
AltspaceVR is Closing Down - Stanleyc23
https://vrscout.com/news/altspacevr-is-closing-down/
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ipsum2
Although AltspaceVR's public announcement claims they're shutting down due to
lack of funds, I suspect that being sued by a patent troll also contributed to
the closure of the company.

See:
[https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/12511784](https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/12511784)
and discussion:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/6q4idg/alt_space_pate...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/6q4idg/alt_space_patent_infringement_lawsuit/)

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bhouston
All other cases file by this patent troll:

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=VIRTUAL+IMMERSION+TECHNOLOGIE...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=VIRTUAL+IMMERSION+TECHNOLOGIES+LLC)

Patent in question:

[https://www.google.com/patents/US6409599](https://www.google.com/patents/US6409599)

Here is the original product:

[https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/1996/12/09/focus...](https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/1996/12/09/focus2.html)

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catshirt
in this instance the patent itself bothers me more than the trolling.

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strgrd
How do you monetize a game where there are rarely more than 100 people online?
Most of the time it felt like there were more Altspace employees than genuine
players. They made serious efforts to curb harassment, but in effect managed
to sabotage any chance of spontaneous interaction with other VR strangers. By
the time they brought in "campfires", no one played.

Altspace was doomed the moment they decided to fundraise instead of, you know,
make money. There was no reason Altspace couldn't have been made by 1-2
people. Instead, they went on a hiring spree, and the game had nothing to show
for it. Really, anyone funding the VR space right now is insane:
[http://vrlfg.net/](http://vrlfg.net/)

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hbosch
I agree that anyone pumping serious money into VR right now is either
misguided or overly optimistic. The adoption rate has flattened, the hardware
and software are both lacking innovation, and the costs to enter the market
for consumers are insane - relatively.

Until you get Vive-like tracking on a Gear-like device I would avoid VR in
general. People just will not buy gaming PCs on the same curve in which they
adopted smartphones.

I worked at a prominent (still alive) VR company and the experience was
enlightening.

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KyleBrandt
In particular multiplayer focused "in Dev" games are problematic. It is
resource intensive to keep up with moderation and anti-hacking. Combine that
with smaller VR subset of users and it seems hard to imagine success without
many years of runway money.

Smaller one player or 2 player multiplayer indie-like games is probably better
fit for small funded VR.

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modfodder
A tweet from my lone experience on AltspaceVR.

"I spent an hour in VR watching Reggie Watts perform live. The future feels
suspiciously like a 90s version of Second Life."

The experience was about as underwhelming as possible and I never went back.

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catshirt
got my Vive 2 weeks ago. literally just got Altspace ready yesterday. i have
friends who work there, and some of my favorite artists have authored there
(Duncan Trussell, Reggie Watts). and if you take VR to it's logical
conclusion, Altspace _was basically v1 of the Matrix_. so... yeah... as far as
companies closing down goes, kind of a bummer...

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crsv
Burning 15 mil in less than 3 years and closing up shop seems like terrible
management more than anything else.

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didibus
Kmowing that facebook was just around the corner probably didn't help them
find funding.

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wwwigham
More like their 90% use case was subsumed by the new steamvr lobbies...

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ajsalminen
I disagree. SteamVR home only lets you invite a few friends over to your
personal space while AltspaceVR was more about all kinds of events in public
spaces. Even more importantly it's only available on the PC while Altspace was
one of the few options also available on mobile VR which has a significantly
larger userbase than PC-based VR right now.

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cultureulterior
Performed really badly on my Daydream

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bedros
that's the case of solution looking for a problem

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asasidh
Do an ICO.

