You can hang out with your friends in VR in AltspaceVR
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What AltspaceVR’s shutdown says about virtual reality’s prospects

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Fans of virtual reality felt a punch to the gut this week as AltspaceVR announced it would hold its last social VR gathering on August 3 and then shut down.

AltspaceVR was a social space in VR where people could gather in environments that resembled virtual worlds. They could create their own avatars and chat with friends. As such, AltspaceVR was like a harbinger of what the world would look like as a virtual society. Facebook followed up with its own version of social VR chat, while others — such as Rec Room, Roblox,  Linden Lab, and TheWave VR — have offered their own takes on social VR.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.