VRChat Has Banned Mods, and the Community Has Gone Wild [IGN]

As reported by PC Gamer, VRChat announced it would soon introduce Easy Anti-Cheat – a common PC counter-hacking and cheating service used in games including Elden Ring, Fortnite, and more. It’s being introduced because, according to the developers, “malicious modified clients allow users to attack and harass others, causing a huge amount of moderation issues”.

There were other reasons listed too, with developer VRChat Inc. saying that “even seemingly non-malicious modifications complicate the support and development of VRChat, and make it impossible for VRChat creators to work within the expected, documented bounds of VRChat.”

A compilation of reactions to VRChat adding Easy Anti Cheat (to ban mods)

A passionate member of my discord put this together and I thought it was a great way to archive the moment (with their permission) pic.twitter.com/A4jJaIqdWI

— Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) July 26, 2022

Some mods add major features to VRChat and are otherwise a huge part of its appeal for the community. For some, those mods’ features are more vital, such as adding closed captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing, which will be removed as a result of the anti-cheat implementation.

As you might expect, the announcement has sent the community into an uproar, with Twitter, Discord, and other social platforms exploding with complaints in response to the blog post. The game’s Steam page shot from showing mostly positive reviews to overwhelmingly negative as a result of the announcement, as users with hundreds of hours of playtime slammed the developers behind the game they love.

User FrostClaw wrote: “Horrible devs. Entirely disconnected from the community and what they want.” Another, Zullfix, wrote that Easy Anti-Cheat will “lower framerates, increase instability, stop ‘wholesome’ mods, accessibility modes, and quality of life mods” among other things.

@VRChat “VRC-CC” is a mod that adds closed captions to movie worlds so deaf/HH people can watch movies with their friends. VRChat is killing that today by banning all mods. They’ve done absolutely nothing to address serious accessibility gaps on their platform. Please RT pic.twitter.com/DuJSUJCb4n

— Foxipso (@TheFoxipso) July 25, 2022

VRChat Inc. has issued a response to the community, updating its initial blog post to say that it has heard and understood the complaints but it will not cancel the implementation of Easy Anti-Cheat.

“However, we hear you and see you saying that many of the modified client features that are being lost due to this are extremely important to you, or in some cases allow you to use VRChat at all, when in regards to modifications that added accessibility features that VRChat currently lacks,” it said.

“Addressing these concerns and feedback is our highest priority. We are changing our internal development roadmap and priorities to focus on the features and additions that you want. Currently ongoing projects are being paused, rescheduled, or re-prioritized, and resources are being re-allocated to account for this change.”

The first changes being made pertain to accessibility issues such as the removal of closed captions, with VRChat Inc. saying it is fast-tracking several similar features through production. It promised that more information will follow soon, and that these initial updates will be first of many, also thanking fans for their patience as they work through the list of concerns.

Whether fans will show that patience remains to be seen.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.