Virtual Reality / Metaverse
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Streaming video platforms are dramaturgically simplest to understand in terms of combining theatre and televisual properties through a proscenium arch; in contrast, a greater sense of embodiment and immersive environment can be generated in virtual reality. Several theatre practitioners are working in virtual reality (VR) and even integrating some metaverse (three-dimensional social spaces) approaches to their work. There are similar platform considerations to keep in mind when choosing where to build your virtual show.
Brendan Bradley began working in a fork of Mozilla Hubs early in 2020, building both Future Stages and the OnBoardXR festival with help from Michael Morran and Clemence Debaig. Bradley told me: ‘through the adapting of Mozilla’s Code Base, we've written a lot of code. We've done a lot of our own code base for supporting specifically the live events and theatrical queuing. Where that gets a little awkward is because Mozilla is an open project, and we're an open community’. Open platforms are an excellent way for theatre artists to get started in programming and designing for a unique online experience, but it does require more coding and architectural design compared to video streaming.
However, metaverse platforms have suffered significant upheaval in the last few years. AltSpaceVR was shut down in 2023, alongside parent company Microsoft laying off 10,000 workers. In February 2024, Mozilla announced the ‘sunset’ of Hubs, removing the community-built and -maintained version entirely.

Braden Roy, a co-founder of VR theatre company Ferryman Collective, unfortunately demonstrated the previous utopian view of this technology :
I would say that, come on in, the water is fine. Like, right now, the point of entry is lower than it's ever been, possibly in history, both in terms of these sorts of productions, immersive theater, and VR in general. … Every tool that you could need is freely available, and all the resources for how to use it is freely available. Blender is free. Unity is free. VRChat is free. Altspace is free. Everything is free. You just got to jump in.
It is unclear why Microsoft and Mozilla have decided to end free consumer versions of their programs, but company costs vs. monetisation potential is a likely reason. Regardless of what you create in virtual reality, you should also consider yourself a beta tester, helping the corporate owners of the program discover what users like about their software and how it can be used; this information will likely become monetised later, meaning your work will no longer be free to make and access. If you are interested in VR or metaverse theatre, it is worth choosing a handful of platforms you like, in case you need to migrate your work.
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