Whereas a flurry of VR studio cuts and closures within the final 12 months has painted an image of a deeply struggling panorama for VR builders, trendy Quest success tales have largely flown below the radar. The free-to-play title UG, for example, has exploded in each recognition and earnings, matching prime titles like Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber in mere months. In an interview with Highway to VR, the creators of UG have shared a uncommon look contained in the success of Quest’s newest hit.
By the Numbers
Launched on Quest lower than six months in the past, UG has shortly change into one of many platform’s hottest, best-rated, and top-earning titles. The sport shares broad similarities to the likes of contemporary VR video games like Gorilla Tag (ie: free-to-play, social multiplayer, arm-based locomotion), however revolves round hatching, elevating, driving, buying and selling, and adventuring on digital dinosaur pets.
The method has been successful with the Quest viewers, blasting off to change into the most-rated title on the Horizon retailer with 245,000 critiques. That not solely places it above contemporaries like Animal Firm (180,000 critiques) and Gorilla Tag (167,000 critiques), however it’s additionally the best-rated of the three. UG has managed to keep up a 4.9 out of 5 star person ranking, which is exceptional for a Quest sport with so many critiques.
In an interview with Highway to VR, the creators of UG provided distinctive perception into the success of the sport, revealing it has already reached 1.2 million distinctive customers, averaging greater than 100,000 day by day energetic customers, and a peak of 40,000 concurrent customers.
“[UG‘s] retention and playtime have truthfully exceeded something we anticipated,” says Michael Murdock, lead sport designer of UG and co-owner of the studio, Continuum. “The typical participant has now spent over 14 hours in UG, and that quantity retains climbing as gamers preserve coming again. Every day common playtime is normally near an hour and has approached two hours at instances.”
Now in the marketplace for 5 years, Gorilla Tag definitely nonetheless leads the best way in whole income. However when it comes to weekly income, UG is holding its personal in opposition to Gorilla Tag. In accordance with Meta’s “top-selling” chart, UG has been constantly among the many prime performers, together with continuously stealing the highest spot from Gorilla Tag. Murdock says the sport has occupied the #1 spot “about 95% of the time” since UG’s launch.
UG’s success is greater than a fluke. The studio behind the sport, Contiuum, additionally constructed the Quest title Monkey Doo—one other free-to-play multiplayer sport—which, at 11,000 critiques, has been a relative success in its personal proper. However UG has reached one other stage completely; not simply in participant counts, however income too.
“We’re seeing a mean income per-user (ARPU) of over $14,” says Murdock. “That’s almost 20 instances what we’ve skilled in our different free-to-play titles [like Monkey Doo].”
The Previous, Current, and Way forward for UG
Murdock walked me by way of the backstory of the sport’s improvement, which begins with the formation of the Utah-based studio, Continuum, again in 2020.
“We began as a VR/AR company making immersive experiences primarily for advertising and schooling. Over time, as we refined our expertise and our staff, it turned clear that what we actually wished to construct was VR video games,” he says. “Earlier than UG, we labored on the single-player model of Sail with Crimson Staff Interactive in 2021. Internally, we additionally constructed Monkey Doo, adopted by Cactus Jam, and we helped develop Immediate Celebration. Every of these taught us rather a lot about what works, and what doesn’t, in VR. Up till UG, we have been nonetheless splitting our time between sport improvement and company work. Lastly, we made the choice to cease splitting our consideration and go all in on our VR studio.”
Improvement on UG began in October 2024, Murdock says. After validating the idea, the studio discovered funding.
“We took a six-figure sum from a strategic associate. In trade, we agreed to a scaling income share from sport gross sales. We didn’t give away any studio shares or IP possession.”
Apparently, the funding got here from Trass Video games, the studio behind one more trendy Quest success, Yeeps (2024). In some ways, Yeeps and UG are rivals within the VR market, however Murdock says the partnership has been nothing however optimistic for each studios.
“[Our funding partner] Trass Video games (and we) don’t have a shortage mindset with regards to VR. Trass wished to proceed to make Yeeps their #1 precedence whereas contributing in a significant option to one other VR title,” he defined. “The collaboration continues, we meet weekly with them to speak ongoing technique and updates. The success has appeared to be an absolute win-win and Yeeps continues to be going fairly sturdy with out a lot seeming cannibalism of the market.”
After receiving funding, the staff developed the sport for about eight months earlier than launching an early entry model in August 2025.
The ‘dino farming’ side of UG is what makes it stand out probably the most from comparable free-to-play Quest video games. The thought, Murdock says, got here from a variety of inspirations spanning from his youth to the trendy gaming panorama.
Rising up, I cherished the film Jurassic Park (1993). I can nonetheless bear in mind being seven years outdated, and seeing it for the primary time, sitting within the entrance row of a sold-out theater in Tucson, Arizona. That film has been an inspiration. Plus I obsessively performed Pokémon rising up. The thought of capturing, accumulating, and driving dinosaurs naturally advanced into UG.
Video games like Gorilla Tag, Yeeps, Animal Firm, and Pokémon have been all influences. As soon as I knew the overall path we have been going I performed an embarrassing quantity of Undertake Me (in Roblox) to higher perceive their mannequin for elevating and buying and selling pets. We didn’t attempt to reinvent something that we didn’t need to, however as an alternative we targeted on placing our personal spin on concepts that have been already confirmed.
UG continues to be in early entry and present process speedy improvement. The studio simply launched a significant replace which added flying dinosaurs and a brand new flying boss for gamers to battle. And there’s rather more on the roadmap, says Murdock.
“Arising, we’ve dino coaching techniques, swimming dinosaurs, PvP arenas, and naturally a ton of recent dinos. [The game world] was designed as a live-service world, so evolving the map and increasing the sport over time is an enormous a part of the plan.”
The complete 1.0 launch of UG is predicted within the second half of this 12 months. To get there, the studio hopes to ship “a extra balanced and polished model of the sport, with higher quality-of-life options, a stronger launch rhythm, and a deeper roster of dinosaurs,” says Murdock. “Constructing so quick with a small staff meant launching with imperfections, however early entry has helped us concentrate on what really issues to gamers. We now have labored intently with our neighborhood to refine and excellent our sport little by little with each weekly replace.”
The success of UG and its contemporaries is the clearest proof of what Meta was formally speaking to builders at the least way back to early 2025: the bulk Quest demographic has shifted youthful, with extra curiosity in free-to-play, social, and multiplayer content material than the premium single-player VR video games that when outlined the medium.
