VRChat

Predators and grooming come up in more reviews than any other complaint, as warnings and as dark jokes. Reviewers, including some who say they were groomed as minors on the platform, describe adults flirting with children, asking for ages and Discord handles, and pulling minors into private rooms: "In only about 50 hours spent in public worlds, I've already witnessed at least 3 kids being groomed live". Other reviewers complain about how many young children, often on standalone Quest headsets, are in public worlds. The usual requests are an 18+ rating or real separation of minors and adults, and reviewers warn parents to keep children off the platform. A minority pushes back, saying "predator hunting" videos exaggerate the problem and that they have never met a predator.

Reviewers report hearing slurs within minutes of joining a public world, often from children: "This game somehow beat Call of Duty in chances to be called slurs by actual children." Players describe racism, homophobia, transphobia, Nazi stickers and emojis, death threats, doxxing threats, IP grabbing, drama-driven cliques and e-dating couples who ignore everyone else. Some say they were harassed for being Black, female, trans or gay. A few name popular hangouts such as The Black Cat as where they ran into it. The advice to stay out of public worlds appears in positive and negative reviews alike.

Nude or near-nude avatars, sexual stickers, ERP in public bathrooms and bars, and adult club worlds that minors can walk into all come up. One reviewer says such worlds appear for brand new accounts: "In fact they get RECOMMENDED to you". Adult players are split on the response: some want stricter enforcement in public spaces, while others feel the recent avatar takedowns and content gating hit harmless avatars and private use instead.

Reviewers say reports against predators, slur-spammers and crashers produce no visible result: "I reported him and I checked everyday for about a week to see if he had been banned, and his account is still up." One says VRChat told them they were not allowed to report the person at all. Other players describe multi-day bans with no warning for small things, such as an untagged avatar after a rule change ("I forgot to tag an avatar with the new update and got no warning at all, just a 3 day ban"), and appeals answered with copy-pasted replies. Several suspect automated moderation and mass reporting by bad actors.

Crowded worlds tank frame rates even on high-end PCs, and players blame both the engine and avatars with huge polygon and texture counts. Complaints range from "on vr just opening the menu drops me from 65 fps on vr to 32" to crashes, freezes, avatars stuck loading, storage filling up, and Quest players unable to see most avatars. Some long-time players credit recent updates with better performance and say the real culprit is "the unoptimized stuff users upload"; others want hard limits instead of leaving it to safety settings.

Reviewers say the 18+ verification that unlocks adult-only instances requires a VRC+ subscription, and they resent it: "You need to be verified 18+ for a lot of rooms. Which is behind a PAYWALL only." Others refuse to hand a government ID or face scan to the third-party verification company over privacy and data-leak fears, and some say that keeps them out of friends' 18+ rooms or rave events. A few also object to a planned "age assurance" content gate. Verified adults sometimes say it changed the experience ("after Age Verifying its like a different game, a Better game"), while others say minors get past it with a parent's ID.

Long-time players describe a steady shift toward monetization: VRC+ perks such as profile pictures, more avatar slots, camera features and third-person view, an in-game currency, limited-time items, and an avatar marketplace where "You get to use the avatar, you don't get the files". Menus now push the shop, and several reviewers compare the direction to Roblox or Fortnite. Defenders note that "You do not need VRChat Plus to play the game" and that cosmetics are optional.

Long-time players are still sore about the anti-cheat, which reviewers date to July 2022. They say it removed quality-of-life and accessibility mods (some disabled players relied on them), did not stop crashers or avatar rippers, and that some modded features later came back behind VRC+. Practical problems remain: driver conflicts that block launch, Secure Boot requirements, and virtual machines and Shadow PC cloud gaming no longer working. A few players say the game has improved since, and a couple of Linux players report Proton working better.

Half joking and half serious, some reviewers say VRChat swallows time, sleep and money. A few say it worsened their loneliness or mental health: "it slowly turns you into someone who can only socialise in VR". Others describe spending thousands of dollars on headsets, trackers and PC upgrades for a "free" game.

New players describe a near-absent tutorial ("The tutorial here appears to consist of a poster round the corner from where you start"), confusing menus, and trust ranks that keep new users from uploading their own avatars until they rank up; one says they were kicked again and again while still ranked as a "visitor". Others say finding active, welcoming groups is the hardest part, because the busiest worlds make the worst first impression.

Long-time players complain that AI-generated worlds and thumbnails are crowding the worlds tab and that there is no tag or filter to identify them.

UI updates draw complaints, most recently a profile update that reviewers describe as Discord-style decorations, larger nameplates and reshuffled friend menus: "Fix the UI. It looks terrible and is worse to navigate and more difficult to read." Players ask for toggles to turn off other people's effects and to revert layouts.

A scattering of reviews report being unable to log in, loops back to the home world, black screens on launch, Steam and VRChat accounts that will not link, rejected email-forwarding addresses, and lost accounts with slow support.