And VRChat Is Disabling Mods... Why?

When I tell someone I love the Internet, what I usually mean is that I love online community. I say it all the time, "my whole life has been online." Most websites' terms of service dictate a user be 13 years old before using the site unmonitored by parents. I know for a fact I was chatting with strangers by age 9. Now, before you jump up and scream about how dangerous that is, yes. I know, but think about it like latchkey kids. Of course there are dangers, but for the social climate of the internet at the time, roaming the web unsupervised was pretty okay.

VRChat, first launched in 2014, is a social application that runs on virtual reality consoles from brands such as Microsoft Oculus, Steam and HTC Vive. It's a natural evolution of the chat room, except instead of a dozen text-based trains of thought competing for your attention, you have a room full of colorful 3D characters with human voices coming from them. I haven't used VRChat myself, but I have watched numerous YouTube videos compiling funny moments, memes, and sometimes very serious life-stories from the app. One that stands out in my mind was a two-part saga of a young military veteran (behind an Anakin Skywalker avatar) candidly speaking about his "worst day as a soldier" and subsequent battle with alcoholism, in conversation with a Winnie the Pooh.

You know what's really great about socializing on the Internet? All it takes is a computer. This makes the world so much more accessible to the disabled and neurodivergent among us. For my part, I feel more at ease speaking through text. Instant messaging and e-mail have always allowed me to communicate no matter what emotional state I was in, and no matter what my energy level. Also, there are very smart and creative people out there who create accessibility features for apps and games in the form of mods, short for modifications. Text-to-speech, speech-to-text, closed captioning, dyslexia-friendly fonts, and the list goes on. Because of this kind of ingenuity, virtual socialization is a mainstay of accessibility in the 21st century.

The news this week is that VRChat, Inc., the company behind VRChat, is going to integrate a service called Easy Anti-Cheat into the app in an effort to thwart bad actors. My partner's first reaction to the headlines was to say, "Anti-cheat? How can you cheat in VRChat?" Fair question. Most of the mods available are from third parties and not thoroughly reviewed by the developers of the app. Once in a while, somebody puts a line of malicious code in there that can do all the big scary internet crimes: steal your data, break your machine, put porn in front of you without consent, etc. This Easy Anti-Cheat service can stop people from taking advantage of exploits in any application, not just in the context of video games.

Sounds like a good idea, but you know what else Easy Anti-Cheat will do? Disable mods. All of them.

My first thought: "Well that sucks. Think of all the fun features they'll lose." The second thought, close on its heels: "Oh my god, accessibility."

@TheFoxipso posted a video on Twitter in which their avatar, an anthropomorphic fox, outlining one example through captioned sign language. VRChat users are able to watch movies in "movie rooms" with their friends. The open-source mod "VRC-CC" allows these movie rooms to utilize closed captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants. That is now gone. A few videos I watched also made mention of a mod that allows users with limited mobility to navigate the app's menus while lying down. That is also gone.

The reason these third-party mods need to exist is because the app itself is very light on quality-of-life features. VRC, Inc. has expressed they will prioritize adding popular features to the app, but have not been specific about which ones. The community is not optimistic that the developers will suddenly and competently make the game playable after so many years of letting users do the work. Further eroding trust in the developers is their responses to the backlash. A lot of people are getting muted and banned in the official Discord server just for making their voice heard. That's just not a good look, guys.

Outside of Discord, users are expressing their displeasure by review-bombing VRChat on Steam, cancelling premium memberships, flocking to competing apps, and sharing personal impact stories on social media. People NEED these features in order to spend time with their social circles. There are people who can't go out because of the pandemic. There are people who have limited mobility and VRChat has been literally a pain-free activity for them. Because of the collaborative and open-source nature of mods, people have been taking steps to ensure this platform works for them when in-person spaces may not make the effort. And the devs can just turn that off. And they have.

But surely they would only do this if it were worth doing, right? Does Easy Anti-Cheat take care of the problems VRChat, Inc. is trying to address? Well, no. Not really. If the concern is malware, a very determined bad actor will find a way around it. If the concern is malicious code in community mods, the mods are open-source. People can see the code and verify there's nothing sneaky hiding in it. If the concern is harassment and other gross behaviors "the Internet" is infamous for, this doesn't touch on it at all! Harassment, especially sexual harassment of minors, is one of the main problems facing platforms like this, but Easy Anti-Cheat is for technical concerns, not moderating behavior.

Instead of getting to the root of any of these problems, VRChat, Inc. seems to be trying to look nice for investors. They're "doing something" about "it", where "doing something" means they slapped a brand-name Band-Aid on their product and "it" is the kind of problems that investors don't like. I hope VRChat, Inc. is happy with their decision, because the rest of us sure aren't.