Somnium Space Review: Out-of-the-box Support for VR Headsets

VR real estate for personal or commercial use

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Published: March 24, 2021

XR Today Team

Somnium Space is a VR world-builder platform founded in 2017. It supports autonomous VR real estate ownership and trading, making it a direct competitor to platforms like Decentraland or even Second Life.

Interestingly, its founder, Artur Sychov, has years of experience in the finance sector which explains why Somnium Space is so keenly focused on (and does an excellent job of) VR asset monetisation.

Somnium Space is built on blockchain architecture and has its own in-app currency unit called Somnium Cubes. Owners are free to send or exchange Somnium Cubes and purchase properties without the platform owners’ permission.

What are the Key Features of Somnium Space?

Apart from the seeding funding of $1 million, Somnium Space is entirely crowdfunded by the sale of VR real estate. This real estate can be used for consumer use cases like gaming, socialisation, and e-commerce, or enterprise use cases like large events, and conferences.

Desktop and VR headset support

Somnium Space is available both on desktops as well as VR headsets. On your desktop, it will appease as a 2D world, accessible as a desktop app or through mobile. It supports major headset variants including Rift, VIVE, and Steam, with Oculus Go and Quest support scheduled for release. Using the desktop client, you can also build/adjust the world layout.

Partner network

The company has partnered with leaders across blockchain, virtual reality, and hardware manufacturing sectors to create an end-to-end ecosystem. Hardware partners like Sony bring in 3D model creation technology. Matic and OpenSea are blockchain partners to Somnium Space, and the company also works with Admix to help users monetise their online property.

VR asset creation and monetisation

This feature is at the heart of Somnium’s value proposition. It has an in-app builder module as well as SDKs to provide you with the creative tools needed to craft VR assets from scratch. All assets retain documentation of authenticity of origin using blockchain and are fully tradeable via decentralised marketplaces.

Global events

Upcoming events of Somnium Space are listed on its events page, letting you advertise conferences, lectures, and other consumer/business events. Somnium lets you schedule recurring events that you can stream from your console every week to a live audience.

Along with events, Somnium Space has a map feature where users can explore the VR world, find places of their interest, make purchases, or attend pre-scheduled meet-ups with another user or a colleague. Somnium Space maps look (and work) just Google Maps for an easy learning curve.

What are the Benefits of Using Somnium Space?

Somnium Space improves upon its close competitor, Second Life, by providing out of the box support for VR headsets. This platform is regularly updated with new features such as web-based access, a permalink for every piece of land, mobile VR, and full-body avatars.

How Much Will It Cost?

Somnium Space is free for download and use, with revenues coming in from in-app purchases. You can leverage it for business use cases such as VR e-commerce or commercial services delivered in a virtual world.

 

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