This review is taken from my blog & edited to save space. Full blog at Zapious.ca/somniumspace
I have been a very active community member of Somnium Space since I joined almost 2 years ago. I have built and hosted many events and have roughly over 2000 VR hours, in world. I have spent a large portion of that time in the company of the Co-founder and current CEO, Artur Sychov. With that being said, I think I am in a pretty good position to speak frankly and knowledgeably about the platform, the CEO and the company in general. Somnium Space is more than 4 years old and some may say it’s still in beta, but 4 years is a long time to be in beta. However, saying it’s in beta, is used as an excuse for the multiple features that have either, never worked, (since I have been there) or once worked but now do not. This extra long beta period has put Somnium behind other platforms, with Somnium not having even the most basic privacy features, such as keeping people from entering your property, that, in Somniums case, you’ve actually purchased, and privately own, unlike other platforms, in which you are just using their property… but they, at least, still offer the basic privacy features people expect. On the topic of privacy, Somnium claims you could use the platform anonymously, however, if you ever send the “requested” log files (asked for occasionally for debugging purposes) they provide Somnium with your computers name, your computers account name, (meaning your name) what times you’ve logging into the platform and who you socialize with while being there. These are just some of the privacy concerns I noticed in these log file during my review of them. Also your information from connected accounts, such as unity (You may use this for uploading content) would also be available to Somnium. I’ve also recently noticed, their website site https:// somniumspace.com has tracking software and sends your information to “Alphabet” (“Blacklight detected this website sending user data to Alphabet, the technology conglomerate that encompasses Google and associated companies like Nest.” {direct quote}) In other words, to Google. This can be verified by entering Somnium’s web address into a privacy checker such as: https://themarkup.org/blacklight. It seems Somnium’s team could use a little help as well. Besides the many features that are non existent or simply don’t work correctly, it’s a bit disturbing to know they were unable to implement the simplest required features such as controller bindings for my HP G2. Other platforms didn’t seem to have these issues, such as Altspace, Vr Chat, Neos and Sansar, which I also frequent. I believe the only working HP G2 controller bindings are the ones I created and uploaded to steam for others to use. (most controls work, however, I would like to mention that I am not a software designer or game developer and had no experience in this area). And, it’s not like Somnium didn’t have many opportunities to increase it’s development team… since there has been some skilled community members, that boast backgrounds in game development and software engineering, however, as will be noted later, these people couldn’t see a future working with the current CEO and simply gave up trying or have left the platform altogether. The same can be said for some of the actual paid development team, as well as some active, long time, community members. (such as myself). There also seems to be a reoccurring pattern of “using” people until they are no longer needed. This type of behaviour creates trust issues, and paired with constant conflicts, certainly isn’t helping the platform grow. Anyone who has ever entered Somnium Space (past or present) probably saw how barren it is. If you ask on discord, someone may tell you there are thousands of users. Although it is possible Somnium has thousands of account holders, (I don’t have access to that information) what I can say, after being there practically everyday, for almost 2 years, is, there are about a dozen ACTIVE VR users. (when I started and still today) The rest of those “thousands” are just people who own land for future profit, and you’ll likely never see them. People have often asked “why are the Land prices are so high?” Well, that is the secondary market… meaning, those properties are already owned and are being resold or flipped in many cases. The high price in those situations can be explained simply by saying that some owners are trying to see how gullible people can be. There are plots that are worth more (like in any market) because they are more desirable, being Ocean front, Island properties or very close to city centre. The rest, to put it bluntly, are basically just greedy people trying to find suckers. The evidence is in the most recent auction, (aprox. 3 months ago) where Somnium has set reasonable sales prices on it’s own properties for sale: Smalls, I believe, started at .7 ETH, mediums were 1.5 ETH and XL’s were 3.0 ETH. The majority sold (the ones that did sell, as this was the slowest auction to date) close to asking price and mostly to people who plan to flip them. If you happen to be looking at a properties on Opensea, check the properties sale’s history. Flipping has always irritated me, since the day I joined and I have mentioned it to the CEO on numerous occasions, but the reply I get is: “those properties are privately owned, and the owners can ask whatever they like”, which may be true, but also, Somnium has no incentive to limit or cap sales prices as they make 7.5 percent off every resale. I also feel that all the ridiculous pricing has ultimately hurt the growth of the platform and the community.
Avatars are another example of exorbitantly high prices. I mean $10 000+ for an avatar, especially when the creator has made multiple copies for sale, with the only difference being, perhaps colour. I do believe some creators spend a fair amount of time on these models, however, you can have a custom avatar created from a creator on unity, for example, for SIGNIFICANTLY less. Also, there are many free, or VERY cheap avatars you can get and use (just not sell) from various companies. I find it’s just another example of milking the community. Of course this is a personal opinion as I also can’t image someone paying millions for a painting of a can of soup, but they do. Somnium has recently minted NFT cars for purchase. They make them available for a few weeks for free as a gimmick to draw more people to the platform, but they will eventually remove them and if you want one, you will be required to pay thousands of dollars worth of ETH. Ultimately this ploy hasn’t proved fruitful for the platform, which is evidenced by the fact of so few active community members. (as mentioned earlier). And, once again, with the lack of proper development, every time Somnium adds a new feature, it has the secondary effect of breaking many other features, which in itself, can become quite aggravating. As many steam reviewers have commented, Somnium promotes itself as a free platform, but after joining, it quickly becomes apparent, no ETH, means you can’t enjoy many key features Somnium offers. There is much than can be said about Somnium’s questionable choices, however this is a blog, not a book. So, I will leave you asking the question many have asked me “should I invest in Somnium Space?” Will the platform survive where so many others have failed? I can’t see into the future, so I really can’t say. I can only share my experiences. I will say though, in my opinion, the biggest problem with Somnium is the management. It’s not that Somnium Space couldn’t become great, but I can only see that happening if the current CEO steps down or the company is sold.
Disclaimer: The opinions in this blog are solely that of the writer. The information given was based on the writer’s own experiences and perceptions that were accurate at the time of writing.
