I'm sure you've heard by now of the fracas surrounding EchoVR and the impending shutdown of it's online servers. While this alone is big news, the story behind the scenes reveals even more about the state of the "VR-sphere".
To begin we will need a little background on Echo VR, originally titled Echo Arena. Developed by the studio Ready at Dawn, a company that has been publishing titles since 2006, mostly spinoffs and ports of major console games in the Jack and Daxter and God of War franchise. Ready at Dawn came into their own with their own in-house games beginning in 2015 with the PS4 title The Order: 1886. This soon followed with the multi-platform title Deformers and the Oculus Studios published Lone Echo in 2017.
Lone Echo is heralded as one of the highest rated VR games of all time, due in part to it's careful mastery of VR input and movement modes, it's graphically impressive environments, and it's full game length in a space where many others can only brand themselves as "experiences" due to their brevity.
Lone Echo also included an online multiplayer mode, which eventually was available as a stand-along package, which is what we now know as EchoVR. Everyone else is making the comparison to the battlerooms in Ender's game, and as a long-time Ender's game fan I endorse this comparison.
EchoVR went on to become the first major esports VR title, including international tournaments with cash prizes. Like many things online gaming, and especially in the VR-sphere, there were entire communities built up around this game, including the stories of friendship that persist beyond the gaming experience.
Given the stature of Lone Echo, EchoVR, and Ready at Dawn, needless to say it came as a tremendous shock when Ready at Dawn announced that the title would be sunset on August 1st of this year. By most people's estimation the play-base seemed healthy enough to at the very least keep the lights on. It has long held the status of one of those VR experiences that veterans recommend to their neophyte friends. Heck, the game is free!
In their announcement Ready at Dawn mentioned one of their reasons for shutting down the game is so that they could focus on their next project. Keen and critical voices within the VR-sphere took notice immediately, and their suspicions were immediately triggered. Not only did this story seemingly not add up, given the fact that EchoVR offered paid skins and other paid features that should have been enough to keep it going, but there was also the fact that Ready at Dawn was purchased by Meta in 2020. Yes, *that* Meta. The one who has been both a boon and a harbinger towards the future of VR. Due to their outsized spending power, and long-term goals which include a global audience at the possible expense of the current VR community, Meta is kind of a controversial figure to those who hold the future of VR close to their chest.
The community, through their pushing, prodding, and exposés, had managed to get closer to the kernels of truth about the closure. They had learned that not only had Meta expressed the desire to shut down EchoVR, but that Andrew "Boz" Bosworth had personally been involved in this direction. While Ready at Dawn insists that the final decision was always theirs, with Meta's blessings, the community remained doubtful.
Boz chimed in on the topic, as it had become somewhat of a PR issue for Meta. He explained that the team had done their best to adhere to the principles left behind by John Carmack, gaming luminary and former technical advisor at Meta. Boz clarified that EchoVR had been targeted for the chopping block under the principles of efficiency and dedicating resources to bringing VR to wider audiences. Expressing that EchoVR's audience had dropped into the low ten's of thousands. He also discussed that they had explored alternatives to keep it alive, but due to the architecture of the game, and structural and legal issues at Meta, these just weren't an option.
John Carmack then provided a statement further exploring and clarifying on the technical issues which make a game like EchoVR difficult to seperate from existing ownership and centralized architecture. Carmack used this as a teachable moment in how games can be designed in order to allow the experiences to live on.
The VR-Sphere, including prominent voices on social-media and youtube, remain incredulous that an audience in the low ten's of thousand is not worth a minimum of investment to keep running, especially since the game seemed to be monitized enough to support itself from an outside perspective, and at least should deserve some investment to keep running due to it's historicity and former prestige. Comparisons have been made to titles like Gorilla Tag and it's millions of monthly active users. The community asks itself again, what sacrifices must be made, and which things they love about VR will ultimately be sacrificed next in the name of mass market consumer appeal. The shift towards AR is another topic that strikes a nerve with this insider audience. Skepticism of Meta has been renewed.
To Meta's credit, nobody has invested even close to the resources they have into VR. And as a business, they have a responsibility to ultimately seek return on their investment, which in the VR/AR space means a wider audience. And other's in the industry have not exactly been shining beacons of community support, with companies like HTC also making the jump to AR support and mass market headset features. VR darling Steam has been silent for years since the Index and Half-life Alyx were released.
In presenting this story as unbiased as I can, I will leave it to the reader to cast final judgement. Where do we go from here? Although business cannot be led by mob-rule, one can hope that the pressure and influence of the community will give pause to similar cases in the future.