SHORT VERSION: That Vket is a microcosmic mirror showing us a lot about VRChat but also about ourselves and one another, helping identify our preferences in experiences as much as it refines our taste in what clicks with us across the whole platform.
When I first joined VRChat, I'd mostly seen Vket described a big thing for VRChat with big sponsorships.
(Later looking at the wall of them in 2022, yeah, that's quite a few...)
One literally called it "like the Oscars of VRChat." But when I found videos walking around an older Vket, I ... couldn't quite follow? My then-acquaintances had already left me in awe of how creative VRChat's userbase could be (all this stuff). So it was hard to see Vket as more than a maybe flashier take on what say those Avatar Museum worlds seemed to already provide -- without worlds having to be taken down. Zero shade -- just that, maybe, praising it as "the Oscars" was hyperbole? 😅
In the end, there was only one way to get to the bottom of my conundrum. Lucky for me, the Discord server I'd joined actually had someone who hosted "field trip" worldhops to past Vket worlds. Contrary to how it seemed at first, because the ones that go down seem to be the 1-2 worlds populated by sponsors each Vket, there's quite a lot still around on the VRC creator spotlight side! (Enough that there's also a place tracking them that I'll loot-drop at the end. 🎉) I did miss the first such field trip I saw because I was still getting used to their community, but attending MusicVket4 reignited the drive to catch it next time. +_+ And, well...
Have you ever had that experience of telling someone or someone telling you that there are some things with VR you really do just have to go through firsthand to "get it?" Yeah -- I don't think I could've prepared for it! Bombarded with more interactables, posters, and names for things than I could even begin processing in the moment, it really was the rabbit hole of rabbit holes, to me. It amazed me to have such a vivid glimpse into so many player groups I'd otherwise probably never even know how to encounter! Even the corporate sponsors when I bumped into them lowkey got me curious because most were in fact the kind of businesses in Japan that you'd normally never casually run into here in the west -- from food and beer to banks and pharmacies.
With Summer Vket 2022 now right around the corner, I excitedly looked into what others got out of Vket!
...
wait, why do they seem to walk right by everything?? 😰
and turns out my other acquaintance has played for years but never been since they can't go with friends,
this other friend's cool with the avatars but the corporate stuff rubs them the wrong way... aaa
Granted, you can nearly taste the irony in how my surprise at others' mild reactions echoes my first mindset. Admittedly I'm no stranger to amassing libraries of information that excites me without anyone to engage about it all. 🙃 As I've gotten older I've started thinking it's likely more universal than we often assume, and if so, then that means anyone could possess their own library that excites them, too... nonetheless, it's always sobering to realize that experiences which deeply move you might not always shine the same to others, even the friends you're close with or the acquaintances whose opinion you value! 💦
But however we each manage that situation, in this instance it actually hit me with an epiphany of its own: a pervasive deja vu. This was the same "sobering feeling" that I've been reconciling as I tour VRChat and show others this travel journal, not just Vket! That clarity allowed me to step back and draw more connections--
On an obvious level, those I knew often liked to browse avatar worlds seemed very much at home in the non-corporate worlds as those were mostly booth after booth of avatar-related offerings!
Then you've got goofballs like me who take each unexpected moment as a mystery to uncover. \o/
Yet beyond that, people I knew for having to be careful around less optimized worlds said they had to not only make mad dashes through Vket's grand (yet perf-intensive) areas, but also forego being able to attend with their normal friend groups -- more avatars in the instance, more lag, especially if the person was a content creator trying to capture their experience to share online afterwards.
Finally, there were a couple I'd known mentioned struggling with timezones (e.g. in VRChat clubs), that likewise had never felt like checking out Vket because the friends they'd do so with were asleep.
It even works to reflect back the values in an entity like online magazine The Metaculture, who takes moments in their reviews of Vket's recent advances to highlight their benefits for any smaller creators who seek to better promote their works across the many evolving prefabs and practices on display. As far as I can tell from their other writings, this again seems to be a primary purpose for the outlet!
--that's when it hit me, thinking over its scale and history (below), Vket is like VRChat's biggest mirror!
Vket shows us the strengths and struggles we approach VRChat with as a whole. That even extends to Vket reflecting the platform's creative potential to the world outside VR, e.g. those aforementioned sponsorships. Could all be pure coincidence that Vket is such a VRC-microcosm, or some very shrewd strategic alignment. Either way, in the end -- while I don't know that I'd call that "the Oscars" myself -- I do now think Vket is a really useful tool to discern what about the platform holds the most value to me as an individual! And as the type who often struggles with feeling lost on that front, I've started to truly appreciate that about VR expos.
Bonus Link: VirtualMarket Archive (Unofficial) by Ren_Ookami
Bonus Link 2: Interview with Lhun, Vket's Technical Marketing Director
Bonus Link 3: More from personal Summer Vket 2022 Photo Album
+ (Very special thanks to the community member who hosted the field trip events!)
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>.>''
<.<''
👇
Ceci n'est pas une vket
... okay okay you caught me being sneaky with that image. Trying very hard not to control the urge to do a full write-up on this other, new expo: Metafes 2022. 🎉 So let's compromise and keep it to a brief appendix. Deal? 😂 Because I do think it has some neat taste-mirroring all its own! The three big ones for me were --
World submissions as an exhibitor category: huge for worldhoppers and the home-map buyer types, especially considering a lot of the worlds derive from Japanese creators we may otherwise be unable to search -- e.g. given many of us in the west can't competently type queries in kana, much less kanji!
I anecdotally heard quite a few people praise Metafes' map layout relative to the more convoluted nature of recent (~2022) Vkets... which would have a ton to unpack if I were a venue mapmaker. 👀
At just ~200mb in size, that's pretty nice for users concerned about lower-end hardware too! I'll be curious to see whether that space-saving trick of 2D avatar previews > 3D avatar pedestals spreads.
Although I did go way too hard initially learning about it from a random in-world poster, trying to share it to a lot of servers, only to then see it have a front-facing featured row of its own on the Worlds menu. oof 💦 But to be fair to myself, its first night when the VRC servers went 💥, I held back all premature conclusions while peeking at stream recordings by JP users who explored it earlier that day. 🥳 Thanks for reading! 💌
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