Meta may be rethinking its approach to third-party app funding, as the company has reportedly cut funds to some outside VR game developers whilst reshifting its focus to non-gaming apps.

According to a report from The Information, Meta is becoming “more discriminating” in how it spends to stock its Horizon Store for Quest.

Citing unnamed Meta staffers, the company has reportedly cut funding for some outside app developers amid a wider shift to fund apps that have seen comparatively better traction. The Information maintains Meta is hoping to boost “lifestyle apps,” such as fashion, beauty and music. Funding for these apps is said to arrive at some point via an accelerator that grants seed-stage funding.

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Meanwhile, The Information has cited two VR developers that have taken a hit as a result, requiring them to slash staff numbers following the funding pull.

Netherlands-based studio Monks has reportedly halved its team of 100 people, which was creating content for the company’s Horizon Worlds social app. France-based Atlas V, known for work on Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway (2023) and Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom (20240, has also apparently cut half of its team, according to The Information report.

This follows Meta’s shutdown of first-party VR studio Ready at Dawn in August, creators of the Lone Echo franchise and Echo VR.

A few months prior, the studio concluded a protracted legal battle with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to acquire Within, the studio behind popular VR fitness app Supernatural.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Star Centurion

    Trusting Meta to keep up your funding per a previous agreement is an exercise in futility.

    Even if they're the only XR company directly funding VR devs, they seem untrustworthy to work with.

    Sure beats Sony's and Valve's 3rd party VR funding, but those are an incredibly low bar to clear.

    • Star Centurion
      • ViRGiN

        Show me which agreement Meta broke. They fulfilled their obligations with the end date. It's the studio that thought things remain in place forever. Wouldn't it be fun to make games without actual plan to stay profitable?

        valve didn't go for milk and cigs. They are present. They are right here. Polishing the turd known as CS2. They simply don't care about vr, never did, never will. They worked with vr developers closely – Onward, Hot Dogs – they all spent weeks at Valve HQ. That was over half a decade ago
        you can check how these games are doing now. Spoiler – Onward sold to Meta, Hot Dogs is exactly the same game today as it was in 2016, just with extra guns since. And this guy made anti Meta his entire personality.

  • Hussain X

    It's hard to know which VR games to fund these days. You could be funding a high budget AAA stealth game from a well known IP like from the Assasin's Creed franchise, only for a lot more people preferring another stealth game, "I Am Cat". They'd rather become a stealth cat inside a granny's house and parkour inside a house than become a stealth assassin in a much bigger and better designed worlds and parkour the vast buildings there.

  • AGAIN: WIth Zuckerberg or Boswell or whomever tf runs
    the software show over there, it's an absolute effing nightmare ….

    META HARDWARE = Sublime.
    META SOFTWARE = Dogshit.

    [] ^ /

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    Positive spin: Zuckerberg stated that a VR platform needs to grow to 10mn active users to become self-sustaining, providing a large enough market for developers to become profitable and starting a self-enforcing cycle of more users attracting more devs creating more apps drawing more users.

    Quest should now be at ~10mn active users, mostly playing games. If Zuckerberg was right, there's now enough momentum for more games to be released even without Meta infusing money. Then it would make more sense for Meta to support the development of other app types that are still missing/unprofitable, what they sum up as lifestyle apps.

    They still hope to turn Quest from mostly a gaming device to a more general purpose platform, or at least get some key apps so people won't be forced to leave the headset and pick up their phone for these all the time. Interestingly one of the studios that lost funding created Horizon Worlds apps, also hinting that Meta is now counting more on a gentle transition with smartphone apps drawing new users instead of replacing their whole world with a metaverse.

    Less funding for games could mean even less AAA releases. The most played/best selling Quest games are more casual titles, so Meta might want to let this profitable part of the market grow by itself instead of subsidizing high profile titles with so far limited impact on user grows. Microsoft recently stated that a AAA game needs to sell 10mn units to be considered worth doing, still far out of reach with the current VR userbase.

  • FYI the accelerator is already up and running and the submission date for pitches is already due

  • Shuozhe Nan

    Wasnt this known since Connect? No new programs announced for games, just the lifestyle and retail thing iirc.