How “Inclusiveness” Would Drive the Growth of Metaverse - An Interview with AltspaceVR World Creator Niko Lang

I've never met Niko Lang, a 3D artist, and programmer from Germany, whose work aims to provide a new perspective on how we perceive the world around us and how we interact with it. Yet on a recent Sunday morning we “traveled together” to the solar system, visited the ice age, and immersed ourselves in AI-generated art - all through our VR headsets.?

Enter Social Virtual Reality (social VR) - a simulated environment where users can create immersive spaces called “worlds,” interact with each other and participate in a wide range of activities, from organizing “standard” events, such as singing karaoke or joining a forum, to creating experiences beyond reality, such as riding on the back of a dragon or traveling to alien planets. Of the 20+ immersive social VR platforms existing today, the most famous ones are Meta’s Horizon Worlds, VRChat and RedRoom, followed by smaller platforms such as Big Screen, Altspace and Engage.?

“We don’t have the physical limitations in VR as we do in reality so how we interact with our space and with each other becomes completely different,” said Niko during our virtual interview on Altspace, a platform acquired by Microsoft in 2017.

“The demand for building office spaces in VR seems to be high - to me that’s because people don’t know what else they can do," he continued. "Recreating something from reality just because that’s how we know it - without thinking through its purpose - is meaningless. When people collaborate in VR, you can literally build a planet together. The idea of an office or walls may not make sense anymore. We have to show people what’s possible so they can start seeing things differently.”?

Niko has been building virtual worlds on Altspace since 2016. His collaborations with fellow Altspacer/ artist Shushu, won the 2022 Cannes Best Virtual Reality Short Award. Of the 20+ Altspace worlds he has created, his personal favorite is The Solar System, a magnificent space that allows the audience to visit each planet, look inside them, travel into the core of our sun or visualize the death of it.?

As a fellow Altspacer myself, I had the honor to chat with Niko about his creation and his thoughts on the Metaverse. For him, the motivation behind creating the Solar System is deeply personal.?

“I have been into astronomy since I was a kid and I learned it through toys, books, movies - anything I could get my hands on. This is something I wish I had when I was a kid.”? Niko said. “Seeing people actually use it to teach kids about astronomy really motivated me.”?

The Solar System, however, is amongst one of the hundreds of VR worlds that will be sunsetting in March. With the recent announcement from Microsoft to shut down AltspaceVR and to redirect its resources to Mesh, a new B2B mix reality platform, emotion has been running high as members and communities on Altspace scramble to find a new home.?

Despite having a passionate community, Altspace is relatively small in the world of social VR. While stats for Altspace’s monthly active users aren’t easily available, it’s safe to say that its community size is less than a fraction of what Horizon Worlds (~200K monthly active users) or VRChat (~40-80K concurrent active users) have. And even those two leading platforms struggle to consistently grow their user bases.?

There are many reasons that could explain the slow growth of social VR - e.g. hardware accessibility, platform stability, the public’s readiness to interact via this new medium, and the safety of those interactions…just to name a few. While there is no one reason that rules them all, I wonder what it’d take for a social VR platform to really thrive from a creator’s perspective.??

As an artist and VR world builder, Niko believes that inclusiveness - in terms of who gets access to build and create in VR - is a critical yet often overlooked aspect of social VR. After all, a platform is only as strong as the community that builds it. Inclusiveness, he added, is also one of the biggest strengths Altspace had.?

“On one hand, you get Meta’s Horizon World that provides a really good scripting system and in-game tools for people to create without programming skills. But they’re excluding experienced developers from building truly beautiful, complex worlds because there is no Unity integration,” Niko explained. For context, Unity is a widely popular game engine used by developers to create sophisticated interactive effects and experiences.?

“On the other hand, you get VRChat - it allows a lot of freedom but you have to do everything in Unity so you can’t collaborate as easily. It’s the combo that makes the difference and so far there is no other platform like Altspace that can really balance the two,” He continued.

But why does it matter to have both the in-game creation ability and Unity integration? As an average user who mostly consumes rather than creating content - I had to ask - Why should I care about how the virtual world was created as long as the final output is enticing??

“When platforms allow different types of builders, the inclusiveness helps create a wide range of stories. There are many creators who don’t know how to use Unity but have great stories to tell. For example, a friend of mine - a truck driver who used to go to prison - recreated what life is like inside the cell using Altspace's in-game creation. Or my friend Shushu, a great storyteller with a theater production background,” Niko explained. “They never learned Unity but they bring in different perspectives. A good platform needs all kinds of developers. That's how innovation happens. You can’t exclude creators who don’t have a technical background, but you also can’t limit the freedom for professional developers.”?

With Altspace coming to an end, I asked Niko which of his VR worlds he’d save first “if the house was on fire.” “The Solar System, Magic AI Art Gallery and the Frozen Age are probably my top three,” he affirmed.?

"The AI gallery started as an experiment - it may not look like much but I'm very proud of it. It has a lot of implications on how we can build future VR worlds in a quick and efficient way, creating assets using AI prompts,” he replied, standing in front of an AI generated image that mimics Vincent van Gogh's style. Right next to it, there is a row of artworks shaped like raindrops that one can "walk in" literally and immerse yourself from within. “A big part of the future of VR will probably be based on artificial intelligence."

As our chat continues, we “world-hopped” to Niko’s Frozen Age, a visually stunning cinematic production that time-travels you back to the earth from millions of years ago.

"The Frozen Age world is an example to help people reimagine what the future of a museum or education experience could be, mixing information, immersive entertainment and cinematic production," he explained. "People will find out how to make the best use of VR once you show them the potential."?

“So what’s next?” I feel the urge to ask, knowing that hundreds of hours were spent to build these incredible worlds and all will be gone in March. Migrating assets from one VR platform to the other isn’t just technically challenging, but each platform also has its own culture, audience, and creation pipeline.?

“For now, I’m still exploring several platforms but I’ve migrated the Solar System to VRChat since they offer the most freedom for developers. I know I’ll miss the in-game development part from Altspace,” NiKo said with a soft voice as he reflected on the rapidly changing landscape.

“We’re just at the beginning of VR and there is a lot of uncertainty. The more flexible you can be, the less you need to rely on just one platform and its way of doing things.," he continued. "We’ve learned through Altspace that no platform is safe. (My suggestion to other developers is to) organize your assets in a way that can be converted to different platforms. We need to hope for the best but always prepare for the worst.”?

*Some interview notes have been lightly edited for clarity and have been verified with the interviewee.? **Special thanks to my friends Johnny Wang and PaperLi for contributing to the interviews process, photos and editing.