The rise of the Metaverse has been a significant discussion point during 2021 and 2022, and today it has been announced that there is a new dating app launch to aid the formation of ‘real relationships’ in a virtual format through avatars and VR dating.
Flirtual is a dating app designed to match VR users together and to facilitate dates in social VR applications. The creators say it’s a codification of a trend that’s already happening—people meeting in VR and going on to form real-world relationships.
Finding real relationships through online games is nothing new. For at least a few decades now, players in virtual worlds like Runescape, World of Warcraft, and Second Life, have formed virtual friendships and partnerships that often carry over to the real-world.
The same has of course been happening in VR, and while the games of yore saw players communicating mostly by text and voice, VR of course ups the ante with the feeling of being physically present with others as well as bringing a significant portion of body language into the mix. Although VR users are still represented as avatars—which generally bare little resemblance to their real selves—VR makes the experience of interacting with people in virtual worlds objectively more rich; far from doing a /dance emote in an MMO, VR users can actually dance together and some use that added immersion to get even more intimate in VR.
That added realism makes VR the ideal platform for forming real-life relationships, say the creators of Flirtual, an online dating app which is designed to match VR users based on their interests and then facilitate a meetup in VR.