Correction (January 9th, 2025 – 5:31PM ET): A previous version of this article reported that Meta had revealed that Meta’s VR fitness app Supernatural had reached 110,000 active users. This report was incorrect.

Meta reached out to inform Road to VR that the “110,000 people” figure mentioned in this blog post was not the active user numbers for the Supernatural app, but actually a count of the Official Supernatural Community on Facebook. Meta updated the language in its blog post to prevent any further confusion.

As such, we have archived the original version of this report and removed it from the front (page by setting its publishing date back to 2015) but this correction will remain here for posterity.

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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.
  • Christian Schildwaechter

    TL;DL: Buying a fitness app during the pandemic was a great idea for VR users, but a very expensive one for Meta.

    Assuming the upper end of USD 13.2mn in subscription revenue per year, and the (not confirmed) USD 400mn Meta paid for Supernatural, it will take 30 years to recoup the cost. Longer actually, as part of the money will be needed to run the service.

    We know that Meta is in it for the long run, but 30 years is a lot, and I wonder if this is one of the cases were actual growth didn't match expectations. At GDC 2022 Meta showed an unlabeled revenue graph for the top selling Quest apps. There was one making a total of more than USD 100mn in lifetime revenue, which was revealed to be Beat Saber. A second one had generated about USD 60mn, and I always assumed that this was Supernatural, which had accidentally struck gold when the CoViD-19 pandemic kept people out of fitness studios, with Supernatural offering human trainers being a much closer replacement than other Quest fitness apps.

    Before Meta acquired them, the monthly subscription price was twice as high at USD 19, allowing for more revenue from fewer users. At the time the revenue slide was shown, Supernatural had been available for about two years, meaning yearly revenue would have been around USD 30mn, more than double what it is now, and rising quickly. Adjusted for the higher subscription price it would still be USD 15.8mn, indicating that during the pandemic, Supernatural's subscriber count would have been about 22% higher than today, despite the Quest user base growing since them.

    So Meta's evaluation of Supernatural at what was probably its peak popularity may have been somewhat overblown due to pandemic one time effects that didn't translate to comparable user growth once things had gone back to normal. I doubt they'd pay the equivalent of 30 years of revenue for a similar service today.

  • Octogod

    Meta's blog post appears to have been updated to clarify that there are 110,000 users in the official Supernatural Community on Facebook. These aren't app user numbers, which would be significantly higher. Active monthly users on the other hand…

  • Michael Speth

    All the while, Meta VR Division still losing billions per month because meta is not willing to sell VR Hardware at cost let alone at profit. That is because Meta believes they are selling literal garbage.