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Enough? A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Immersive Technology on User Presence.” Media Psychology, 19:2 (2016): 272-309. DOI: 10.1080/15213269.2015.1015740
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[lxvii]Anti-Defamation League Hate Symbols Database. “Pepe the Frog.” 2017. https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/pepe-the-frog
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[lxxiii] Belmaire, Jordan. “My First Virtual Reality Groping.” Medium, 2016. https://medium.com/athena-talks/my-first-virtual-reality-sexual-assault-2330410b62ee
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[lxxvi]AltspaceVR. “Introducing a Space Bubble.” 13 July 2016. https://altvr.com/introducing-space-bubble/
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[lxxxi] Personal communication, Jesse Damiani, VRScout. 2018.
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[lxxxvi]Hirst, Alison and Christina Schwabenland. “Doing Gender in the ‘New Office’.” Gender, Work & Organization 25:2 (March 2018): 159-176. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12200
[lxxxvii] Groom, Victoria, Jeremy N. Bailenson, and Clifford Nass. “The Influence of Racial Embodiment on Racial Bias in Immersive Virtual Environments.” Social Influence (2009): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510802643750
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[lxxxix] Yee, Nick and Jeremy Bailenson. “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior.” Human Communication Research 33:3 (2007): 271–290. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00299.x
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[c] Shiu, Anthony Sze-Fai. “What Yellowface Hides: Video Games, Whiteness, and the American Racial Order.” The Journal of Popular Culture 39, no. 1 (2006): 109-125. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2006.00206.x
[ci] Groom, Victoria, Jeremy N. Bailenson, and Clifford Nass. “The Influence of Racial Embodiment on Racial Bias in Immersive Virtual Environments.” Social Influence (2009): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510802643750
[cii] Clark, Liat. “Could VR ‘Solve’ Racism? Headsets May Be Trialled as a Way to Undo Bias in the Police.” Wired 2016. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/alexandra-ivanovitch-simorga-virtual-reality
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Social VR: Industry Overview and Technological Affordances
The Social VR industry is growing rapidly. This is due in part to the recent availability of mass-produced consumer VR equipment, such as high-end headsets for use with personal computers (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift), affordable headsets for use with smartphones (Samsung Gear, Google Cardboard), and stand-alone headsets available for less than the price of a personal computer or video game console (Oculus Go, Lenovo Mirage Solo). Social networking platforms like Facebook, tech giants like Google and HTC, and numerous VR start-up companies have developed new VR-focused social networks, content distribution platforms, and easy-to-use tools for software developers. With the creation and distribution of VR content easier than ever, hundreds of companies are developing VR experiences for use in social networking, gaming (both multiplayer and solo), architecture, design, advertising, healthcare, workforce training, and education.
The industry is predicted to boom over the next few years. Estimates for the entire VR market in 2016 were between $1 billion[i] and $2 billion[ii], while estimates for VR hardware sales alone are as high as $1.8 billion in 2018[iii]. In five years, the market for VR and semi-immersive augmented reality (AR) technology and content is expected to reach between $9 billion and $15 billion[iv]. This follows several years of rapid innovation but slow market growth, which some have called a “trough of disillusionment”[v]. Games are already a popular use of VR, but social VR, enterprise applications, health and wellness, and more new verticals are expected to grow and drive adoption of the technology. While 2016 and 2017 saw greater affordability of headsets and growing user numbers[vi], more high quality content, less expensive stand-alone headsets, willing investors, and an expansion of applications across several industries are expected to drive growth in 2018[vii].
To date, at least 16 platforms primarily designed to enable social interactions in VR exist. These platforms vary in terms of the interactions they allow. While all allow some level of interaction between individual users, many also offer social activities for users to pursue together, from watching concerts to playing games to collaboratively building worlds to gambling.
Major Platforms:
Platforms recognized as early entrants in Social VR and/or supported by significant research and development resources.
Facebook Spaces
Facebook Spaces is a virtual reality interactive environment for socializing with Facebook contacts. Facebook photos are used to create the user’s avatar.
Oculus Rooms
Oculus Rooms is a Social VR platform for socializing with other users. Users can play games, watch shows and movies, listen to music, and more in groups with friends.
Oculus is owned by Facebook.
Oculus Venues
Oculus Venues is a Social VR platform focused on entertainment, including concerts, sporting events, and other live events.
Oculus is owned by Facebook.
Rec Room
Rec Room is a Social VR platform focused on playing social games. Users can play pre-designed games or create their own.
VRChat
VRChat is a Social VR platform where users create custom avatars, build worlds, and interact with other users.
AltspaceVR
AltspaceVR is a Social VR platform where users can interact with other people and participate playing games and attending free live events.
AltspaceVR is owned by Microsoft.
vTime
vTime is a Social VR platform for users to socialize with family and friends a smartphone or VR headset. Users interact in detailed, artistic environments.
Mozilla Hubs
Mozilla Hubs is a mixed reality social networking platform. The platform runs on WebVR, an open-source, easy to use development kit that can be designed and accessed through computer browsers as well as using VR headsets.
Mozilla Hubs is developed by Mozilla.
Minor Platforms:
Newer entrants into Social VR and platforms with niche audiences.
Sansar
Social VR platform created by Linden Lab, creators of Second Life. Users in Sansar can socialize, host live events, create personalized spaces, and create and sell items in the world.
BeanVR
BeanVR is a social VR app where users can engage in a variety of activities including games, education, debates, and presentations. Users in VR can speak with users with 2D cameras.
High Fidelity
High Fidelity connects people from around the world to create and meet in virtual worlds within a platform called The Metaverse.
TheWaveVR
TheWaveVR is a music virtual reality platform where users can view, host, and attend shows, concerts, and festivals.
JanusVR
JanusVR turns 2D web pages into 3D spaces. Users can interact with each other in the virtual 3D spaces.
SlotsMillionVR
SlotsMillionVR is an online casino app that allows the user to play for real money in private casino rooms.
SVVR
SVVR’s Multiverse initiative provides developer tools for creating virtual worlds and interactive connections between virtual worlds and the physical world.
What Makes Social VR Different Than Other Technologies
VR technology has several unique affordances that set it apart from other gaming and social networking technologies. Presence (a psychological feeling that you are truly interacting with a virtual environment), immersion (an effect of reality created by the technology displaying the virtual world)[viii], and embodiment[ix] (feeling like your virtual body is your real body) together contribute to an immersive, lifelike experience. Technology-enabled sensory experiences, like 360 vision and three-dimensional audio, spatial mobility in several directions (left/right, up/down, and forward/backward), high-quality storytelling, and easy to use user interfaces help to produce the feeling that you are “really there”. In psychological research, users often report feeling that they are fully immersed in virtual experiences.
These affordances heighten both the promise and the threat of hate in Social VR. As one recent headline put it, “when virtual reality feels real, so does the sexual harassment.”[x] In addition, patterns of hate in social media and long-standing industry norms of biased representation of women, people of color, and others in video games create a precedent for tolerating harassment in Social VR. Indeed, recent news reports and research show that Social VR will become a hotbed of hate, bias, and harassment if preventive measures are not taken soon.