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DarthBuzzard t1_j1hg4dq wrote

Reply to comment by b_lett in Future of Games by stoneman217

> VR implies disconnecting personally in the same room, and being more online. And the way people are moving in online connectivity, it isn't VR. It's streaming, Discord servers, live chats, Twitch, messengers, etc. It seems a lot of people don't want to be so immersed into a game world they lose a lot of communication and interaction with other humans in the process.

This actually shows just how well-suited VR is.

Streaming, discord servers, live chats, twitch, messengers - how can all of this be improved? What is the ideal interface for all this social stuff? Meta has it right; it's VR where you go beyond chatting on a 2D screen and actually get to feel like you are face to face with other people.

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b_lett t1_j1hvbc7 wrote

You are still very limited to how you communicate in VR. It's basically microphone chat with an avatar version of yourself.

Chatrooms and other online hangouts give you access to a lot more information to send back and forth, be it photos, hyperlinks, videos, gifs, memes, audio files, etc.

There's a lot more than just text that is being sent back and forth between people now, and it is a huge pain to send anything text related in. VR from aiming and shooting with motion controls on a virtual keyboard vs. just using mobile phone or keyboard/mouse.

The problem with Meta is ultimately it is some corporate controlled play space, and they will strip the type of content you can share, so kids or people will move somewhere else if it feels like there's too much censorship.

Not to mention Facebook/Meta shadowbans people from having very little customer support and leaves almost every account ban up to algorithms with no great way to recover your account or access to your own VR device without looping in some local state attorney general. Current FB/Meta is already kind of dystopic Black Mirror.

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DarthBuzzard t1_j1hwssh wrote

Actually it's pretty easy to make the argument that VR stands to be the highest bandwidth of communication information across all mediums, including real life.

Well, touch and smell and taste are technically a part of communication, so real life has VR beat there, but as far as our vision and hearing, VR can over time replicate every detail of real world communication - all our microexpressions - put that onto a perfectly realistic avatar of ourselves, or go Disney/anime style and have overly expressive avatars instead, which have an extra layer of communication that real life can't provide.

If you've watched VTubers or even just seen Disney movies, you know that there are things that can only be conveyed by such abstractions.

So VR will have as much visual/auditory expressability as the real world when going for full simulation of our real selves, or can offer extra expressability. And all other mediums exist in VR. I've shared photos, hyperlinks, videos, gifs, memes, and audio files in VR social spaces. You can also dial this up further and become the meme. I could have an avatar of the kool aid man.

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b_lett t1_j1i8hwx wrote

I do agree there's a lot of potential. I just become a bit pessimistic seeing how platforms instantly take people down for copyrighted content detection through algorithmic scanning of audio or visual content.

I think stuff like VR Chat scrapes by through 'Fair Use' practices because it's a free application, but the second you try and broadcast what you're doing elsewhere to like Facebook or Twitch or YouTube, you can get struck down in seconds, especially if you are playing music owned by someone like Disney.

It's a rough thing to navigate when it comes to intellectual properties all being used and abused on someone's platform.

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