VR isn’t very social yet. Most of the cool experiences are solitary activities that take place inside a box that cuts you off from the ‘real’ world. Several startups are working to change this though, and Facebook has even announced that an entire team will focus on making VR a social activity.
AltspaceVR, a startup based in Redwood City, California, already allows its users to meet up in public or private virtual places to share activities such as watching YouTube videos, scrolling Twitter, or just generally being on the internet together.
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I went to AltspaceVR’s offices to try out its system.
After strapping on a VR headset with headphones and a microphone attached, I was transported to a virtual mountainside temple. There was a female avatar standing inside who came to life, indicating that Lisa Kotecki, AltspaceVR’s community manager, was down the hall and now plugged into her own setup.
During the early moments of learning to navigate the virtual room, I accidentally teleported myself to within inches of Kotecki’s avatar—and immediately felt like I had just invaded her personal space.
Image: Altspace VR
I was stunned at how awkward I felt. The stress response was immediate and real. Kotecki was physically located in another room, but I still felt the effects of the social mistake. I apologized and moved away, but now understood what social VR can do—it makes you believe you’re actually there with others.
Kotecki then showed me around the virtual temple, a space she uses to host meditation classes. Inside, there was psychedelic-looking art on the walls, which were images linked directly from Tumblr. After walking around to look at the pictures, we went out to the patio which overlooked a tree-line where Kotecki then directed me through a guided meditation.
Since my understanding of meditation is that it’s mostly a closed-eye activity, I wasn’t sure how learning to meditate in VR could provide any advantage, but Kotecki explained that “a lot of the time you get better results when you’re a part of a group.” Indeed, a paper published by Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab supports the suggestion that being with others in VR can actually boost learning.
Aside from the meditation room, AltspaceVR has apps and activities including dungeons and dragons, disc golf, and games like chess and air hockey. I learned the company also organizes live comedy shows—including one upcoming with comedian Reggie Watts.
Comedian Reggie Watts will perform inside Altspace. Image: Altspace VR
AltspaceVR also recently added a Slack integration for co-workers to meet up in VR.
It’s these kinds of interactions that will take VR mainstream, Altspace’s founder and CEO, Eric Romo, told me. “If VR is being used by hundreds of milllions of people in ten years’ time, it will be used primarily for communication,” he said.
Beyond today’s real limitations for social VR—mainly that no one I’d want to hang out with has VR yet—it’s apparent this stuff is coming. Maybe your friends move to another city—or you’re in a long distance relationship, like me. Either way, these social VR systems could make the real world distance disappear just a little bit. And that’s pretty cool.
