Wagner James Au / New World Notes

VRChat devs just dropped a ridonkulously huge grab bag of announcements on Twitch, both upcoming and experimental; I pulled some highlights onto my YouTube, and my VRC correspondent Adeon Writer watched live and took copious notes. Most exciting to the user community was probably what's featured above: Avatar-to-avtar dynamics, which enable users to "physically" interact and even manipulate each others' bodies — that's on the company's roadmap for this Summer.

Also coming out starting this Summer: User monetization options and, finally, a full creator economy: 

"User-to-user subscriptions is the first thing they are adding," Adeon reports, "basically Patreon except in-game directly, and Udon and scripting can react to it." (I.E., monetization options can be embedded directly into interactive experiences.) And while the ability to sell content in-world is on VRChat's roadmap, virtual currency is notably not: "[VRChat devs] specifically said they won't be doing a fake currency; real money only for anything they make."

Maybe most interesting from a cross-platform point of view are upcoming/experimental features that track body and facial movement via webcams and mobile devices:

Watch above. "I know many YouTubers were already using VRChat as their secret sauce," as Adeon notes. "This will make it even better for them. Also useful for desktop users to feel engaged." This feature, while depicted as experimental, also brings up the distinct possibility of a VRChat mobile app coming soon.

Also announced: VRChat servers in the UK and Japan, the latter especially useful for certain puppeteers trying to juggle from there in real time.

More (much more!) on VRC's official Twitch. While Rec Room may report more users, VRChat seems to me the current social VR platform with the lead, both in terms of the creative community ecosystem, and (as seen here), the breadth of the official feature set.   

Much thanks to Adeon's foxy reportage!