Microsoft, known for products like Office 365, is disabling all social spaces present in AltspaceVR and demanding users to check in with a Microsoft account. The modifications are intended to enhance AltspaceVR’s security and moderation, and Microsoft will also enable its current safety bubble feature by default and silence participants who attend meetings in AltspaceVR by default.
“As services like AltspaceVR develop, it’s vital that we review existing experiences and determine whether they’ll be fulfilling the demands of users now and in the future,” notes Microsoft’s head of mixed reality initiatives. “This entails supporting users in effectively interacting with those who share the same interests, as well as ensuring that the spaces they are using are devoid of inappropriate behavior and harassment.”
AltspaceVR’s social spaces were created to “aid in developing new relationships” and to serve as a starting point for becoming acquainted with AltspaceVR altogether. You may actively browse the places and interact with other AltspaceVR users in them. They were also handy for inviting other AltspaceVR users to private places or meetups. The absence of regulation in these open social hubs may result in bullying or unwelcome interest, hence why the company has decided to take them down.
Although social spaces such as the Campfire, News, and Entertainment Commons would be deleted instantly from AltspaceVR, the application will necessitate a Microsoft account to utilize in the following weeks. The company began testing account connections with AltspaceVR a year ago, and it appeared that it might ultimately become mandatory.
AltspaceVR will be firmly linked into Microsoft Family Safety in the upcoming months as a result of the Microsoft account necessity, allowing parents to authorize or restrict access to AltspaceVR if the app was installed from the Microsoft Store.
It’s evident that the company is attempting to foresee moderating concerns as part of its larger metaverse drive. After obtaining AltspaceVR in 2017 as it was set to close, the company has not yet made any significant adjustments to the platform until now. The corporation is working very hard to make mixed reality and the concept of a metaverse a possibility, and the head of Microsoft’s mixed reality initiatives now refers to AltspaceVR as “an essential component of the metaverse’s development”
This seems to suggest that AltspaceVR is only a component of the company’s larger metaverse initiative, instead of the key to its development. During the last year, the business has already been developing Microsoft Teams interactive meetings and a complete Mesh platform, precisely as Mark Zuckerberg stakes Facebook’s survival on the metaverse. Facebook changed its name to Meta in October last year, and the company invested at least $10 billion in the metaverse last year.
CEO of Microsoft is similarly optimistic about the metaverse. “We feel extremely well prepared to capture what I believe is basically the next generation of the web,” the CEO said in January this year during Microsoft’s earnings call. “I predict the future generation of the web will become a lot more flexible atmosphere where anyone, whether they are businesses, game developers, or anyone else, may build.”
