REC Room, the VR social platform, just released an update that allows Plus members to create custom shirts for the first time, allowing you to draw virtually anything with a flick of a virtual pen and apply the image to a t-shirt. The studio says that users will be able to sell those shirts in the market in the future as well.
Compared with VRChat† REC Room offers a significantly more limited way to customize avatars, as it relies on in-platform tools. although REC Room does offer avatar suits for the whole body now it’s a long way from the kind of customization that standard 3D modeling tools allow. Still, the studio is taking steps to allow their millions of users to express themselves in a way that conforms to the guidelines. Finally, REC Room is one of the few social platforms with dedicated junior accounts (under the age of 13) that are both COPPA compliant and kidSAFE certified†
Now the studio has released an instructional video on how Plus members can make custom shirts. Here’s a quick tutorial showing how users can draw and apply the image to both the front and back of a shirt:
As you can imagine, there is also an explicit warning against inappropriate shirt designs that would violate the platform’s code of conduct. As for t-shirts, REC Room prohibits designs that contain things with sexist, racist, discriminatory or harassing language, symbols or behavior. Like all of its user-created content, it relies on the game’s player base to self-monitor and report content that violates its guidelines.
Custom shirt making is only open to paid “Plus” members, an optional membership program that costs $8 per month. Plus includes a few notable perks in addition to free accounts, such as 100 saved outfit slots, token drops per month, discounts on store items, and the ability to earn tokens by selling things like room keys to mini-games or digital items like gadgets. Some members can even sell those items and convert their in-game tokens into real money-a strong incentive to keep the new content flowing from third-party creators.
And there is no shortage of willing customers either, because Rec Rooms player base has recently grown to 3 million monthly active VR users† That figure is actually a “pretty low percentage” of total active players, the studio says, as most users access the game through traditional gaming platforms such as iOS, Android, PlayStation and Xbox.
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REC Room is currently running an art competition with the theme ‘sport’. This includes the new Custom Shirts category. For more information, see the Art Competition Rules and Entry Form start.