From 2019 to 2024, Meta’s app retailer was a world-class effort. It took the perfect items from each digital gaming market on the planet — the consumer-friendly return insurance policies from Steam, developer relations and Q&A groups from corporations like Sony and Nintendo, plus a number of different traits — and made the Quest a platform price investing in as a VR gamer and developer.
AC thVRsday
In his weekly column, Android Central Senior Content material Producer Nick Sutrich delves into all issues VR, from new {hardware} to new video games, upcoming applied sciences, and a lot extra.
Meta’s objectives started shifting after this time, and continued to vary seemingly each six months, by no means lengthy sufficient to see any objective correctly executed. Meta is thought for chasing traits as quick as it could and sometimes shifting with out understanding the true repercussions of its actions. As Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg as soon as stated about new Fb options again in 2014, “transfer quick and break issues.”
And broke issues, they’ve. January 13, 2026, will go down as a date that nobody within the VR group will seemingly overlook. Android Central reached out to Meta for touch upon this text, however did not obtain a response in time for publishing.
A digital massacre
On January 13, 2026, Meta closed most of its first-party recreation improvement studios. The few staff remaining at studios like Inside and Camouflaj will seemingly be holding “upkeep” obligation on reside service titles like Supernatural, whereas Camouflaj’s remaining builders are stated to be engaged on an onboarding tutorial that customers will expertise once they begin up the subsequent Meta Quest headset.
After talking with many builders, a lot of whom needed to stay nameless for this story, I used to be advised that Oculus Publishing has additionally seen substantial cuts. Many developer relations contacts inside the Meta Horizon Begin Program, a developer incubation and funding program, have been laid off, with “only a handful” remaining, per one supply. Virtually actually, which means that the $60 million Meta has allegedly spent to fund VR video games to this point in 2026 is the final we’ll see from this system.
As such, the huge shift did not simply have an effect on first-party Oculus Studios improvement. Cloudhead Video games, maker of the uber-popular Pistol Whip rhythm shooter VR recreation, laid off 70% of its workforce. Skydance Video games has reportedly additionally canceled an official Harry Potter VR recreation as a consequence of funding program shifts inside Meta. The full extent of the fallout stays to be seen, nevertheless it’s not trying fairly.
As Anshel Sag, Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Technique, advised me, “I feel Meta is destroying all the goodwill it created because the ‘savior’ of VR gaming. I feel Meta is inflicting irreparable injury to the trade, each in the way it acquired these corporations and the way it’s run them and their properties.”
The VR gaming recession has begun
What does all this imply for VR avid gamers and builders? For starters, Meta not appears to be serious about making first-party video games, however there isn’t any proof that Meta is abandoning VR altogether and even exiting the {hardware} market. If something, Meta appears to be taking a “Valve method” to gaming, which implies it’s going to give attention to a wild west-style digital market and solely develop {hardware}.
Valve not often invests in tasks unrelated to its personal ambitions, largely of which comprise its IPs like Half-Life and Counter-Strike, plus software program funding into instruments like Proton and FEX, the latter of which makes the upcoming Steam Body standalone VR headset potential. Valve has publicly acknowledged it doesn’t have any VR video games in improvement, and Meta appears to be following the identical tactic.
Meta lately introduced that Horizon OS, which powers Quest headsets, will not be going third-party, which implies it’s going to solely be constructed for Meta’s personal {hardware}. Undertaking Phoenix, pictured in a mockup beneath, is alleged to be the Quest 4’s kind issue, favoring a extra smart-glasses-like dimension and form with VR headset capabilities.
When I made predictions in regards to the XR market in 2026, I did not count on the trade to shift focus so arduous and quick, notably for Meta. Not solely is Meta seemingly abandoning the thought of changing into the subsequent Nintendo or Sony, nevertheless it’s pivoting arduous to attempting to develop into the primary firm to provide actually mass-market good glasses by doubling or tripling the output of its Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses this yr.
The result’s that we’re nearly actually not going to see big-name titles hit VR headsets for a protracted whereas. Meta-funded AAA titles like Murderer’s Creed Nexus VR, Batman Arkham Shadow, Asgard’s Wrath 2, Deadpool VR, and lots of others of its caliber relied completely on Meta funding, which has now considerably dried up.
Even indie video games might be affected, as a number of builders have traditionally relied on the Meta Begin Program to fund their salaries throughout improvement. “Almost each indie megahit within the final 5 years got here from the Begin program first,” VR developer RJ advised me in a written interview on X (previously Twitter), and that spells hassle for future releases.
Reducing off your nostril to spite your face
Many individuals are, understandably, pissed off at Meta, and with good purpose. Multiple developer has now advised me that they are contemplating dropping future improvement for all Meta {hardware}, together with any potential good glasses apps, due to the best way Meta has dealt with issues over the previous 2-3 years. January 13 was simply the straw that broke the camel’s again.
One developer merely stated, “Give me one purpose to maintain constructing for Meta Quest and/or Meta wearables.” Whereas some responses have been optimistic, most individuals appear to really feel like Meta simply blew its final ounce of goodwill with this transfer. Meta has, basically, put itself in Google’s unenviable place of being accused of killing tasks too early.
Whereas some buyers and monetary publications have been calling for these strikes for years, Meta has largely resisted full-on cuts like this as a result of it appeared to be aiming for a particular imaginative and prescient of the long run, however by no means actually caught with a plan lengthy sufficient to bear fruit.
Circling again round to Guichard and his improvement expertise over the lifetime of the Quest household since 2019, it is clear the “marvel years” have been from 2019-2022. As soon as Meta started altering techniques and shedding workers, issues (unsurprisingly) acquired worse.
The magic of the curated Quest retailer began evaporating in a single day when Meta removed its curation system in Summer season 2024. Video games that used to must move rigorous QA processes have been now greenlit after “essentially the most primary of VR assessments,” in response to a number of builders I’ve spoken to. Swaths of Gorilla Tag clones immediately flooded the market, and Meta began prioritizing Horizon Worlds over paid content material, inflicting legitimately good video games to be drowned out.
A number of months later, builders banded collectively to assist resolve the “visibility disaster.” Whereas Meta has considerably helped clear up the curation course of within the 18 months since these decisions have been made, the injury was irreparable. Regardless of delivering the larger, higher video games Meta was calling for from its Begin Program builders, the corporate appeared to have forgotten to comply with by means of on its guarantees.
In fact, the rationale we have now so many VR releases nowadays is due to Meta’s Begin Program. As VR analyst Brad Lynch stated, “The market has been inorganic and propped up. Everybody was fooled.”
Meta has lengthy offered glorious alternatives for VR builders to make video games individuals care about and wish to play, and for its half, deserves credit score in trying to unravel the “hen and egg” situation VR has been in for years.
In different phrases, with out Meta’s important funding, we seemingly by no means would have seen the AAA titles we acquired, however years of fiddling with the Quest’s digital market might very properly have pushed out any actual probability of long-term success.
Whereas Batman Arkham Shadow exceeded inside gross sales expectations, even these numbers are considerably decrease than what’s wanted to maintain a thriving AAA ecosystem like what’s loved on the PS5. Even huge indie video games like DrakkenRidge are promoting 15x decrease numbers of items than the developer’s earlier video games, a direct results of Meta’s toying with issues moderately than attempting to keep up stability.
From right here on out, it is clear that VR builders will must be cautious about investments and which platforms to prioritize. With out Meta’s monetary backing, tasks that have been as soon as zero threat will now immediately face huge stakes. If boutique VR publishers additionally pull out, as some worry they could, it’ll be one other lengthy, quiet street for VR till the subsequent spherical of funding hits in a number of years from now.
Till then, I am going to maintain having fun with glorious VR video games like Walkabout Mini Golf and Lethal Supply with pals.
