be greatly improved in our opinion. Putting the most used menu buttons at the front page was a nice call: world, avatar, social, as these features are the main categories of user experience in the game. But there are so many other buttons that are less taxonomically significant that visually appear to have the same level of importance crowding the main menu, causing cognitive load: safety, standing/seated play, emote, emoji, etc. Rest of the miscellaneous settings are just jammed in the ‘settings’ menu. Furthermore, the world and avatar tabs also do not categorize the elements in a proper way that guides users to choose the items they like and as a result, browsing through worlds can be quite frustrating at times.

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R E S I L I E N C E Information Seeking

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Strategy

he most frequently used information seeking strategies by VRChat players are searching (active and directed) and browsing (active and undirected). The tutorial is quite limited in terms of coverage, and because there is no in-game narrative and linearity that often passively imparts information to players, VRChat players have to be active in their pursuit of information. Sometimes, this active pursuit is directed in that players know what they are looking for, such as the ability to friend other users, the ability to invite friends into the same world, etc.

Other times, this pursuit is undirected in that players don’t know what they want to know but still actively seek new information, such as when browsing through

the catalogue of different worlds, or browsing the signposts and descriptions laid out throughout the world that details the variety of features and elements the world offers. Oftentimes, when a player enters a world, it is up to the player to uncover what the world has to offer, which often requires an active information seeking strategy.

There are minor instances where passive information seeking strategies work. Some worlds provide highly assistive navigational tools that allow users to implement the monitoring strategy (directed and passive) to obtain information. In some cases, awareness strategy (undirected and passive) can work as well, such as overhearing other strangers’ conversations

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B

ecause of the unique characteristic of VRChat that coerces users into active information seeking, the least amount of effort that gets rewarded with information must be active in some way. In this case, users have resorted to active seeking because the passive seeking of information isn’t very effective in VRChat. With a passive information seeking strategy, users will not be able to obtain sufficient information to properly experience everything VRChat has to offer.

There are some ways users can create shortcuts for themselves in their pursuit of information, such as the abilities to favorite avatars and worlds, which allows easier future access to their most-used avatars and worlds, but even this first requires an active approach.

REDUCTION Complexity Problems

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here is a vast amount of ingame features available in VRChat. Considering the hundreds of custom worlds available in the game, it can be argued that in terms of complexity as richness, the VRChat information architecture can be considered to be complex. VRChat does make an attempt to make this complexity viable and comprehensible, through aforementioned place-making means and basic menu interfaces. However, much of this reduction process can be improved, as cognitive overload is not uncommon.

Having a lot of choices is a good thing when it comes to these social explorato-

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ry virtual games, as choices often mean features, and having a lot of features can allow for more enjoyability. However, recalling Hick’s Law, the quality of the way in which these choices are presented is the main issue, not the quantity.

R ES I L I E N C E

The Principle of Least Effort

Cognitive Load

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here are two main areas in the game that have too much cognitive load. Firstly, the information presented to players when they enter a world. Every VRChat player begins their playthrough in their personal virtual home world. This small area is loaded with instructions and information about the game and it can be overwhelming to starters. In most other games, this information would be presented to the player as the story progresses, but because VRChat does not have a narrative, all this information has to be thrown at the player in one cluster.

Other than perhaps providing the users with a more comprehensive tutorial, there is honestly not much that can be done about this, as the nature of the game inherently requires some cognitive load in the beginning. When players enter another world, there is another onslaught of new world-specific information and instructions, but as mentioned before,

there isn’t much that can be done due to the nature of the game.

Secondly, the in-game menu has too much cognitive load. It is a good thing the menu has a lot of features and information, but it is so poorly designed that it can be quite overwhelming. So many buttons are crammed into single screens, and their identical design fails to differentiate the different features and their taxonomic significance, other than having different labels. These labels are often not enough as some features that are more technical and jargony do not have further explanations. Furthermore, the worlds menu also could be organized better, with more comprehensive categories, and fewer repetitive displays of the same worlds. There are so many worlds in VRChat, and a better taxonomical and visual organization of them for players will greatly alleviate the cognitive load for players, especially beginners.

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R E D U CT I O N Wide vs. Deep Structure

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RChat chose the wide structure of organization of information architecture. Wide structure is far superior to deep structure when it comes to delivering information and reducing the time needed for making decisions, however, VRChat may have taken it too far with wide structure. For example, in the settings menu, accessible by pressing ESC and then clicking on the settings button, every option is visible up front. Voice option and mic are separated with each other and so is the audio volume section. The miscellaneous section of setting, “Other Options” takes half of all settable options on the setting tab.

Deep, hierarchical structure may have worked better to organize the user interface like the settings menu and provide additional information on what is not familiar material to newcomers. For example, the personal space option in the Comfort and Safety section can be confusing. What does this do? Does it create personal space? Such lack of critical information can be easily solved by a common method used in game settings: let a small text box with the information pop up next to the cursor when the user hovers over. With a bit more focus on deep, hierarchical structuring of information architecture, the variety of features VRChat provides will be better understood and digested by players.

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CO R R E LAT I O N

C

orrelation within the information architecture of VRChat is a result of all the aforementioned qualities of information architecture combined. In a game as complex as VRChat, correlation can be difficult to achieve. Experienced players who have experienced place-making in-game, experienced the various consistencies and inconsistencies in and out of game, experienced resilience and information seeking in VRChat, and experienced the reduction of the game’s cognitive load and complexity will be able to connect the variety of dots and information presented in and out of the game world for correlation to transpire. Despite various efforts by VRChat, this process can still be improved and optimized. We believe a good place to start is improving its user interface.

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CO N C LUS I O N 52

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S U M M A RY

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ur in-game observations revealed the various ways users socialize and interact with each other and the environment, across the numerous and various ever-expanding worlds the game has to offer. Our out-of-game observations revealed the ways users contribute to the VRChat ecosystem even when not in-game through online community platforms, popular content creators, and custom asset generation and trading. Our interviews with VRChat players provided further insight into personal user in-game user experiences. Our heuristic evaluation analyzed the VRChat from the lens of pervasive information architecture and how it ultimately plays a role in the way users interact with, in and out of the game.

Although VRChat still has a long way to go to become a full metaverse, the game still offers a striking amount of ways for players to socialize and interact with one another. The combination of a variety of fantastic user-generated content and a somewhat consistent pervasive information architecture makes VRChat a noteworthy alternative reality for social interaction, and ultimately a worthy candidate for the metaverse. Speaking of metaverse, some broader implications of virtual social interaction can be discussed (in the following section).

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hy do we use avatars when socializing even if it is drastically different from who we actually are in real life? What we came up with as our own answer is related to the definition and concept of the metaverse.

The wikipedia defines metaverse as “a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space,[1] including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet.” but metaverse is observed in many other non-VR occasions as well.

Travis Scott, an American Rapper, held an online concert in the world of Fortnite which is originally a battle royale type of game. Instead of fighting, people danced and watched the concert together using the voice chat feature and their avatars that represent their presence. Fortnite is a metaverse because players pick a character of their own choice and play as it until they change it. League of Legends would not be a metaverse type of game because the role/avatar can change every game thus having a different character every 40 minutes maximum.

Any MMORPG is a metaverse in this sense because people have their character, their own customization, their player name pertaining to that avatar, they play their role in a virtual world of gaming. They communicate with each other with their avatars.

Since all of our team members had personal experiences in the genre of MMORPG, we decided to backtrack to our past experience and see how we did it in game. Yuhyun has been a male “Red Mage” who uses magic in battle but

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she is nothing like a man using red magic in real life. Hyungjun and Seungbeom could also recall similar experiences of their avatar not matching their reality but not feeling any disparity between their 2 images.

What if it works the same in VRChat? Just like we feel comfortable having an avatar that absolutely does not match me in real life, players of vrchat do not mind the gap between the avatar and the voice. People who voice chat with Yuhyun on discord never asked her why she uses a male avatar. VRchat players prefer cute anime girls because those are what they like. Avatars may stand as the symbol of our presence in virtual space, but they do not equal us. The strong desire to decorate their avatar would be something similar to the desire to add badges and keychains to bags for personalization and beauty. People spend time looking at their own image in front of mirrors in VRChat. It’s a masked identity but with slightly different connotations. Perhaps this is the new form of self representation for the upcoming world of reality and virtual reality blended into one.

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L I M I TAT I O N S & S U GG EST I O N S FO R F U T U R E R ES E A RC H

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irstly, our netnography encompassed a wide range of topics related to VRChat. One could argue that it has extensive breadth but lacks particular depth on a particular aspect of the game. Because our research purpose was to understand how VRChat serves as an alternate reality for many people, we felt width was more important than depth, and we highly encourage future research to deep dive into a specific category for further elucidation.

Secondly, because netnography is inherently an interpretive research method through participant observation, the data collected throughout may be subject to some degree of subjective bias. Although this subjective interpretation can be valuable, for those looking for more objective and quantitative data, we recommend future research to explore other research methodologies as well, such as incorporating more quantitative data to balance the type of data collected.

Thirdly, the interview methodology incorporated in this research was done with personal friends only, due to the challenges in recruiting randomly selected participants in a game world. Although interviewing personal friends can be valuable in their own ways, their responses and collected data should not be generalized to all players.

Finally, because VRChat is a globally played game, it was very challenging to observe every demographic out there, and as a result, our research should not be overgeneralized for every VRChat community out there. We encourage future research to explore focusing on specific user groups or demographics for more localized and specific research data.

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I N F O R M AT I O N ARCHITECTURE

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