Rec Room is soon removing access to its limited ‘Junior Accounts’ on Quest, effectively blocking kids 12 and under from playing the social VR game on any of Meta’s headsets.
Rec Room says in a statement that Meta is requiring the social VR platform—and all apps on the platform—to block access to children 12 and under or be removed from the Quest Store, which is slated to go into effect November 14th.
Rec Room’s Junior accounts provide limited access, stopping kids 12 and under from doing things like transmitting or hearing voice audio, sending or receiving in game text messages, damaging teammates in quests, or even playing charades since juniors can’t see or share drawings or maker pen creations.
This isn’t a Rec Room-wide blanket ban on Junior accounts though, as kids will still be able to play on other supported platforms, including smartphones, consoles, and other VR headsets not controlled by Meta.
Technically Meta doesn’t allow kids under 13 years from creating accounts for its Quest headsets, saying in its safety guidelines that Meta Quest devices “are not toys” and that younger children have “greater risks of injury and adverse effects than older users.”
Still, it’s clear kids get ahold of Meta headsets and the requisite ’13 and older’ accounts somehow, so it seems Meta is making a wider push to limit liability.
The move to ban younger kids from accessing Rec Room on Meta headsets likely doesn’t represent that large of blow to the social platform’s overall userbase. Back in April, the studio revealed it had reached 3 million monthly active VR users, a majority of which were using Meta Quest 2. The studio said however active VR players represented a “pretty low percentage” of the overall platerbase, which access the game through platforms like iOS, Android, PlayStation, and Xbox.