Altspace is Shutting Down. There had been rumors that something like this may happen. I talked with some players on Altspace recently. It seemed that updates were infrequent, and many active users were already seeing the signs. Back in September, an active Altspace user even told me “the platform is almost dead”. So the news that Altspace will be shutting down is not surprising. I did think Microsoft would continue to keep it going, but I guess ultimately, it’s not worth it to them.

I did like the platform. It was good for it’s purpose and it was very friendly for new users. It’s available on Quest and the learning curve is not too bad. Trying to get new players into VRChat is a bigger endeavor than in Altspace. Altspace was also very corporate/business friendly. You could sign in with a Outlook account, and create an avatar right as you log in. I guess the corporate platform now is going to be Horizon. Horizon can do everything Altspace could and is a much smoother platform.

It’s sad to see Altspace go. I never spent too much time on Altspace. I built some worlds here and there for the platform and I attended some events, but that was it.