In 2019, with the release of Oculus Quest, the Quest app store came into being. In just 4 years, it has become the fastest-growing VR platform, attracting more and more developers to enter Quest and pay attention to the VR ecology. As of October last year, the Quest store transaction scale reached US$1.5 billion, an increase of US$500 million over the figure announced in the fourth quarter of 2021 financial report, and it has only gone through about three quarters.
At the same time, the total number of VR applications in the Quest store is nearly 500 (excluding App Lab’s more than 1,700), 40 VR applications with sales exceeding US$10 million, and the number of games with revenue exceeding US$20 million doubled year-on-year , presumably around 16 models.
Quest series headsets have shipped more than 20 million units, a figure that flowed from Meta's internal staff meeting. This also means that through the Quest platform, Meta can learn about the behavior trends of mainstream VR users and what kind of content they like in the Quest store. These experiences are invaluable for VR developers and headset manufacturers, and can be used for Future VR content provides ideas.
Chris Pruett, Director of Meta Content Ecology, shared with developers his views on the status quo of VR, the development strategy of the Quest store and other topics at GDC 2023, as well as the types of the most popular VR games at the moment.
It is understood that Pruett is mainly responsible for the relationship with third-party VR game developers in Meta. The goal of the team is not only to develop games for VR, or to promote VR hardware sales through content, but more importantly, to let third-party VR developers on the Quest platform. Find a profitable business model, connect with high-quality VR content and consumers, promote a positive cycle, and bring value to both users and developers.
About Quest Ecological Status
Pruett pointed out that the successful VR games on the Quest platform are no longer limited to classics such as "Beat Saber" and "Superhot VR", and some VR games launched last year have also achieved good performance. For example, "BONELAB" made $1 million in just one hour after its launch, "Gorilla Tag" made $26 million on App Lab, and "Among Us VR" sold more than 1 million copies within a few months of its launch .
In addition, "NFL Pro Era", "Zenith" has also achieved some success in the Quest store. And these popular VR games actually involve a variety of different content types. Pruett pointed out that the overall VR market is growing, creating opportunities for different types of VR games and business models. There are various business models for VR games on the Quest store, such as pay-to-purchase, F2P, in-app transactions, membership subscriptions, and more.
In fact, "Gorilla Tag" made $26 million just relying on in-app purchase transactions, which is rare in previous VR applications, and also explains why some Meta first-party VR games have also begun to try F2P+ in-app transaction models . However, this model is not suitable for all VR games. For example, "Echo VR" was cut off by Meta because the users and revenue did not meet expectations. Pruett pointed out that the growth of in-app transactions also reflects the growth of the VR content ecosystem to some extent.
With the development of the VR content ecosystem, some new game types have appeared on the Quest platform. Pruett found that the types of VR games do not fully conform to the traditional game classification, and their gameplay is more diverse, with the main difference being the form of interaction. Therefore, Pruett proposed new categories for VR games, such as: mixed physical combat, multiplayer social competition, fitness and exercise, horror and adventure, social and cooperative, shooting and combat, and so on.
The type of content users prefer
The VR element that players like the most is interaction. Whether it is combined with combat or exploration gameplay, the data shows that simply simulating physical interaction through gestures can arouse players' great interest.
VR social interaction is a scene that most players are familiar with, such as common applications such as "VRChat" and "Rec Room" for social collaboration. At the same time, there are more types with "VR social" as the core. In addition to chatting and interacting with friends, multiplayer competitive VR games are also used for socializing, such as "Onward", "Gorilla Tag", and "Population: ONE". etc.
The development of VR fitness and exercise applications has exceeded expectations. Meta found that many people who bought Quest to play VR games also like to exercise. Compared with traditional video fitness classes, the advantage of VR fitness is that it can track body movements and calculate calories, and the experience is more immersive. In about 30 minutes, you can have an effective workout. There are already some excellent apps in this category, such as Supernatural.
Horror is a typical theme. Horror games can be played on any platform. VR horror games are also very popular among Quest players. At the same time, the popularity of RPG, simulation and survival VR games has increased. Although the current number is relatively small, the existing ones have been relatively successful, indicating that there is a certain market.
VR hardware and platform development curve
Judging from the Quest sales growth curve, its performance is closer to that of a game console. Although Meta believes that VR has multiple uses, in the eyes of consumers at this stage, Quest is actually a game console, which is also the most mainstream use of Quest.
Between 2017 and 2018, many practitioners thought that VR had come to an end, and gradually withdrew from the industry. And 5 or 6 years later, VR is still there, even better than before, and the competition is more intense. During this period of time, Meta has been observing the changes in the industry and finding ways to get out of the trough, driving the development of the industry.
For Meta, the development of VR has always been a process of trade-offs. There is no doubt that consumers hope to use VR to play 3A-level high-quality VR games, but early PC VR is not easy to use. In addition to cost and bulkiness, the settings are also relatively Complicated, even if Meta invests in AAA game studios to develop big-budget VR games (such as "Lone Echo", "Edge Of Nowhere", "Stormland", "Defector"), few people play because the market for the hardware itself is small .
In other words, although the outside world is very interested in VR, it is difficult for the early VR form to open up the mainstream market.
To reach 10 million to 50 million users, VR needs to do several things: easy to use, affordable, all-in-one/no need to connect to a computer. Therefore, Meta has to decide whether to choose PC VR with higher image quality and configuration, or VR all-in-one machine that is easier for the public to use, whether to choose a more realistic experience, or choose more people to use.
In fact, both PC VR and all-in-one VR have their own value, and both have corresponding audiences. In the early VR market, it is still uncertain which one is more likely to succeed. Therefore, Meta decided to collect market feedback and verify the strategy by launching various types of headsets (such as Oculus Go, GearVR, etc.) in the early stage. After a long period of verification, Meta gained a lot of experience in Go and Rift, and used this experience in designing Quest.
experience sharing
What lessons has Meta learned over the years?
First of all, content is the key, without content there is no complete product. Second, gaming is the main selling point of VR. Plus, VR needs to be easy to learn and set up.
Early VR users were mainly enthusiastic gamers, who were characterized by paying attention to professional details such as hardware configuration and willing to pay for it. Most ordinary players hope to get a good experience through the VR headset and use interesting applications. What they care about is not the chip of the headset, but the content in it. If the content is not fun, user engagement will drop. Similarly, a platform that cannot make money for developers cannot exist for a long time.
When it comes to VR, most people's expectations are mostly single-player or multiplayer games, or trips to fantasy worlds like Mars that don't exist on Earth.
Pruett said: Meta is willing to make a large-scale investment in order to test the market and get customer feedback. In other words, Meta's strategy for launching products is not to rely solely on internal discussions and predictions, but to design products based on user needs.
After a long period of market research and verification, Meta found that both Rift and Go are not perfect, and both have shortcomings that hinder consumers from purchasing. So it was decided to launch Quest, which has been researched and developed for many years. It is characterized by the combination of the advantages of Go and Rift.
In fact, the early Quest prototypes were more like 6DoF Oculus Go, with a handle similar to Go, and based on a trackpad design, suitable for scrolling through menus and so on. But in the game scene, players are more accustomed to the joystick and button operation, so Meta had to temporarily change the original handle design, and invested a lot of money to make it a VR device that focuses on games.
Meta also found that VR user portraits are changing every year, from the early fanatics to the general public. Existing Quest users are very different from early VR enthusiasts. Most of them are already non-VR game enthusiasts, who don’t pay much attention to hardware technology, but have high expectations for VR content quality and experience.
This trend fits the technology adoption curve, which states that emerging technologies need to work their way past the early adoption stage before more ordinary people can adopt them because of a great experience. Pruett believes that Quest has passed the early adoption stage, the user scale, developer revenue potential have increased significantly, and the quality of content has also been greatly improved. There are already high-quality VR games on Quest, such as "Red Matter 2", the visual effect is greatly improved compared with the previous one, and the effect on Quest 2 is also good enough to meet the needs of users.
Pruett said: Ordinary users hope to experience high-quality video games in VR, and they have high requirements for the completion, depth, length, production level, and visual quality of games. Therefore, in order to promote the growth of the VR ecosystem, we need more high-quality VR content.
In order to promote the VR content ecology, Meta not only provides technical support, but also invested a lot of money in the past few years, funding more than 300 released VR games. During GDC 2023, Oculus Publishing, a third-party VR game publishing team, was officially launched.
The purpose of Oculus Publishing is to provide financial assistance for high-quality VR games already in development (may fund about one-third of the development cost), and help developers further improve the quality of the game (visual quality, polish, scale, art, content), Or attracting cross-platform VR games to power the Quest.
Pruett also talked about the VST mixed reality function built by Quest. He pointed out that in the short term, VST mixed reality can achieve more immersive augmented reality effects than mobile AR. This technology is expected, but this technology has not yet been fully used. , and its use remains to be discovered. Pruett said: Mass users don’t pay attention to how cool the technology is. What they like is interesting and high-quality experience. At present, MR technology is still in the technology demonstration stage, just like early VR, which is still at the beginning of the adoption curve. Therefore, It takes a long time to develop.
In addition, due to the high price of Quest Pro, developers have relatively low expectations for its audience size, so they are more inclined to develop content for Quest 2, which also limits the ecological development of MR content. Nevertheless, Meta is optimistic about the future of mixed reality, so it hopes to apply the RGB VST function to more VR devices, including the Quest series, which is more affordable than the Quest Pro. Reference: GDC