It had been a few years since I’d done a deep dive into the Metaverse… what we used to call VR, or more specifically, social VR. I had left the industry in 2018 with a great deal of disillusionment, having invested roughly 4 years of my life into developing leading edge apps for the then-available platforms, and finding much technical frustration and very little customer traction. I felt that now, 8 years later,  it was time to reassess the State of the Metaverse. I went in with high hopes. Unfortunately, what I encountered was nothing short of an utter Metaverse Dystopia.

But hey, that was a spoiler: it had been 6 years, and some of my friends were deeply entrenched in the industry, and they were all telling me versions of the same story: with the Quest 3, and now especially with the Apple Vision Pro, we’re finally here. We’ve crossed the Rubicon. Apple has validated the category, and now we’re off to the races. The Metaverse is happening… really happening. Some (many!) people were even citing crazy figures like “>100 million daily VR users” (which I still do not believe, not even close… but hey, analysts need to sell reports, and startups need stats to support the tens of millions of investment that they need to raise… facts be damned.)

And so, I went to my local Target, picked up a Quest 3, and… and put it on the shelf, just like all my old HMDs. But then a few months passed, and I thought: well, better actually see what this is all about. I had my short list of titles, and my mental list of performance metrics that I wanted to analyze. It was time. I charged it up, popped new batteries into the hand controllers, powered it up, let it update all the firmware, and…

entered the Metaverse Dystopia. 

 

I thought I’d do a quick warm-up first. The first app the Quest+ reccomended to me was “the Climb,” a rock climbing gym simulator. I loved bouldering and free climbing, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Well, to say I was disappointed is an understatement (you can read more about my Climb VR experience here)

Now, the Climb was crap… but then again, it was released in 2016, and then re-mastered 3 years later in 2019, in order to work on the significantly lower graphics horsepower of the Quest headsets (yes, a 2016 Oculus + desktop GPU still beats the pants off a standalone Quest with Snapdragon CPU, when measured solely on graphics performance & fidelity). So, any way you look at it, that was some 5+ year old — ancient — VR. Time for an update.

The New Frontier: Social VR

In addition to the concept of physical computing, the other feature that had excited me in 2016, back when I was developing VR, was the social aspect… what we simply called at the time: multi-player VR. Single player could be great, sure… but the end result was peak experiences that you could share with… no one. They were your own private universe of imaginary visceral adventure. And if there was one thing I had learned in my life, travelling all around the world in one exotic solo adventure after another, it was this: experience is best when shared.

So, social VR excited me. Our very first apps had been multiplayer, through some awesome deep networking hacks coded by my partner, but the problem back then was: you had to have two high end gaming PCs and one master control server and two high end headsets and two sets of hand controllers and two sets of trackers and and and… yeah. It was a $10,000 bet to get that show going, plus hours of setup every time you moved it, and yeah. not practical.

But it appeared, at least, that a few things had transpired: Meta/Oculus had put in excellent multiplayer support frameworks and comm protocols, and several developers had risen to the occasion and embodied the mass-multiplayer aspect successfully into their apps. Tops on that list appeared to be VRchat, RecRoom, and Walkabout Mini-Golf.

the Wreckage of Rec Room VR

I had had extremely positive experiences with the initial single player launch of Rec Room back in the day, so that was the app I picked to begin my social VR exploration. Heaven Help Us All.

The first step, of course, was to select a username, and to create an avatar. Miraculously, my most excellent global handle, @acroyogi, was still available. This struck me as a positive sign, seeing as RecRoom reportedly has more than 75 million registered users as of 2024. I took a few long minutes, as people tend to do, to shape, shave, and costume my avatar to my satisfaction, and hit “OK,” prepared to set forth on my adventure.

Orientation: High Hopes

Orientation was fun, fascinating, and stretched on for a long time. All throughout, there were large plate glass windows, through which I could ostensibly witness users at play. The muffled sounds of their conversation transmitted convincingly through the glass. Some waved at me; others gestured for me to join them around the corner; others simply smiled. I could not discern whether these were real players or simply AI NPCs, and I wavered on that discernment, from room to room.

Throughout, both verbally and via signs on the wall, the mantra of RecRoom was repeated: “Be Excellent!”… it seemed like, the way they were communicating it, it was some kind of millenial twist on the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Treat all people as your beloved neighbor. It was a little over the top, but I did find it mildly comforting. It built an expectation of a very G-rated, very “positive” experience.

After witnessing a paintball tournament (through another plate glass window) and trying my hand at bow and arrow (an actual hobby of mine, so by far my favorite physical skill dynamic so far), I arrived at the penultimate room: the sculpture garden. Here RecRoom introduced some sort of “Creation Pen,” which — while I never got to try it — apparently enabled the creation of complex custom 3D geometries and textures.

In other words, it allowed you to manufacture your own custom props and costumes, right in the game. I was both intrigued, impressed, and a bit intimidated. I was used to creating 3D objects in professional tool suites such as AutoCAD, Maya and Adobe. Dumbing down pro tools for the average everyday user was always an exercise in tradeoffs. A frustrating loss of precision.

But, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt. The user gallery looked pretty cool, full of swords, musical instruments, samurai armor, and 3D angel wings. perhaps RecRoom had solved the riddle of easy-to-use-yet-powerful 3D authoring tools. I made a mental note to try it out.

And then, exiting the gallery, I was welcomed to RecRoom. The first screen I remember was a large panel, listing thousands of available environments. They were broadly categorized: Hangouts, PvP, etc. I browsed for a while. Other than the top level categorization and a single thumbnail image for each world, there wasn’t much of a clue as to what one might expect to find.

I scrolled around for a few minutes, couldn’t really tell any difference (other than that I wanted a light place, not a dark place, and I was not going to do one of the hundreds of “horror” themed worlds), and selected what seemed innocuous to me: “Valentines Day Party”. Perhaps I should have thought twice about those implications.

My First VR Chat Room: Social Awkwardness

I arrived in world via some kind of teleportation mechanism. I was on the ground, in a 3D world. bright blue skies, rolling green hills. I heard chatter and laughter and loud voices, but looking around, saw no-one else present in the world. In that moment, I assumed that it was a distant echo of the Onlive Traveller trick: pipe in ambient conversational audio to make the empty world feel more populated and alive than it actually was.

I looked around. And up. Then I finally saw it: a group of a dozen or so (actually, probably more like 16) avatars was floating in the air, about 50′ above and to my right. I listened as some of the conversation got loud and full of bravado, then actually heard the “kapow! smash” as two avatars briefly engaged in fisticuffs. Others laughed. I wasn’t sure if it was theatre between bros, or actual combat. Intriguing. So: the voices were real.

And then it hit me. OMG. These are real people. Those are their real voices. I suddenly felt quite shy. I got that feeling of social awkwardness. I decided to listen before I spoke. Just then another avatar materialized right next to me, promptly glided six feet away, and launched up into the sky.

I looked, and saw a white sign painted on the ground, reading: “Stand here to fly”. So I did. And was immediately propelled 20 feet vertically. And just as quickly, fell back down to the ground. I tried this several times, with the same result every time. Arrrgh. This was very frustrating. My first experience, and I was fricking grounded. A bird without wings.

I even, in desperation, had an idea: gesture control? I extended my arms and flapped like wings. I must have looked ridiculous. I stayed on the ground, despite my most excellent physical theatre. I decided to ask for help. I broke my silence and spoke, loudly: “Hey, can someone tell me how to fly?” No response. Yelling, now: “Hello! How do I fly?!?”

Just then I heard someone yell back from high above: “Hit the A-button twice, then hold down the left trigger.” So much for my dream of physical computing. It had been 30 years since Mortal Kombat, and still we were tied to magical button-mashing combinations to accomplish even the simplest of tricks. <le sigh>

So. I stood atop the marker. Jumped. Mashed the A-button (or what I thought was the A-button, I couldn’t actually see the controller) twice, and squeezed the left trigger. And prayed. I launched. And fully expecting to fall, I… I… I levitated! I was a free bird, 20 feet up in the air. I spun, and pointed, and used the “walk” joystick… which apparently now was the “glide” joystick, and was able, after a bit of trial and error, to navigate right to the periphery of the conversation group.

…which is right about where the social awkwardness began.

In fact, it was alarmingly like real life. You are at a party. You are a stranger. You see a group of people, in a physical constellation, chatting and laughing it up. You walk up to them. Suddenly, all eyes turn to you. There is a moment… a lightning moment… accept or reject?

In this case, the first thing I heard was:

“Who the fuck is that?
Yo, look e’erbody, he has a card
stuck up his ass!”

I think, in a split second: are they talking about me? card up his ass? what does that even–

but before I can even finish the thought, another, different voice pipes in:

“Holy Shit… Homelander!
Everybody… Run!!!”

And that was all it took. To my PoV, it looked like a bomb went off. People fled, in all directions. Within a split second, I was levitating, at 50 feet above the ground, and quite suddenly, all alone again. WTF?

I looked around. And then I saw… the same group of people. Rapidly coalescing… re-gathering, about 50 yards to my left. same general altitude. really?!? had I just been… shunned? That was pretty fucked up. Well, as my friend Philip likes to say: Run into the Spike.

And so… I flew over to the re-assembled group.

I got some looks, and some backs turned to me… but at least this time, no one called me out, and no one… fled. Okay. I could join this group. I just sat, watched, and listened.

What happened then was a bit… bizarre. I recognized the words. They were most certainly English. I saw the gestures, and the pace. They were most certainly… conversing. But what threw me off was the… structure, meaning, and context. The strings of nouns and verbs and prepositions that came out of their mouths were utterly foreign to me.

It was as if they were speaking in code… I understood the words, but the sentences made no sense. It was as if they were using English, but the nouns and verbs were all scrambled… to me, it sounded like utter nonsense. Yet it had the proper conversational cadence… it was properly punctuated by breaths, “umms,” and laughter…

What the hell was going on here?

I said a few basic openers:

“Hello.”… “What’s Up?”…

“Hi, I’m Gregory… what is this place?”

…but unilaterally, I was ignored.

I listened to the coded nonsense for a mere minute or so, was ignored, and then basically thought: “Fuck it. This is not the place for me.” I navigated back to the entry portal.

Where, surprise surprise… someone was dancing about on the green grass below, and yelling : “Please, hello?!? Somebody please help me, how do I fly?”

My heart string was plucked. I was witnessing my exact same n00b self, from 3 minutes prior. I embraced my “Be Excellent”… my Golden Rule:

“Yo, dude! Just hit the A-button twice fast, then mash and hold the left trigger!”

“Oh, wow, man! Thanks!”

I watched. Within a split second, the new avatar was ascending. A second later, he had navigated to face me.

And…

My First VR Social Interaction: Actual Trauma in Metaverse Dystopia

The physical gestures he made, and his movements, and what came out of his mouth, in that moment, will remain undisclosed. All I can say is this: It was undoubtedly some hella perverted shit, and it was (and I have yet to ascertain the roles here) completely pedophilic. As soon as I understood what was happening, I instinctively retreated my avatar backwards, and frantically started mashing every button I could to pull up some kind of menu (“Switch, get me an exit…”)…

he had already closed the distance so intimately, that his avatar had transformed from a perceived solid, into a ghostly blue transparent holographic representation.

I felt nauseous and my only instinct was to flee… if I had been thinking straight, I would have simply ripped the headset / goggles right off my head. But I was present in this virtual world… all I could think to do was to… flee.

I did just that. I ran away, then down, then landed on the grass, and ran some more. And it was only then that I thought clearly, and thought: this is virtual. I can log out.

I mashed every button possible, and was finally granted a menu, amongst whose options were “Exit.” I hit it as fast as I could. I saw a little “waiting” spinner. But I would wait no longer. I had hit the button. I ripped that headset right off my head, and found myself, right back in my living room, hyperventilating and disturbed.

And in that moment, I knew exactly what I needed: real blue skies, real clean air, real sand in my toes, and real ocean water on my skin.

I needed to get as far away from this Metaverse Dystopia as possible, and get as physical and in touch with nature as i could, pronto.

Without much thought at all, I grabbed my keys, popped on my shoes, grabbed a bottle of water, and blasted out my front door. Made a beeline for the ocean. Had to purify. Had to purify, to cleanse:  my body, my mind, and my soul.

RR: Real Reality: The un-simulatable, one-and-only Mother Ocean

En route, I texted a few people about the bizarre situation I had just experienced. Some were shocked, some were confused. But I also felt that perhaps, via texting, I was trapping myself in yet another form of black mirror… another screen. Maybe what I needed was a real person to talk to, face to face, in the flesh… I considered inviting Abe to meet me at the beach. When all of the sudden, walking on the boardwalk, I saw a familiar face not 100 feet away. It was Drew!

And thank God, he had the time and the patience to listen. I unloaded on him about what had happened, and indeed: it did seem better to be telling a real person in the real world. He listened compassionately, we talked a bit about his life, and then he encouraged me to continue my urgent mission… into the ocean! (Drew, in addition to being a technical genius, happens to be an accomplished surfer and fellow ocean lover).

So I kicked off my shoes, made a hard right, and traipsed across the wide sandy beach, heading straight for the ocean. Upon arrival, I did not waste any time. I stripped down, put my things in a pile, and ran straight in.

As soon as my toes touched the water, I began to feel validated. Yes, this was the right path.

By the time I dove under my first wave, felt the cold water penetrating my sun-warmed skin, felt the powerful turbulence of the waves crashing against my back as the smooth undercurrent swept speedily past, gently massaging my chest and thighs… by then, I was in heaven.

my happy place: i jumped into the ocean. and rapidly concluded: technology will never… NEVER… be able to simulate the purity, presence, and richness of this: the smell of the salt, the hot sun on my face, the cold water on my toes, the splash, the saltwater on my tongue, the massive, brutal force of the waves crashing into my body, the feel of the turbulence of the waves above as I dive underneath…

I had found my happy place. I literally laughed and yelped like a child with the pure ecstasy of the immediate experience.

Simultaneously, I had a thought: there is just no way in hell that all this could be synthesized. There are plenty of scuba diving VRs, plenty of underwater exploration VRs… but, why? The multi-sensory, total immediacy sensation of the actual ocean: the temperature contrasts, the smells, the tastes, the force of the waves and water, the sounds, the lights of the sun on your face, diffracted through droplets of saltwater dripping from your eyelashes… singular. real.

This, of course, will not stop humans from pursuing their dreams of “accurate simulation”…

Please, people: eschew the Metaverse Dystopia. Its built by corporations, and it is not for your benefit. We are promised a virtual “bold exciting digital future” when our present real world is already as bold, exciting, and real as we allow it to be. (or, perhaps, as we dare?) Embrace the Real World of warm sun, fresh air, and real people who breath, move, hug and yes… even smell.

.

PostNote:

VR and Haptics : The Last Piece of the Puzzle

Jesse Schell put up a very strange slide in the middle of his talk. It was a drawing of a high-speed robotic arm, behind which sat a “library” of 64 “surface swatches,” including cement, grass, brick, fur, glass, carpet, wood, etc… the idea was that, as the player reached out to touch a wall or a tabletop (or a puppy) in the simulation, that the robot would, at superhuman-robot-speed, pluck a texture swatch from the library, and position it perfectly at the fingertips of the player, along with proper “force-feedback / resistance”… thus giving highly accurate haptic feedback, fairly continually, as the player explored the virtual environment (and its simulated physical equivalent)

How clever. (truly!)

This machine solved a major issue in VR realism. Namely, that there is no world. There are no surfaces. So while, at this point, your eyes are receiving fairly photorealistically accurate readings of a simulated environment (and that is correct, since vision processing / “sight” occupies >30% of human brain activity), your natural instinct to “reach out and touch it” is, today, met with vapor… air… nothingness. Your hand, inevitably, passes through every surface that it attempts to feel.

In other words: vision can be considered fairly solved. Touch, on the other hand, (no pun intended) is largely absent (minus a basic vibration of the controller, which actually is surprisingly effective at triggering a basic neanderthal sensory response).

There are many many ideas for how VR haptics might work, in addition to Schell’s mad scientist approach. Most boil down to some kind of wetsuit with a whole bunch of tech and electronics sewn into the fiber (heating conduits, cooling channels, impact-generators and pressure-switches). Many more have a series of cables attached, so that the human ends up being a sort of “reverse marionette”.

To me, these systems look more like poor humans tangled up in very high-tech spider webs.

But that’s not all. You need ambulation. The ability to walk around, far past the limits of your living room. So lets add an infinite floor (multi-directional, slope-adjustable treadmill).

What this all boils down to is a massively complicated technical wet dream, and… for what?

You spend 12 months and $200,000 building the ultimate simulation rig. Congratulations! Now you can have a pseudo-accurate simulation experience of, say… climbing Mount Everest. (and let’s be very clear: there is no generalised VR simulation solution… super sim rigs are purpose-built to the app: your F1 car cockpit sim rig is very different from your scuba diving sim rig which is again massively different from your mountain climbing rig)

But waitasec. Seriously. What if, instead of building that crazy sim rig, you had spent all that time and money and energy and attention training for, and getting the proper permits for, and building the team, to actually climb Mount Everest (or even just Mount Whitney, our local Alpine Adventure)?

Do you think that any amount of simulation tech is going to come even close to the actual, visceral experience?

(I’ll let you answer that for yourself; my personal answer should be crystal clear by now).

 

Conclusion: Give me the Real World

Choice: IRL or VR?

Answer: Real World. Every Time. 100%.

ThankYouVeryMuch.
<dropsMic>