Why isn't there a VR client yet for Decentraland or The Sandbox?

The Metaverse and Virtual Reality (VR) spell manus successful manus successful the public’s imaginativeness and platforms including Somnium Space, Crypto Voxels, and Meta’s Horizon Worlds already enactment the technology.

But contempt describing itself arsenic a “decentralized virtual world platform” connected its website, the browser-based 3D metaverse level Decentraland inactive lacks VR.

Sean Ong, laminitis of extended world specialists XR Dev Studio, sits connected a squad that has developed an “alpha” mentation of the VR platform. He explained that portion “VR has ever been portion of Decentraland’s vision,” the Decentraland Foundation has been prioritizing the implementation of halfway features up of VR.

“The squad that’s chiefly been liable for processing Decentraland, they’ve been ace engaged implementing truthful galore features, the halfway features, gathering it out, that VR conscionable hasn’t made it precise acold connected the precedence list.”

Ong is simply a subordinate of Decentraland’s DAO and helium and his squad received grants aft submitting a connection to bring VR to the platform.

Decentraland’s “alpha” VR platform. Source: Sidequest

However, the backing lone allowed them to make an alpha mentation of the VR lawsuit which was simply a "VR port" and frankincense lacked stability, helium said.

Ong told Cointelegraph that the challenges successful bringing VR to Decentraland were owed to it being “fundamentally incompatible with VR.”

VR porting involves reworking the archetypal codification to marque it compatible with different platform, and Ong notes that portion this means you tin prevention clip and effort initially, the developer would request to marque changes to the larboard whenever the main task is updated.

Building a dedicated VR lawsuit would instrumentality overmuch longer, but this would insulate it from the main task which would marque it much resilient successful the agelong run, helium explained.

Ong and his squad asked for an further $240,000 successful backing via a Dec. 14 proposal to make a dedicated VR client, however, the ballot failed with much than 3 quarters voting no.

The Sandbox VR?

Cointelegraph besides reached retired to Sébastien Borget, co-founder of blockchain-based metaverse The Sandbox for his thoughts connected virtual world successful the metaverse.

Borget suggested that portion metaverses volition yet beryllium connected VR, their precedence for 2023 is mobile and they “have nary contiguous oregon aboriginal plans for VR.”

The Sandbox’s latest experience, Little Big Island ft. Puss successful Boots. Source: The Sandbox

“We deliberation VR exertion is not mature oregon mainstream enough, truthful we absorption connected making the Metaverse much mainstream and accessible to all,” helium said.

Related: Decentraland launches virtual spot renting for LAND owners

Meanwhile, asked astir recent criticism of Decentraland’s 8,000 regular progressive users, Ong notes that these numbers are inactive comparatively debased and that the level should beryllium aiming for millions.

“Metaverse these days is synonymous with VR,” Ong says, and helium believes that Decentraland would beryllium capable to onboard galore much users should it beryllium capable to bring virtual world enactment to the platform, adding that “VR decidedly has to beryllium a large component” of a genuinely full-featured metaverse.

In an emailed response, the Executive Director of the Decentraland Foundation Agustin Ferreira stated that the DAO could yet instrumentality implicit level development, and the instauration aims to enactment assemblage improvement and make “incentives for developers to adhd worth to the full ecosystem.”