What are the economic benefits of social VR?

A recent survey went into the trends of people using social VR, showing the habits of the most immersed users of VR, showcasing their romance habits, reasons for socializing, and how much they spend. For example, though most VR users are men, over 75% use feminine avatars.

The survey is a passion project of a PhD student, Liudmila (Mila) Bredikhina, and Japanese VTuber, Virtual Girl Nem, who published the large-scale survey report titled "Social VR Census 2023" that presents the lifestyle of people who use social VR platforms like VRChat. It surveyed over 2,000 users of VR platforms, with respondents across Europe, North America, and Japan.

What are the key insights?

The survey had a lot of info which is worth digging through yourself, though others include:

• Romance: 41% of users have fallen in love in VR, with personality being the key reason. The physical sex of the lover is not important for two-thirds of those who have fallen in love: 

• Economy: Almost all users pay for content in VR, with 18% spending $700 or more each year. After a virtual presentation of a product in VR, 42% have purchased a physical product. Additionally, a quarter of surveyed users made some sort of income, but only 7% of users make $700 or more each year;

• Community: The three most popular types of communities were fashion-related, music-related, or drinking party / casual chats;

• Identity: In terms of ‘avatar type,’ most use humanoid or semi-humanoid types. 

“We are proud to present this second edition of the Social VR Lifestyle Survey,” said Mila. “The “Nem x Mila” research unit is a passion project, and our goal is to investigate different facets of social VR each year. Both of us are social VR users and we want to share more about the world we live in. We also want to thank various VR-related organizations who assisted us with information dissemination to help us reach our goal.”

Analysis

The survey provides a rare (and needed) insight into how people in social VR interact and spend within virtual worlds. What is remarkable is how much money is being spent in these spaces, and where the money is going (principally avatars and events). What is less clear is how this bubbles down into more casual browsers who visit from time to time.

The survey is strong and insightful; however, there are some key caveats to bear in mind with the data:

• Most of the respondents come from Japan and VRChat, rather than a fair spread across virtual and real worlds;

• The survey would reflect the views of the most dedicated VR enthusiasts, rather than the casual browsers of these spaces.

I will be curious to see more data as other platforms rise in prominence, and perhaps more qualitative data for Europe or North America. But for now, the study provides a crack through the door of a new and emerging medium.