Voices Of Vr Podcast Designing For Virtual Reality

I did an interview with VRChat co-founder and CEO Graham Gaylor at Meta Connect 2025 where we talk about the various different monetization strategies that VRChat has been exploring with their user-generated content platform. VRChat announced layoffs for 30% of their employees back on June 12, 2024, and so this is the first time I've had a chance to interview any of the VRChat executives since then. I used to have a pretty consistent streak of interviewing either VRChat leaders or employees at various VR conferences running from 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, but after the pandemic they were not giving as many public interviews. I did however recently cover the VRChat Avatar Marketplace as well as a conversation with VRChat's new Trust and Safety lead Jun Young Ro about his plans to overhaul and modernize VRChat's Trust and Safety processes, especially as users like Harry X were pointing out some gaps in their moderation processes. I had a chance to chat with Gaylor about some of the early de

I did an interview with Gustav Stenmark at Meta Connect 2025 talking about their latest game Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked, which enables some pretty interested co-located mixed reality social features, but also enables individual players to have their own mixed reality or VR POV. You can cee more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with Resolution Games CEO Tommy Palm soon after the Apple Vision Pro launch last year where we talk the in the Game Room game commissioned by Apple as well as the exploration of the relatively new gaze and pinch mechanic that's enabled with the eye-tracking of the Apple Vision Pro. After seeing the Neural Band at Meta Connect, then I'm reminded about how ultimately the gaze and pinch mechanic is a lot more efficient and more optimized for quickly selecting items in a fully volumetric context. Meta's Neural Band announced at Meta Connect in the context of the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses is only within a 2D context in a head-lock HUD display screen, and so operating the Neural Band feels a lot like what it feels like to navigate TV menus with a TV controller, but rather than a controller, then your thumb and side of your index finger are being transformed into a two-axis D-pad. Again, the ultimate form factor is likely going to come back to gaze and pinch, but that will require shipping

I did an interview with Michael Markman at Meta Connect 2025 talking about all of the latest updates to the VR design and prototyping tool of ShapesXR, and then we start to dive into some of his hot takes after getting a chance to try out the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses and associated Neural Band. He sees that the neural band is essentially transforming your hand into a mouse that is providing a simplified navigation system (probably closer to a D-pad on a TV remote), but the index-finger-to-thumb serves as a functional left click and middle-finger-to-thumb serves as a functional right click, which has been enough to build the foundation of most modern HCI for computer software for the last 57 years since The Mother of All Demos debuted the mouse in 1968. See more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with JoyReign and JDun talking about all of the latest announcements from Meta Connect 2025 focusing a lot on the biggest news from Meta Horizon including their new Studio and Engine. We also talk a bit about the other VR demos that were being shown at Meta Connect, and what they're the most excited about coming out of Meta Connect 2025. JoyReign also talks about developing the VR game Crystal Frenzy within Horizon Worlds, and which parts of GenAI she found to be the most helpful. They also won the Amplifier Award at the Meta Horizon Creator Summit that was being held ahead of Connect. We also chat a bit about how Meta was also promoting different mobile phone games on their Horizon platform including Super Strike, Battle Kin, Shovel Up, Smash Golf early access, and Bumble Dudes. You can also see more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with Jasmine Uniza at Meta Connect 2025 where we talk about her journey from being a robotics engineer for the Mars Rover to doing a career pivot into the VR games industry with the founding of Impact Reality marketing firm for games as well as Flat2VR Studios that is porting popular 2D games into VR. We also reflect upon the current state of VR gaming with Meta and their store curation strategies and emphasis on free-to-play games, while focusing on premium VR games. You can see more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with Rebecker Specialties' founder Matt Hargett at Meta Connect 2025 about alternative open source and open standards, JavaScript-based pipelines for developing XR applications that he's been working on including React Native for VisionOS, as well as working with NativeScript for VisionOS, and also working to bringing Node API support for React Native. Also be sure to check out his git visualizer Factotum, which is an app that is using some of these alternative production pipelines. Hargett also mentions a couple of recent React Universe Conf talks covering this work including Hermes + Node API: A Match Made in Heaven and Bringing Node-API to React Native. You can also see more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with Finn Staber at Meta Connect 2025 reflecting about on his journey into VR from co-founding The Wave VR to then forming Chicken Waffle to developing the games of Baby Hands, Cowbots and Aliens, Shadow of Valhalla, Blazer League, and MarsXR. We also reflect on the current state of VR gaming with Meta, and some of the feedback he's been providing to them from the perspective of an independent, third-party game developer. You can see more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Here is my third and final interview of a trilogy of interviews with Kiira Benz. This was conducted at Meta Connect 2025, and serves as a sort of career retrospective of Benz's journey into immersive storytelling. You can check out our previous conversations with our interview about Runnin' from Sundance New Frontier 2019, our interview about Love Seat from Venice Immersive 2020, and then our interview about Finding Pandora X from Venice Immersive 2020. See more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with Kiira Benz and Joanna Popper during my remote coverage of Venice Immersive 2020, where her Finding Pandora X project won the Best VR Immersive User Experience award. This is a second in a trilogy of interviews with Benz, and you can check out our conversation about Runnin' and our latest interview conducted at Meta Connect 2025 where we do a bit of career retrospective of her journey into the realm of immersive storytelling. In this conversation, we talk about her immersive theatre production called Finding Pandora X, which she brought into VRChat during the pandemic. Be sure to check out her "The Making of Finding Pandora X Documentary - Virtual Theater" to get even more details on it. See more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I'm featuring a trilogy of interviews with Kiira Benz (formerly known as Kiira Benzing) with this first part covering her Runnin' music video piece that showed at Sundance 2019 and won the top prize at SXSW 2019. I'll follow up with an interview about her immersive theatre piece that won a prize at Venice Immersive 2019 called Finding Pandora X. And the final I did with her at Meta Connect 2025 doing a bit of a career retrospective, including some work she did in Horizon Worlds and her latest piece focusing on accessibility and dance performance. Also be sure to check out the second recorded interview that I did in 2019 about her hybrid theater and VR piece Love Seat, which showed at Venice 2019. See more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with prolific Horizon world builder Paige Dansinger at Meta Connect about the latest Meta Horizon news including the new Meta Horizon Studio as well as Meta Horizon Engine. She also was wearing some custom, hand-made pants that were inspired by virtual pants that she designed for her MetaversePaige avatar. See more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with Scott Stein at Meta Connect 2025 reflecting on the biggest news of the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses and the associated Neural Band. Stein has been covering the XR industry since 2012, and always has some deep thoughts on the broader implications of the latest news. You can check out his hands-on first impressions in his CNET video here, and his interview with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth here. Stein and I had a chance to catch up after the day 1 Meta Connect keynote announcements, and also speculate on the future of the ecosystem in around the Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses. The Meta Wearables Device Access Toolkit wasn't announced until the following day at the end of the developer keynote at Meta Connect, but there still hasn't been any announcement about if or when third-party developers will get access to develop apps for it as Meta seems content to focus on their own first-party apps at the launch of the device today. See more context in the rough transcript below. This i

I did an interview with Moor Insights and Strategy principle XR Analyst Anshel Sag at Meta Connect to hear some of this latest thoughts on the biggest announcements, but also a broader reflection of how Meta is focusing on how these new AI glasses wearables like the Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses as well as upgraded Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 and Oakley-branded AI glasses will provide a platform for Meta's AI products. You can see more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I did an interview with Norm Chan at Meta Connect about the Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses and Meta Neural Band. Be sure to watch Chan's full 58-minute Tested.com report including an interview with Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth as his hands-on impressions of the biggest announcement at Meta Connect 2025. You can also see more context in the rough transcript below. This kicks off my Meta Connect 2025 coverage, and I'll be including about a dozen interviews that I did on site that will also be unpacking different news and reactions to Meta's emphasis of AI-driven wearables, and what's happening within the broader XR industry and VR gaming ecosystem. Here's links to all of the interviews that are a part of my Meta Connect 2025 coverage: #1652: Kick-off of Meta Connect Coverage with Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses Insights from Norm Chan #1653: XR Analyst Anshel Sag on Meta's AI Glasses Strategy #1654: CNET's Scott Stein's Reflections on Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses Implications #1655: Meta Horizo

PHI Studio sponsored today's episode to highlight that they are expanding their location-based entertainment distribution network to the United States with their EXP Rosemont location in the greater Chicago, IL area that is opening to the public on September 26, 2025. They will be launching with a couple of Excurio pieces including The Horizon of Khufu and Life Chronicles that feature large-scale, free-roaming VR guided tours that I've covered previously in episodes #1430, #1431, and #1588. Both Excurio and PHI Studio are interested in collaborating with creators who are interested in creating large-scale LBE experiences that could draw 100-150 people per hour, and you can reach out to Fabian Barati and/or Julie Tremblay on LinkedIn. Excurio will be making their tools and SDK available to third party developers to expand the number content producers creating this type of large-scale work, and PHI Studio continues to do co-productions across a wide range of formats and throughput scales. I'm excited to

I spoke with Venice Immersive curators Liz Rosenthal & Michel Reilhac about sneak peak of their 2025 selection, which is their largest selection yet. See more context in the rough transcript below. Here's an Venice Immersive Program Cheat Sheet by Voices of VR podcast (PDF), which has an overview of the four categories of immersive experiences ordered by longest booking times to shortest (amount of time required for scheduling purposes) as well as the actual runtime, the number of people who can see it per slot, and then the number of people who can see it per day. This should hopefully help for your scheduling process. I typically book experiences to roughly corresponding to hours. The Biennale scheduling website will open up on Thursday, August 21st, and it will not let you double book yourself. So I personally find it easier to book the longer experiences first, and then fill out my schedule with shorter experiences, and then experiences that generally have higher capacity. Note that Ancestors (c

I spoke with TrainingFangs & TehArbitter about Raindance Immersive Closing Night music and VR performance (now available as a replayable event in the Moon Pool VRChat World) as a part of my Raindance Immersive 2025 coverage. (Photo by Kaerun). See more context in the rough transcript below. Here's a recap of my Raindance Immersive 2025 & VRChat coverage: #1566: Raindance Immersive Curators on the 2025 Selection of Immersive Art on Social VR Platforms [VRChat Story] - #1634: User Claims Potential Gaps in VRChat's Moderation of NSFW Avatars [VRChat Story] - #1635: VRChat's Avatar Marketplace is Targeting Demographic of New Users [VRChat Story] - #1636: Planned Improvements of VRChat's Trust & Safety from New Lead Jun Young Ro #1637: VRChat Doc "The Architect Across Realities" Features MR Design Innovations in Japan #1638: Virtual Photographer Kaerun's Japanese Friendships Featured in Documentary at Raindance #1639: Playing Live Jazz in VRChat with EMN Records enabled by Yamaha SYNCROOM

I spoke with Anders Fray (aka Ders) & Starheart about Natura's Queendom as a part of my Raindance Immersive 2025 coverage. See more context in the rough transcript below. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I spoke with Jessien about his Virtual Museum of Virtual Art as well as his latest What is Virtual Art? VRChat World exhibition as a part of my Raindance Immersive 2025 coverage. We also talk about his previous Raindance award-winning world Thickness Of Calligraphy. See more context in the rough transcript below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xOZhfAMORw This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality