VRChat Credits Splash Image from Youtube

VRChat Monetization

A current player's experience and comparison of games with UGC creator payouts

Overview

Recently, VRChat introduced a new way for players to engage with the platform, in hopes of being profitable for both the company and its creative users. Currently VRChat has 2 forms of paid products for their users, VRChat+ and VRChat Credits.

VRChat+ which launched in December of 2020, offers many cosmetic features to players, including the ability to have a custom picture on their name plate, send invites / requests with pictures, and save more avatars with additional slots.

VRChat Credits are the newest product, offering a way for content creators in VRChat to monetize their worlds or avatars directly with in-game currency. This comes as a shift to how creators monetize their content, currently the most common way for them to monetize their worlds or avatars is through external websites such as Patreon, Gumroad, or Booth.pm

In addition, I will present my observations on the future use of VRChat Credits I will also present the value that this provides to the creators compared to other platforms that allow for monetization of user generated content such as Roblox, Rec Room, and Fortnite.

Example external monetization websites; Patreon, Gumroad, and Booth

VRChat Credit purchase flow from Miro

Purchase process

After testing through PC and VR platforms, I documented the current design of purchase flows on this Miro board.

The overall process of purchasing VRChat Credits is straight forward: login to VRChat, open the wallet through the quick menu, and purchase a set amount of credits through the platform vendor. This process is much the same as purchasing VRChat+ which is presented through the 3 slides below.

The purchase processes require the player to be in game and interacting with the main menu to trigger the platforms vendor pop-up and complete the transaction.

Rec Rooms offers for membership and tokens on their website

Rec Room Comparisons

An interesting piece to note is that neither VRChat+ nor VRChat Credits can be purchased directly from the store listings of VRChat on any platform. This is the same for Rec Room, another online social game with primarily UGC.

Rec Room also has their own versions of VRChat+ and VRChat credits in the form of Rec Room+ and Rec Room Tokens. Rec Room is a step ahead of VRChat by offering these purchasable subscriptions / currency through their own website seen on the left. This would be a great first step for VRChat to bring more options for purchase of these subscriptions / currency and would allow for VRChat to take a greater cut from the purchase by removing the vendor fee.

Creator Utilization

How have creators been utilizing the new currency?

Where else do creators monetize their content?

What is the current market penetration like?

Maki Maki's GeoLocator Player Pin options for customization

In-Game Utilization

With the current system, creators can link to a group with a store page where offers of content rewards or donations can be listed. These rewards can give access to whatever the creator can think of such as; cosmetics in game worlds, grant access to a VIP space, or just a simple donation to the creator.

With VRChat Credits, an in-game purchase can instantaneously grant access to the rewards by giving the player a role, similar to a discord server. This is easier and simpler for a user to gain access to their content from a purchase.

External Alternatives

External to VRChat Credits, several creators have worked out their own methods to relatively quickly update a list to include new players who subscribe to their Patreon. These methods are straight forward and utilize other commonly used applications to match and coordinate a users information from VRChat, Discord, and Patreon to create a seamless experience. However this is very rare and generally takes a coordinated effort from a team of developers to get a system like this to work, there is also this Github work that appears is related, but I have not worked with it.

On the right is an example from Jar on their own website used for linking VRChat, Patreon, and Discord accounts. This simple process of linking accounts is easily accomplished by any one with access to a computer or phone, and allows for the information to be easily updated should someone change their subscription, or username in VRChat or Discord.

It is unclear how long it takes for these methods to update a world, but FAQ's of worlds with these systems suggest it takes about an hour to gain access to the content once the account has been linked.

Jar's website integration to connect VRChat, Patreon, and Discord

User Utilization of VRChat Credits

Spotlight of Worlds and Groups participating in Creator Economy

How Was This Data Collected?

Currently worlds that are setup for VRChat Credits are spotlighted in the wallet. With a limited number of creators who have access to this I can refresh through these pages to look for a couple pieces of information. First I record the world creators name and determine if they have an external monetization page such as Patreon. If they do have a Patreon I also record the number of patrons. Second I will enter the worlds which have been listed in the spotlight, some creators will have a board which updates with the names of players who subscribe in these worlds, if these board exist I record the number of current patrons on these boards.

Wispy Woo's Truth or Dare World board thanking their supporters

What Can We Learn?

While many creators (15) do not have separate boards setup or possibly combine their subscribers and patrons into one board, a few (4) have a distinct split between the two. Of these that split this information, 2 do have external monetization, and 2 do not. In instances where the world creator has a Patreon, the number of VRChat subscribers is between 1/4 to 1/3 of the number of patrons.

For bring just over a month old, the adoption of VRChat Credits with this level of users in the system is great to see, and has plenty of room to grow!

xCirrex VRChat Credits and Patreon comparison board

Potential Improvements

Permanent Content / One Time Purchases

Peer to Peer Payments

VRChat+ and a VRChat Credit bonus

Permanent Content / One Time Purchases

Just B Club 3 VRChat Credit and Patreon board

The Problem -

Currently VRChat only grants access to content through time based subscriptions. When a user subscribes to content, it is for a monthly period. At the end of that period the user is not automatically resubscribed. This is great for the user since it allows them to forget about any subscription without any future charge to themselves. However this can be problematic for world creators who might see inconsistency or drop offs in subscriptions at the start / end of months when subscriptions are ending and the users have not revisited their world or group to reup the subscription.

CentauriCore VRChat Credit store options

A Solution -

One improvement that I would offer to this is offering a way to grant access to content permanently, that would be beneficial to both end users and world creators. Having a singular large upfront payment can be more appealing to users who would understand its sale similar to the purchase of a game through steam, use the content whenever they want to after payment. On the world creator side they are gaining a larger immediate payment from the purchase rather than smaller chunks over time allowing for more frequent payouts with new user acquisition.

The Black Cat VRChat Credit store Goose Costumes

Other Changes -

Having the option to grant access to content of a world permanently could also shift how world creators develop new content. This might cause world creators to move away from a singular dedicated space or set of cosmetics that is iterated upon, to developing completely separate new worlds which allow them room to experiment with other systems, stylizations, and content.

Peer to Peer Payments

Mockup of a Gift Credits button to send Credits to friends

Other Interactions -

To make sending Credits a more interactive experience, little particles or experiences could be designed for this use case. For example on Tiktok or Twitch, while a user cannot send money directly to someone, they can use an interactive currency medium such as emoji gifts or bits. Users who receive interactable gifts could then redeemed them for some amount of Credits, or another VRChat currency which could be withdrawn.

The Problem -

A user wants to send their friend VRChat Credits to purchase a world feature. Currently this cannot be done as there is no option to gift credits to another account (other than giving them your credit information externally).

A Solution -

Offering the ability for users to send each other credits without any store or rewards would also present numerous beneficial uses beyond mentioned in the above problem. For example this can also be a way to reward users who perform music or roleplay in game for their performances.

Fraud Issues -

The question though that arises though is how are these payments moderated and how can fraud be prevented in the system since this currency does have a real world value attached to it.

A method to limit fraud would be lock any sent Credits for a short duration, possibly 3 to 5 days before they can be utilized by the recipient. In situations of fraud, this duration lengthens the time before any stolen credits can be utilized allowing for the value to be removed if fraud is detected. After this duration the credits could be utilized to be spent in game on world creators or be sent to other players. However whenever Credits are sent to a player, they cannot be withdrawn for a month similar to world creators.

VRChat+ and VRChat Credits Bonus

Mockup of added Credits a user receives with VRChat+

(I do not know the financial information of VRChat to evaluate the immediate cost of a retroactive payment of Credits to the community. This would be a immense amount of Credit being created, which is likely value that VRChat has already used.)

The Problem -

Utilization of the Creator Economy has been arguably minor compared to interaction with external platforms like Patreon. This could be for a number of reasons, such as they do not interact with any of the current worlds / groups in the Creator Economy, or they already have a method of supporting their creator externally.

A Solution -

Similar to what Rec Room has been doing with their membership, VRChat+ could include some amount of credits to the purchase or gifting of the subscription to the user. By having a built in amount of credit to the system it creates an incentive for users to gain benefits of both VRChat+ and spend the additional credits they have gained on creators that they enjoy.

A Stretch to Kickstart the Creator Economy on Full Release -

If VRChat+ was to retroactively give users who had paid for VRChat+ over the past 3 years, there would be a large influx of Credits to the most active accounts. These Credits would then ideally be spent by the community on their favorite creators, users then gain access to new content, and ideally from there the users would become used to the content and renew their subscriptions to creators.

Other Asides / Notes

My first VRChat Credits purchase "Buying GF" Goose

The Necessity of Groups -

With the current system of VRChat Credits, there is an unique step that, as far as I am aware, no other platforms require for in game purchases. To purchase a package for a world, you must be a part of a group which is run by / linked to the world creator. Currently, if a user makes a purchase in a group that they are not a part of, they will automatically be joined to the group. I understand that these groups give a tag or role to the player to gain access to the content, but if there is a way to disconnect the need for the need to be a part of a group to purchase, that opens up the ability for someone to gain the content and support a creator while being anonymous.

On platforms like Twitch, viewers can gift bits or subscriptions to streamers they do not follow or subscribe to themselves. This allows for anonymous donators to share and participate in the ability to gift without any attention being given to themselves.

Patreons Deep Link to Monetization in Popular Worlds -

Most of the popular or trending worlds in VRChat have had Patreon for a long time. With the addition of VRChat Credit integrations, the ingame store costs tend to be the same relative to that worlds associated Patreon, in the range of 600 to 1200 credits or 5 to 10 USD. In addition these largely grant access to the same content as the Patreon, although in some game worlds there may be separate cosmetics for users to purchase using VRChat Credits. However even with the current selection of creators who have access to the Creator Economy, a few have been pricing their content inline with the financial returns that they would be receiving from Patreon, which because of the lesser value of VRChat Credits, translates to doubly more expensive content ingame than out of game.

There were 2 unique instances where there was no Patreon link, in the world, Udon Minecraft and LiQua worlds. In Udon Minecraft, the user could purchase 2 unique features; the ability to change what explosions do, and be granted access to flight / hovering as if they were in creative mode. In Liqua worlds there are many more options to generally support and give credits and one option specifically for their jetski world. These creators have a running list of supporters which at the time of writing is over 40 users.

A VRChat Group which reccomends to use Patreon

LiQua supporters list in Jetski Islet

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