The trumpet sounded, the crowd quieted, and then a coffin began to float down the aisle, as if carried by an invisible coffin bearer, until it stopped in front of a makeshift altar decorated with candles and flowers.
The coffin was propped up, the iconic AltspaceVR robot head was revealed under the transparent lid, and the brief ceremony began.
The scene unfolded last weekend on the social VR platform AltspaceVR, where about 40 users and creators gathered to mourn its imminent demise.
Microsoft acquired the VR platform in 2017 and shut down AltspaceVR on March 10.
© Janko Roettgers
The last few days of AltspaceVR were marked by many of these somber moments: the community formed over the years on the platform held its final farewell events, friends and VR acquaintances exchanged contact information to stay in touch, and quite a few people told apocalyptic, apocalyptic jokes.
Athena Demos, CEO of Big Rock Creative, said:
There is no doubt that the world is ending.
Big Rock Creative is a community of slash artists for VR startup that has been running a virtual version of Burning Man in AltspaceVR since 2020. The demo told her audience at last weekend's ceremony that the AltspaceVR community will always remember the memories it left on the platform.
"It's bittersweet. It's sad," she told Fast Company. "There's some magic out there."
The demise of AltspaceVR comes at a pivotal moment for VR and immersive media:
Apple is widely expected to release its first mixed reality device in the coming months, while Meta will continue to pour billions of dollars into AR and VR hardware and software.
© Janko Roettgers
However, Meta's own social VR platform, Horizon Worlds, has struggled to gain upward traction, while some companies have grown tired of the potential of the "metaverse" and immersive digital communities.
In this case, the closure of AltspaceVR marks both the end of the early era of social VR platforms and the need for the metaverse to learn harder in the future to get a chance to survive.
Microsoft announced plans to shut down AltspaceVR in January as part of broader cost-cutting measures that also included exiting several other VR initiatives and laying off 10,000 employees. Microsoft said at the time that it would continue to build technology for avatar-based AR and VR enterprise services; A source familiar with the company's immersive technology plans told Fast Company that AltspaceVR's eight-year-old platform has struggled with massive technical debt.
Still, the sudden closure frustrated a lot of users. "I think it's short-sighted," Demos said. "I don't think they realize the real value of these platforms."
Over the years, AltspaceVR has focused on events and communities, hosting virtual red carpet movie premieres, VR fashion shows, concerts, and even presidential debates. Comedian Reggie Watts used to frequent, and many churches and faith communities hold weekly services on AltspaceVR.
© Janko Roettgers
"I love Altspace," said Jeremy Nickel, a former Unitarian pastor who began experimenting with meditation and mindfulness circles on VR platforms in 2016. Encouraged by the response from the AltspaceVR community, Nickel founded EvolVR, a VR meditation community, in 2017 and hosted approximately 4,000 events on AltspaceVR with tens of thousands of participants.
Both Nickel and Demos praised AltspaceVR's politeness and ability to keep trolls away. "They have really unique conditioning tools that are well thought out and very effective," Nickel said. "There's something special about Altspace's Community Standards," Demos noted. "This doesn't exist on other platforms."
AltspaceVR also attracts event creators with cross-dimensional performance capabilities:
For example, a comedian can perform with his avatar in a VR comedy club – and then teleport that performance to multiple replicas of the club in real time.
This allows hundreds of people to attend events in small, intimate environments without the technical hurdles that come with too many avatars appearing in the same space at the same time. "It's really hard to replicate it on other platforms," Nickel said.
For AltspaceVR veterans, this week's shutdown is also a bit familiar. In mid-2017, AltspaceVR announced that it was forced to shut down when it ran out of funds, and was saved by Microsoft's acquisition at the last minute. Nikor said:
Since then, we have all held our breath and said goodbye at this point for too long.
In the eight years that AltspaceVR has been up and running, virtual reality has evolved significantly. Initially, relatively few early adopters used expensive PC-based devices to access VR services.
Meta has reportedly sold nearly 20 million standalone Quest 2 VR devices since 2020, significantly lowering the barrier to entry into the media. This has helped many other social VR platforms, including VRChat, Rec Room, and Meta's own Horizon Worlds.
AltspaceVR event creators like Nickel, which was acquired by VR meditation startup Tripp last year, are now looking to direct their audiences to these other platforms. "We are ready to move on," he said.
© Janko Roettgers
For many AltspaceVR users, finding a new home in VR does feel different from shutting down their favorite email service or search engine.
Not only have they lost their avatars, many have personalized these avatars over the years to reflect their appearance or personality, and some of their favorite virtual worlds are also disappearing.
"We have had weddings and funerals. People have really taken their last breath with our community," Nickel explained. "The place where that happened has disappeared. It's hard. ”
VR evangelists have long been talking about such a future:
Social VR worlds like AltspaceVR and its successors are interoperable, and users can take their avatars from one world to another.
But Nickel believes that since this vision of a virtual world that connects everything is still out of reach, the demise of AltspaceVR may have some lessons.
"We are a meditation community. We're trying to help people understand that change is the only constant," he said.
It's just part of the journey, you know?