At 9 am on a current weekday I used to be standing in a Banter digital broadcast studio with the founding father of SideQuest, Shane Harris.
Subsequent to him was an avatar with a reputation overhead studying “Rev. Lunar Tiger”, and to my proper three cameras stood in positions very near those we use to file our weekly VR Obtain podcast.
I informed Harris to carry on as I began typing messages to my colleague David Heaney on Slack, looking from the underside of Meta Quest 3 tapping my fingers on the keys. What I noticed in Banter was physics-based gameplay harking back to Bonelab with what appeared like rock strong efficiency on a standalone Quest 3. I informed David that Banter was only a ~150MB obtain and I wouldn’t take greater than 10 minutes of his time. At 8:54 he agreed to put in it and at 9:00 he requested the place to fulfill.
“Slipstream island”, I replied. “rev. lunar tiger in prime hat and gown will get you to the best place”.
The timestamp on my subsequent message to David Heaney on Slack is at 9:10 am as I used to be modifying his article on Meta’s CTO taking pictures down the potential of an official Quest 3 eye-tracking add-on. The headset was off my head, I had fulfilled my promise to him and was already again to modifying his writing.
Within the time between these stamps I watched David discover our room, meet Harris and ask some questions. When you’ve used VR for any size of time you perceive these time stamps inform a narrative of their very own. Following our demo of Banter, I requested Harris to elucidate his ideas on how the app goals to do issues higher than current platforms. He replied:
“Banter is our try to discover what we expect the ‘metaverse’ may very well be. We do not suppose it must be stuffed with screaming youngsters, or overrun by principally the identical sort of avatar. We need to create one thing new that focuses on unbelievable visuals, full physique movement and unbelievable efficiency. We now have tried to leverage current open internet applied sciences, reasonably than making an attempt to reinvent the wheel. Banter makes use of an in constructed internet browser to combine every thing we love concerning the web into visiting worlds and house in XR,” Harris wrote. “We would like it to be extra inclusive and extra accessible than VRChat, but in addition targets standalone top quality and never as an after thought. We would like Banter to be jam filled with enjoyable options that makes it straightforward for creators to construct with out limits, with out prices and with out having to show their loyalty.”
VRChat has a multi-year head begin by which they’ve realized some hard-won classes about learn how to scale such an effort whereas concurrently rising a passionate consumer base, with VRChat permitting for fast enroll on its platform with both Oculus or Steam accounts. Banter simply launched within the final 12 months and consists of visitor entry that permits you into some worlds with out formal sign-up. It additionally has assist for Unity’s Cinemachine digicam instruments out there and its small upfront file dimension makes it straightforward to fulfill up in VR in a short time.
“As a visitor you are able to do most issues, enter most worlds. You get a default generated identify and that ‘ball’ type avatar. If you wish to customise your avatar or be capable to add buddies then it’s important to hyperlink your SideQuest account. Then you may change your avatar or add buddies contained in the app from the “Me” icon within the menu,” Harris defined. “Visitors aren’t muted proper now after they enter worlds, however some areas can select to not enable company.”
Will probably be no straightforward feat competing with the likes of VRChat or Rec Room, and the panorama is already plagued by makes an attempt like AltspaceVR that attempted and died within the space of social VR. How precisely can Banter proceed to focus on “standalone first” whereas nonetheless accepting the sorts of avatars individuals love inhabiting in VRChat on PCs?
That is a really apparent open query and we’ll need to see the place Banter goes from right here. We’re curious to check out the digital studio we have been proven and see if it may well fulfill our wants for exhibits just like the VR Obtain. That is a tall order too, but it surely’s one we’re seeking to test quickly. Nonetheless, we thought the timeline right here, in addition to the strong efficiency we noticed in Banter’s worlds, was attention-grabbing sufficient to share with our readers proper now.
When you’re curious to test it out, Banter has principally optimistic opinions on Steam and can be out there on Meta Quest’s App Lab.
This isn’t sponsored content material, however UploadVR did publish a labeled sponsored put up from SideQuest in April 2023 in accordance with our ethics coverage.
