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<title>On Communities and Trust</title>
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<nav>
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<a href="/">Home</a>
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<a href="/about.html">About</a>
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<a href="/changelog.html">Changelog</a>
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<a href="/posts/">Posts</a>
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<h1>
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On Communities and Trust
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<span class="subtitle">Some thoughts on the VRChat security update</span>
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</h1>
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<p>
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So we've had the VRChat Security Update for a few days now, and while I'm
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not the most prolific VR community member, I have heard a fair bit of
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discourse about the update. This update has been a polarizing one to say
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the least, with users excited for the new features that were and will soon
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be added, others decrying the performance issues they have now from Easy
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Anti-Cheat, and still others still unable to play due to missing
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accessibility features they previously would have gotten via mods.
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</p>
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<p>
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Overall, my personal concerns about update itself have been resolved:
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although I used to run into issues with EAC crashing when hardware
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virtualization was enabled, that seem to no longer be the case, and I
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personally haven't even seen a performance hit. I was not
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using any mod features, and the changes in the most recent beta
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certainly a welcome addition to my experience.
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</p>
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<p>
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However, I do still have some broader community concerns about how the
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update was announced and rolled out, as well as how the VRChat team seems
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to be handling this whole scenario as if they're only playing public
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opinion damage control.
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</p>
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<p>
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Regardless of their official policy or any amount of discouragement
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towards mods for VRChat, the fact of the matter is that a large portion
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of their community relied on mods to add accessibility, performance, or
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comfort features to the game. While I have to acknowledge that the VRC
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team has added some of these features back into the game since blocking
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mods, the fact that they needed to reprioritize these features (as they
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have been pretty clear about in their updates) shows us that they had
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no interest in adding these features until they faced public backlash.
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</p>
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<p>
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You might think that a reasonable development team (if they wanted to
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reduce the use of mods for their game) might look at the sizable portion
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of their community using mods for this sort of enhancement,
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and come to the conclusion "clearly there is need for these features,
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let's reduce the need for mods by implementing those features". But instead the
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VRChat team decided to actively make their game worse for those people instead.
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Disabling comments on Steam further indicates that they knew this would
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be disliked by the community ahead of time, but chose to do it anyways.
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</p>
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<p>
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Listen, VRChat team - what sort of conclusions am I supposed to draw about
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your priorities here?!? Improving the game experience for your most
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vulnerable players doesn't make the roadmap, but pushing an ineffective
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solution to a problem <b>against the angry backlash of your community</b>
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makes the cut?
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</p>
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<p>
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So yeah . . . I guess in one sense, the game is fine. It's getting new features, more are
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on the horizon, the community feels like they've been listened to.
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</p>
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<p>
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But in another sense, the security update has made it incredibly clear
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that the VRChat team either does not care, or did not think to consider
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how their priorities would affect large portions of their community.
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</p>
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<p>
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Social games grow and shrink with their communities. Regardless of technical
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decisions, updates, or anything else, if large portions of the community
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leave or can no longer join, then VRChat will no longer be the same game
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(and it will be worse for it). With the latest changes and how they've
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handled the community response, I just can't convince myself that the team remembers
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this.
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</p>
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<p>
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In that regard, I feel that even more than the actual removal of features
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they have violated our trust - and unless this newfound responsiveness to
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the needs of their players sticks around longer than it takes to clean up
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their PR mess, I personally am hesitant to forgive them.
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</p>
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</body>
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</html>
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