Over the last few years, we’ve been building the Museum of Other Realities (MOR), a virtual space for VR artists to exhibit their work and share the experience with others. We’re glad to announce that the MOR has entered Early Access, so you can get it on Steam! You probably have a few questions, so read on to get some answers. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us on Discord or on our website.
The MOR is a virtual art museum filled with mind-bending VR art. As an immersive multiplayer art showcase in VR, the MOR encourages visitors to view and interact with art in new ways , whether that means diving into a painting or touching the art, causing it to change shape.
VR, as a creative tool, is still pretty young and yet artists are already breaking new ground and creating amazing work with it. We realized that the same newness which gives artists the opportunity to experiment can also make it difficult for them to get their work seen by a wider audience as intended. So we set out to address this with the MOR.
The MOR is a museum in VR, so there’s no physical location to visit. All you need is a VR headset and VR-ready PC and you can visit the museum from anywhere in the world at any time.
We have many things planned for the MOR, which means we could either keep building quietly until we have a presumably-perfect, shiny version of the Museum, or release a version now, gather valuable feedback from a wider audience, and iterate. This was actually a difficult decision, but we remembered how much the MOR has evolved over the years thanks to all the feedback we’ve received, and ultimately decided this was the way to go.
Plus, artists grow over time, as do the tools they use and their art styles. This Early Access release allows us to share their work with a wider audience while also showcasing their growth alongside ours.
The Early Access version is a smaller, streamlined edition of the Museum, usually for demoing at festivals and conferences. Even though it doesn’t have all the artwork and features we’d like to showcase (yet), the mechanics are in place for an immersive experience featuring amazing art. Over the next few months, we’ll build upon the experience, expanding not only the Museum’s architecture but also the variety of artwork we feature and the ways in which players can interact with them.
Here is a rough roadmap of the big features expected:
• In-headset UI
• Refined Avatars
• Improved social safety controls
• Public server browser
• New museum architecture
• New exhibits every month
The museum is updated regularly, so in addition to features, there’s always going to be new art and events during and after the Early Access period.
The MOR is a $19.99 USD one-time purchase on Steam.
In addition to providing a space for artists to share their work, one of our main goals has always been to support the artists we feature. To this end, exposure, on its own, isn’t sufficient crypto-currency. We charge for the MOR because promoting the artists is equally as important as paying them for their work. We intend to continue supporting artists and the team responsible for making this museum a ‘reality’. This is especially significant because the MOR is an ongoing experience with amazing new art being added on a regular basis.
There's quite a bit of work to be done before we leave Early Access, so while we don’t have an exact date yet, we are currently aiming to release the feature-complete beta later this year. We’ll keep you in the loop.
We post about updates and events on our blog and social channels (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook). We also have a Discord server where you can provide feedback and discuss the experience with other players, featured artists, and the MOR dev team.
