{"id":94394,"date":"2022-10-12T02:48:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T02:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/meta-continues-to-shovel-money-into-the-growing-vr-gaming-segment\/"},"modified":"2022-10-12T02:48:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T02:48:02","slug":"meta-continues-to-shovel-money-into-the-growing-vr-gaming-segment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/meta-continues-to-shovel-money-into-the-growing-vr-gaming-segment\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta continues to shovel money into the growing VR gaming segment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  Iron Man VR<\/em> will be coming to Quest 2 after Meta&#8217;s purchase of developer Camouflaj.&#8221;\/><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-text\">enlarge <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> Previously a PlayStation VR exclusive, <em>Iron Man VR<\/em> will be coming to Quest 2 after Meta&#8217;s purchase of developer Camouflaj.<\/div>\n<p>Sony<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside id=\"social-left\" class=\"social-left\" aria-label=\"Read the comments or share this article\">\n<\/aside>\n<p><!-- cache hit 1062:single\/related:0bc11f1ac3983f4ced9d57e6be327032 --><!-- empty --><\/p>\n<p>Meta&#8217;s Connect keynote presentation Tuesday afternoon spent a lot of time talking about how virtual reality\u2014and the coming high-end Quest Pro headset\u2014would help revolutionize the future of work and socializing.  But the company also spent a lot of time talking up the gaming sector that has so far been the primary use case driving the relative market success of the Quest 2 headset.<\/p>\n<p>To reinforce that success, the company formally announced its recent acquisition of three more major VR gaming studios today:<\/p>\n<p>Those recent purchases add to a recent Meta game studio acquisition spending spree that already included Beat Games (<em>Beat Saber<\/em>), Ready at Dawn (<em>Lone Echo<\/em>), Sanzaru Games (<em>Asgard&#8217;s Wrath<\/em>), Downpour Interactive (<em>onward<\/em>), and BigBox VR (<em>Population One<\/em>).  In July, the Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust lawsuit to try to stop Meta&#8217;s purchase of Within, makers of the popular VR fitness app <em>supernatural<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2>Growing, but how fast?<\/h2>\n<p>Meta&#8217;s additional spending on even more VR developers comes as Quest 2 headset owners seem to be spending more than ever on software.  All told, Meta said today that $1.5 billion had been spent on games and apps on the Quest store since the platform launched in spring 2019. That&#8217;s up from $1 billion in cumulative app revenue the company announced in February, suggesting VR spending is accelerating at a decent pace.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, Meta&#8217;s 30 percent share from those sales amounts to just $450 million in direct revenue over more than three years.  For context, Microsoft recently revealed that it brought in $2.9 billion in revenue just from a single year of Xbox Game Pass console subscriptions, making the VR gaming market seem like a relative drop in the bucket.<\/p>\n<p>Meta&#8217;s VR software revenue is still well short of the $2 billion Facebook paid for Oculus eight years ago.  And that number doesn&#8217;t even capture the hefty costs for operations, R&#038;D, and acquisitions the company has incurred since the purchase.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad_wrapper\" aria-label=\"In Content advertisement\">\n    <span class=\"ad_notice\">Advertisement <\/span>    <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Meta&#8217;s &#8220;Reality Labs&#8221; division (which includes the entirety of its VR business) has lost roughly $10 billion over the last year, according to data from the company&#8217;s quarterly earnings statements.  John Carmack, who served as Oculus CTO until 2019 and still serves as an advisor to the company\u2014said in an August podcast interview that he gets &#8220;sick to my stomach thinking about that much money being spent. But that&#8217;s how they demonstrate commitment to this &#8230; Google goes and cancels all these projects, while Meta is really sticking with the funding of VR and AR even further out with it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>When you succeed, we all succeed?<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"image shortcode-img center large\" style=\"width:100%\"><img alt=\"<em>The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners<\/em> has brought in an impressive $50 million on Quest VR, proving at least some titles can find a significant market on the platform.&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/saints-640&#215;413.jpg&#8221; width=&#8221;640&#8243; height=&#8221;413&#8243; srcset=&#8221;https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/saints.jpg 2x&#8221;\/><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-text\">enlarge <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> <em>The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners<\/em> has brought in an impressive $50 million on Quest VR, proving at least some titles can find a significant market on the platform.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Despite those heavy losses, Meta still expressed enthusiasm over how many individual developers found success with Quest 2 games.  In a flurry of statistics, the company revealed that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Roughly one in three&#8221; of the 400 apps on Quest 2 is &#8220;making revenue in the millions.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>That includes 55 titles that have grossed over $5 million (more than double the number that had hit that mark as of last year) and 33 titles that have already grossed over $10 million (up from 22 such titles in February).<\/li>\n<li>Near the very top of the Quest 2 revenue heap, <em>The Walking Dead: Saints &#038; Sinners<\/em> has made $50 million, &#8220;nearly double its revenue on all other platforms,&#8221; \u200b\u200bMeta said<\/li>\n<li>Quick sellers like <em>Resident Evil 4<\/em> can make $2 million in revenue on Quest 2 in just 24 hours after launch.  Just below that, games like <em>Blade and Sorcery: Nomad<\/em> and <em>Zenith: The Last City<\/em>made their first $1 million on Quest in 48 hours and 24 hours, respectively.<\/li>\n<li><em>Bonelab<\/em> set the record for fast Quest 2 sales, though, earning its first million dollars in &#8220;less than an hour.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those are encouraging numbers for a market segment that seemed like a hopelessly small niche just a few years ago.  But Meta (and its app developers) will have to see years of similarly quick revenue growth before the company&#8217;s extremely heavy investment in the space will come close to paying off.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in its presentation, Meta talked up some upcoming Quest games. <em>Among Us VR<\/em>\u2014a first-person take on the viral social deduction sensation that we last saw in April, will finally launch on November 10. And Chapter 2 of the <em>The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners<\/em> franchise will show off its New Orleans setting in December.<\/p>\n<p>Xbox Game Pass subscribers will soon be able to access their Xbox Cloud Gaming library through their headset, playing streaming titles on a massive, virtual 2D screen projected in VR.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iron Man VR will be coming to Quest 2 after Meta&#8217;s purchase of developer Camouflaj.&#8221;\/> enlarge \/ Previously a PlayStation VR exclusive, Iron Man VR will be coming to Quest 2 after Meta&#8217;s purchase of developer Camouflaj. Sony Meta&#8217;s Connect keynote presentation Tuesday afternoon spent a lot of time talking about how virtual reality\u2014and the &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/meta-continues-to-shovel-money-into-the-growing-vr-gaming-segment\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Meta continues to shovel money into the growing VR gaming segment<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":56696,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/meta-to-debut-new-vr-headset-in-october-zuckerberg-tells-rogan\/","url_meta":{"origin":94394,"position":0},"title":"Meta to debut new VR headset in October, Zuckerberg tells Rogan","date":"August 26, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Facebook Oculus Quest VR headset is comfortable and easy to use.Todd Haselton | CNBCMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that his company will debut a new virtual reality headset in October, typically the month the company holds its Connect VR conference.Speaking on an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":96555,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/what-will-metas-8-gaming-studios-deliver-on-quest-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":94394,"position":1},"title":"What Will Meta&#8217;s 8 Gaming Studios Deliver On Quest 3?","date":"October 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The games Meta is lining up for Quest 3 and beyond are likely the cornerstone of the company's approach in VR gaming in the coming years. 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