The World’s Biggest Social Virtual Reality Gathering Is Happening Right Now
Virtual Market 4, or V-Ket 4 for short, is a Japanese expo that spans 36 separate worlds contained within the VRChat ecosystem. Its primary purpose is to sell virtual apparel and avatars, like if shopping for a new “skin” in Fortnite took place inside a sprawling virtual mall. Given the scale of the event, it’s also drawn the attention from big brands to create an almost CES-like feel.
In concept, V-Ket 4 is one of the more remarkable activities I’ve seen during my time writing about VR, but in practice we’re clearly far off from a truly rich social experience in VR.
The most astonishing aspect is the scope and scale of the event. According to the official press release, V-Ket 3 hosted more than 710,000 people, and this time more than a million visitors are expected to participate over the course of 10 days (making it the largest social VR gathering ever). 40 companies, many of them well-known multinationals including Audi, Netflix, Panasonic, and Sega, will be exhibitors as well. ... I also do not know the number of people who will attend in 2D, since VRChat also works on desktop without a VR device.
V-Ket 4 is one of the most stunning developments I’ve seen, and they are certainly making good on their stated mission of “developing and enriching the virtual space.” For us westerners, it’s also a reminder that development of the technologies doesn’t occur at a uniform speed across various geographies. When I visited China and Japan a few years ago, it was already clear that consumer adoption of virtual reality was far beyond what we currently see in the West.
See the full story here: https://singularityhub.com/2020/04/30/the-worlds-biggest-social-virtual-reality-gathering-is-happening-right-now/