Interviews with nearly two dozen VR studios on shipping games on Quest, Meta's increased focus on Horizon Worlds, concerns over declining game sales, and more
With concerns about declining sales and discoverability, UploadVR spoke with nearly two dozen VR studios to discuss the state of VR development for Quest. Bluesky: @kentbye.com , @jamesoloughlin , @jamesoloughlin , @jamesoloughlin , and @qualbert.com X: @karrisaarinen , @id_aa_carmack , @lunayian , @boztank , @id_aa_carmack , and @cixliv Forums: r/virtualreality and r/PSVR Bluesky: Kent Bye / @kentbye.com : The thing that will affect indie XR developers the most is Meta's own shifting priorities in promoting Horizon worlds per the latest @uploadvr.com article: www.uploadvr.com/from-quest- t... Whatever happens at the scale of US politics will affect the entire US economy, of which XR is a tiny fraction James O'Loughlin / @jamesoloughlin : Hooked model btw (it exists on everything from MMOs to slot machines to Instagram). Soon Horizon Worlds, mark my words. [image] James O'Loughlin / @jamesoloughlin : “One developer questioned how much longer they can ethically do business with such an organization.” — ignoring ethics; how can you do business with such confusion & lack of comprehensive user experience? Still “move fast & break things"+priority is Hooked model/Roblox-business with kids making UGC. … James O'Loughlin / @jamesoloughlin : “...set in context of wider economic issues like the increasing cost of living leaving people with less disposable income. — 'There's a bigger, more insidious core problem that's happening. The amount of money that consumers are willing to spend on apps that you pay for is shrinking,' Eiche said. … @qualbert.com : A brilliant exposition of the current state of the VR industry. — Due to many factors, including Meta's focus on Horizon Worlds and their abysmal curation of the Quest storefront, many developers have been negatively impacted. — If this doesn't change, many VR developers run the risk of collapse. … X: Karri Saarinen / @karrisaarinen : I'd say Meta's problem overall is chasing the numbers, not building something great for people. “We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement” Metaverse was about Meta wanting to have a computing platform. The only problem was that users didn't care about that goal John Carmack / @id_aa_carmack : @boztank An unfortunate terminology revolution that someone had to have championed — all the MR toolkit efforts and demos are now uninformatively named. What do you call what used to be MR if VR is now MR? Luna / @lunayian : Really good (and more importantly nuanced) report. There are some things that don't match what I've seen, but it generally covers a lot of my annoyances with Horizon/Quest and VR right now. Boz / @boztank : @ID_AA_Carmack NB: we use MR instead of MR/VR now. The term covers both for us internally. John Carmack / @id_aa_carmack : [Quote post: “Meta CTO: 2025 Will Determine Whether Reality Labs Is Visionary Or “A Legendary Misadventure"] I see some positive things in the leaked @boztank memo, but I worry that the top level strategic direction is flawed. “ We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement across the board but especially in MR. And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long term plans to have a chance. ” Why would you say “especially in MR”? Mixed Reality is seen by some as a stepping stone to the future fantasy AR world that justifies all past losses, so it gets more focus than it objectively deserves... @cixliv : @ID_AA_Carmack @boztank MR is such a bad acronym that will never catch on. Like “spatial computing” until the form factor is glasses people will just call it a “VR headset” whether Boz likes it or not. Forums: r/virtualreality : From Quest To Horizon: How Meta's Shifting Priorities Are Affecting Developers r/PSVR : UploadVR: “We have similar numbers on Meta as we do on Steam, but much higher on PlayStation. Given the size of these platforms, it's unclear to us how this is even possible,”
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta has long pursued Quest adoption through accessible hardware economics, while Horizon Worlds expanded from a limited beta to a broader social-VR offering. The studio accounts show the tension between that platform ambition and the economics of selling paid games on Quest.
The concerns arrive after Meta opened Horizon OS to third-party headset makers, a move that could widen the device base but also raises the importance of a store and discovery system that can sustain developers across a larger ecosystem.
First-order effects
- Quest game studios face weaker paid-app demand and harder discovery, tightening the economics of shipping and supporting new titles.
- Meta's increased emphasis on Horizon Worlds leaves affected developers questioning whether the Quest storefront and platform priorities still support premium game businesses.
Second-order effects
- Pressure grows on Meta to reconcile its UGC and social-world push with better curation and visibility for paid apps; without that, developer resources are likely to favor the platform surfaces that receive promotion.
- The contrast between Horizon Worlds and paid Quest games sharpens the opportunity cost of platform attention: studios and users may receive less from a catalog whose titles cannot reliably reach buyers.
Third-order effects
- If paid-game discovery and spending continue to weaken, Quest could evolve toward an engagement-led, UGC-centered ecosystem rather than one anchored by a broad premium-games market.
- Opening Horizon OS can expand distribution, but the ecosystem's durability will increasingly depend on whether platform incentives support both headset growth and viable third-party software businesses.
The trend: VR platforms are converging on the broader platform-economy trade-off between maximizing recurring engagement through UGC and preserving discoverability and revenue for premium developers.