Well, stuff did in fact change. VRChat sorta listened to the community after the whole outrage. VRChat dev team has implement several accessability features, as well as widely requested personal mirror setting, among other new features. I've said that I'll change my review if they change, and they did sorta change.

However, I'm keeping this review here, and I'll update it once more if another change occurs.

Devs have still chosen a wrong approach, instead of approaching the community and turn mods into actual built-in features first, they decided to push the controversy before the functionality and community approval, which is still wrong, especially on a social platform. EAC still creates more issues in a social game like VRChat than it fixes. While performance issues aren't extreme, there has certainly been a major increase in loading times, as well as a new set of random errors that crash your game for no apparent reason.

If you are reading this review for the first time, after this update, I recommend you still read the controversy I spoke of below, it gives a good picture of what problems does this amazing social platform face and will face.

Other than that, the worst has not happened. While there was a wave of people leaving VRChat to other platforms, almost all of them returned, therefore groups weren't split, friends weren't lost, it was just a break with the opportunity to explore other platforms similar to VRChat.

---

Well, it has almost been 1000 hours, I think it's time for a review.
I've been playing this game for a while, and was never sure about the review. I always had a mixed vibe, never leaning towards any side, always in the middle. However, after the recent security update which added EAC and Secure instances, my opinion has drastically changed.

In short, this update added Easy anti-cheat to the game, preventing users with modified client to enter the game, effectively erasing all mod support. The intention of this update was mostly to increase the game's security, by making the job of so-called crashers and rippers more difficult. However, this isn't the case, as EAC is inefficient against attacks from these groups.

In my case, I never used mods for this game. I kept it as vanilla as possible, knowing there are mods that improve the gameplay drastically, but always wanted to stay away, despite the mods being open-source and considered safe by many. However, the majority of these mods were meant for improving the gameplay. Quality-of-Life changes, FPS improvements, mods that protected you from crashers and even a mod that was able to do a better job at inverse kinematics than what the devs have developed over the years. Simple mods that didn't harm the community, and made life easier. The other category of mods could be considered as "extremely important" or "Why isn't this in the game by default?" These are compatibility and accessability mods; mods that made external hardware (Haptics suit, face tracking by Vive, glove support and various other even DIY'd devices) function. It is unknown why this form of engagement isn't built-in, but with the mods outlawed, it is impossible to use these devices in VRChat.

And then accessability.. VRChat is a social game, and in society there are people who may be disabled, visually impaired or deaf. Obviously, these people need accessability options and settings that allow them to function and enjoy the game and socialise in VRChat. These accessability tweaks are NOT built-in, and with the removal of mods, these features are not present.

Most players were outraged by the decision of VRChat's management/developement team/marketing team to implement EAC into the game and pick the fight with mods. The outrage I've seen by the community is like no other. A forum post against the implementation of EAC gained 24 000 upvotes in less than 30 hours, the official VRChat's Discord server needed to apply a 5 minute slow mode in their general room to prevent the abnormal spam and outrage from the community, to not even stop it. Countless users have encouraged others to cancel their premium VRChat+ subscription, telling them to "Vote with their wallet." A lot of users also migrated to other games like VRChat, namely NeosVR and ChilloutVR.

So obviously, there is a large-scale outrage against an update we (devs/management) are planning. The update is currently in beta.. how should we proceed?

Here is how they respond: Implement the update regardless.
The management of VRChat has just ignored the request of over 25 000 users to not proceed with an update.
This is the problem. The ignorance of devs/managers to listen to their community and make choices upon it. That is what convinced me to write this negative review. And this is the most rational reason as to why is the game getting a lot of hate currently.

When I saw the sheer scale of this outrage, and the "riot" that it has caused across the internet; I thought of it as impossible for the devs/managers to push the update. I expected a compromise, or a complete cancellation of the update, neither of which arrived.

The worst part: The features the mods were implementing are going to be re-built by the devs, implemented back to VRChat, but now under the VRC+ subscription.
While I can tolerate such business choice, this outrage could've been avoided, just by switching the order of these events. Instead of pushing the EAC against mods, they could've pushed it as a monetisation problem. Obviously, if the features are built-in the game behind a paywall, and mods are giving it to users for free.. the choice of banning all mods sounds much more rational than this mess. To a point where those outraged are just unable to understand a business choice.

Most likely, not much.

VRChat players are gonna go out and possibly try out other games similar to VRChat, some might stay, but most will return within a month, because despite the sheer incompetence of devs to add features faster and despite the hateful community, VRChat is still the best VR-supporting platform for casual socialising and has A LOT of content already made by the community. VRChat might lose out on some money from subs, but that isn't significant enough.

Worst-case scenario would be if the playerbase would go out and migrate, which can happen much faster than what you might think. On your average AAA FPS, when such outrage happens, users migrate individually, but in a game such as VRChat, users are going to migrate in groups, causing a domino effect.

I'll go where people are, and so is the majority of this game's community.

If all of my friends migrate to a different platform similar to VRChat, I'll go there. If not, I'm staying with VRChat.

I want to be optimistic about how the devs are going to push future updates, but the truth is that this is not going to change. Devs and the upper management of VRChat after YEARS still fail to communicate with their community, ON A SOCIAL GAME. This is not to be tolerated.

However, if the impossible happens, and VRChat's upper management and devs start to communicate with their community, and even implement the features they've taken away by implementing EAC, on top of solving a lot of other issues with questionable ToS, avatar ripping and non-client-non-avatar caused crashing.. then there is hope. And if that happens, I'll change this review to positive, because that is a sign of a good change, a change of communication between the upper management, the devs and the community.



The most important thing is to make your own rational opinion, and try seeking compromise, instead of war.

[h1]Update 08. 09. 2022[/h1] Well, stuff did in fact change. VRChat sorta listened to the community after the whole outrage. VRChat dev team has implement several accessability features, as well as widely requested personal mirror setting, among other new features. I've said that I'll change my review if they change, and they did sorta change. However, I'm keeping this review here, and I'll update it once more if another change occurs. Devs have still chosen a wrong approach, instead of approaching the community and turn mods into actual built-in features first, they decided to push the controversy before the functionality and community approval, which is still wrong, especially on a social platform. EAC still creates more issues in a social game like VRChat than it fixes. While performance issues aren't extreme, there has certainly been a major increase in loading times, as well as a new set of random errors that crash your game for no apparent reason. If you are reading this review for the first time, after this update, I recommend you still read the controversy I spoke of below, it gives a good picture of what problems does this amazing social platform face and will face. Other than that, the worst has not happened. While there was a wave of people leaving VRChat to other platforms, almost all of them returned, therefore groups weren't split, friends weren't lost, it was just a break with the opportunity to explore other platforms similar to VRChat. [hr][/hr] Well, it has almost been 1000 hours, I think it's time for a review. I've been playing this game for a while, and was never sure about the review. I always had a mixed vibe, never leaning towards any side, always in the middle. However, after the recent security update which added EAC and Secure instances, my opinion has drastically changed. In short, this update added Easy anti-cheat to the game, preventing users with modified client to enter the game, effectively erasing all mod support. The intention of this update was mostly to increase the game's security, by making the job of so-called crashers and rippers more difficult. However, this isn't the case, as EAC is inefficient against attacks from these groups. [h1] What happened? [/h1] In my case, [b]I never used mods for this game[/b]. I kept it as vanilla as possible, knowing there are mods that improve the gameplay drastically, but always wanted to stay away, despite the mods being open-source and considered safe by many. However, the majority of these mods were meant for improving the gameplay. Quality-of-Life changes, FPS improvements, mods that protected you from crashers and even a mod that was able to do a better job at inverse kinematics than what the devs have developed over the years. Simple mods that didn't harm the community, and made life easier. The other category of mods could be considered as "extremely important" or "Why isn't this in the game by default?" These are [b]compatibility[/b] and [b]accessability[/b] mods; mods that made external hardware (Haptics suit, face tracking by Vive, glove support and various other even DIY'd devices) function. It is unknown why this form of engagement isn't built-in, but with the mods outlawed, it is impossible to use these devices in VRChat. And then accessability.. VRChat is a social game, and in society there are people who may be disabled, visually impaired or deaf. Obviously, these people need accessability options and settings that allow them to function and enjoy the game and socialise in VRChat. These accessability tweaks are [b]NOT[/b] built-in, and with the removal of mods, these features are not present. [h1] The problem. [/h1] Most players were outraged by the decision of VRChat's management/developement team/marketing team to implement EAC into the game and pick the fight with mods. The outrage I've seen by the community is like no other. [u]A forum post against the implementation of EAC gained 24 000 upvotes in less than 30 hours, the official VRChat's Discord server needed to apply a 5 minute slow mode in their general room to prevent the abnormal spam and outrage from the community, to not even stop it[/u]. Countless users have encouraged others to cancel their premium VRChat+ subscription, telling them to "Vote with their wallet." A lot of users also migrated to other games like VRChat, namely NeosVR and ChilloutVR. [i]So obviously, there is a large-scale outrage against an update we (devs/management) are planning. The update is currently in beta.. how should we proceed?[/i] [b]Here is how they respond: Implement the update regardless.[/b] [u]The management of VRChat has just ignored the request of over 25 000 users to not proceed with an update.[/u] [b]This is the problem.[/b] The ignorance of devs/managers to listen to their community and make choices upon it. That is what convinced me to write this negative review. And this is the most rational reason as to why is the game getting a lot of hate currently. When I saw the sheer scale of this outrage, and the "riot" that it has caused across the internet; I thought of it as impossible for the devs/managers to push the update. I expected a compromise, or a complete cancellation of the update, neither of which arrived. The worst part: The features the mods were implementing are going to be re-built by the devs, implemented back to VRChat, but now under the VRC+ subscription. While I can tolerate such business choice, this outrage could've been avoided, just by switching the order of these events. Instead of pushing the EAC against mods, they could've pushed it as a monetisation problem. Obviously, if the features are built-in the game behind a paywall, and mods are giving it to users for free.. the choice of banning all mods sounds much more rational than this mess. To a point where those outraged are just unable to understand a business choice. [h1] What now? [/h1] Most likely, not much. VRChat players are gonna go out and possibly try out other games similar to VRChat, some might stay, but most will return within a month, because despite the sheer incompetence of devs to add features faster and despite the hateful community, VRChat is still the best VR-supporting platform for casual socialising and has [b]A LOT[/b] of content already made by the community. VRChat might lose out on some money from subs, but that isn't significant enough. Worst-case scenario would be if the playerbase would go out and migrate, which can happen much faster than what you might think. On your average AAA FPS, when such outrage happens, users migrate individually, but in a game such as VRChat, users are going to migrate in groups, causing a domino effect. [h1] The future. [/h1] I'll go where people are, and so is the majority of this game's community. If all of my friends migrate to a different platform similar to VRChat, I'll go there. If not, I'm staying with VRChat. I want to be optimistic about how the devs are going to push future updates, but the truth is that this is not going to change. Devs and the upper management of VRChat after [b]YEARS[/b] still fail to communicate with their community, [b]ON A SOCIAL GAME[/b]. [u]This is not to be tolerated.[/u] However, if the impossible happens, and VRChat's upper management and devs start to communicate with their community, and even implement the features they've taken away by implementing EAC, on top of solving a lot of other issues with questionable ToS, avatar ripping and non-client-non-avatar caused crashing.. then there is hope. [u]And if that happens, I'll change this review to positive[/u], because that is a sign of a good change, a change of communication between the upper management, the devs and the community. [h1]Until then, I am disappointed.[/h1] [i]The most important thing is to make your own rational opinion, and try seeking compromise, instead of war.[/i]