Social Virtual Reality Platform VRChat Launches Paid Subscriptions

Social virtual reality (VR) platform VRChat has begun rolling out its new Creator Economy, starting with the introduction of Paid Subscriptions.

This new feature allows users to financially support their favorite creators, enabling VRChat’s community of over half a million individual creators to monetize their creations, the company said in a Tuesday (Dec. 5) press release.

The introduction of Paid Subscriptions is just the beginning for VRChat’s Creator Economy, according to the release. The platform plans to introduce additional tools in the near future, allowing creators to receive compensation for various creative pursuits such as building worlds, designing avatars, hosting concerts and streaming content.

“Over time, we plan to roll out and support each applicable use case of the Creator Economy,” Graham Gaylor, CEO and co-founder of VRChat, said in the release. “We want all creators in VRChat — no matter what they’re making — to be able to thrive on our platform.”

To facilitate the Creator Economy, VRChat has partnered with Tilia, an all-in-one payment platform designed to support digital economies, according to the press release. Tilia’s expertise in handling payments and compliance ensures a smooth and scalable system for VRChat users. This collaboration aims to provide creators with a seamlessexperience to receive compensation for their work.

Tilia’s capabilities were built from scratch to power the online multimedia gaming platform Second Life and its creator-based economy and have been developed over several years. It has secured U.S. money transmitter licenses to support payouts, allowing for secure transactions on a large scale.

“Tilia was built to support the unique and complex requirements for creator-based economies,” Tilia CEO Brad Oberwager said in the release.

Paid Subscriptions work in conjunction with VRChat’s custom scripting language, Udon, enabling creators to craft unique experiences for their supporters, per the release.

The feature seamlessly integrates with VRChat’s existing systems, making it easy for pre-existing communities to monetize their content with minimal friction, the release said.

Furthermore, VRChat’s upcoming launch on Android and Pico 4 will introduce new discovery tools, expanding opportunities for creators to find a larger audience and gain more supporters, according to the release.