Meta today announced a new VR game subscription service that will give you access to two hand-picked Quest games per month, priced at $8 per month, or $60 annually.

Called Meta Quest+, the subscription service will be available to Quest 2, Quest Pro and eventually Quest 3 users.

Similar to PlayStation’s PS Plus service, Meta is offering up two specific redeemable titles on the first of each month which you can download and keep for as long as you’re a paid member.

Meta says members can cancel at any time, which would mean you’d lose access to each game you redeemed, although the company says rejoining allows you to gain access to those previously redeemed titles.

The service is kicking off in July with Cloudhead Games’ physical action-rhythm FPS Pistol Whip and the nostalgia-fueled arcade adventure Pixel Ripped 1995 from ARVORE Immersive Experiences.

August is set to have Mighty Coconut’s highly-rated Walkabout Mini Golf and FPS roguelite MOTHERGUNSHIP: FORGE from Terrible Posture Games.

Meta Quest+ is set to cost $8 per month, or billed for $60 annually, a 37% savings over the monthly charge. You can learn more and also sign up here.

SEE ALSO
The First $100 You Should Spend on Meta Quest Games

Meta says Quest+ titles are eligible for App Sharing across accounts, although if you happen to already own any of the games on offer monthly, you’ll just have to stick around to see whether something comes up that you don’t already own.

To sweeten the pot, the company is doing a deal for July that reduces the first month’s charge to $1, which is then followed by the regular $8 per month. That specific offer ends July 31st, 2023.

While Quest+ has been the subject of rumors for the past few months, it wasn’t clear which route the company would go—whether it would be a Viveport-style affair that allows you to pick from a pool of eligible games, or what they revealed today, a highly curated system like PS Plus. It’s an interesting route which could signal they’re expecting a substantial raise in new users in the coming months, as the company is set to launch its $500 Quest 3 headset September 27th, 2023, which has come along with a price reduction of Quest 2 to the original $300 price point.

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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.
  • ViRGiN

    Awesome!

  • JanO

    You should at the very least be able to chose your games… Just imagine being subscribed annually and already having the 2 chosen games for a few months in a row… Again, Meta caters to new users, while sadly excluding those who got them where they are…

    • Ookami

      Something more like Xbox Game Pass would be better, but I’d be worried the subscription cost wouldn’t be enough to support the devs. Then again, I think I’ve heard that Gamepass actually increased game sales for the games on it.

      • Isaac

        Game Pass and other unlimited services incentivizes developers to make games which maximize user time spent on the game. This is a perverse incentive which doesn’t necessarily align with being a good game.

        Unlimited games also create a more ‘winner-takes-all’ market. Here’s hoping Quest+ will ensure a minimum revenue for smaller studios who are featured.

        • Ookami

          Does Microsoft pay game studios/publishers based on playtime on GamePass?

          • Isaac

            Phil Spencer had mentioned that initially they paid all studios based on the playtime of their game. Currently it’s a combination of playtime and upfront payment and the deals negotiated are different for every studio.

    • Isaac

      Ability to choose games would definitely have been better for experienced users but we are a huge minority. I assume a huge chunk of the user base doesn’t even purchase a single game, just like on android. Hopefully this will increase that population, improve retention and allow new games to be made.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Though I have been mostly bearish about the Quest software market, and the aggregated revenue from the Quest store divided by sold Quests hinted at a rather low revenue per user, I never considered the possibility that the majority wouldn’t buy a single game. I’m way too used to pay more for software than hardware to get more value out of it to consider this the exception. But a short trip to Google confirmed it with a (possibly very outdated 2009) report from CNET: 55% of all Android users have never downloaded a paid app, compared to 23% on iOS. I assumed the numbers are better for Meta, given that there are very few ad driven titles and most games are for pay. But now I’m no that longer sure, esp. given the success of the free Gorilla Tag, RecRoom and VRChat.

        The vast majority of Quest 2 seems to have been given as presents to teens, with according to studies (male) teens spending 12% of their money on gaming. But they may already be more primed for services, micro-transactions and subscriptions than outright purchasing apps. Gorilla Tag actually makes a lot of money from in-game purchases, like with the dominance of free-to-play on mobile the problem isn’t that people don’t have money, but that they are simply unwilling to pay upfront for software titles. Which would give Meta another motivation for Quest+ that I hadn’t even considered.

  • Octogod

    Quest 3 feels like it’s going to be the most popular yet. This can only help to encourage newbies to explore.

    • Newlot

      Would love to hear @Christian Schildwaechter take on sales estimates.

      @Christian Schildwaechter

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        I’m not clairvoyant, I have the same information as anyone else and haven’t seen any estimates yet. My personal perspective is that the usefulness of MR on Quest is completely overhyped, so the Quest 3 will basically provide a similar experience as the Quest 2 with (slightly) improved specs. And the masses didn’t jump on the Quest 2 for USD 299 that offered a massive leap forward in performance and cost improvements, only about 1/3rd of those that jumped stuck around, so why should they jump on the Quest 3 for USD 499?

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    TL;DR: useful for new Quest users, very bad deal compared to other game subscription services; if you have a VR PC, Viveport Infinity is a way better offer.

    Hm, almost subscribed, despite already owning Pistol Whip and Walkabout Minigolf, with basically zero interest in MOTHERGUNSHIP: FORGE, as the price seemed still a good offer. Then read the EULA and noticed the part that I had missed in the article: you get access to the titles only as long as the subscription is active.

    I’ve shied away from similar game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass or Humble Choice in the past, mostly due to a usually significant overlap with my rather large Steam library. And on paper these offer a lot more:

    – Game pass gives you access to ~110 Xbox titles for USD 10, or about four times as many PC titles for the same money, or to more than 500 (with many doubles) for both Xbox and PC combined for USD 15. Similar to Quest+, you lose access when you end the subscription.

    – Humble Choice offers eight new titles each month, incl. some AAA, for USD 10, which you can download and keep forever, even if you terminate the subscription. Plus ~50 (very good) indie games from the permanent vault, which can also be downloaded and kept forever, plus up to 20% discount on all Humble store purchases.

    – Viveport Infinity (Standard) offers access to an impressive collection of 1100 PCVR titles, incl. ~200 rather well known VR titles plus a lot of payed for App Lab games, with estimated 60% being titles I have never heard of. But that still leaves you with at least 400+ interesting ones, including Pistol Whip, Pixel Ripped 1995 and Walkabout Minigolf for USD 15 for monthly/USD 10 for yearly payment.

    Quest+ should still be a good value esp. for new users just trying VR, without having to pay a lot for apps they will not be able to use or sell in case they lose interest after a few months. But compared to existing game subscriptions, it is very poor. You get only very few titles, you don’t get access to an already existing pool of at least 25+ games to try, you get no choice regarding the titles at all and you lose all access the moment you stop paying for it. The big benefit being that this is the only subscription service offering Quest titles at all, and Quest sales reductions usually hovering around 30%, with some 40% and the occasional 50%.

    I have a rather large Quest library already, plus 450+ titles in my Steam VR collection, meaning there is a very large chance of mostly getting doubles or games I simply never bought because I wasn’t interested in them. Without these, Viveport Infinity would basically be a no brainer for USD 10 with yearly payment, with its very large library of good tiles, plus many others I’d never get to explore otherwise. In fact the only reason I’m not currently subscribed is that I simply don’t have the time to even use all the titles I already own, let alone hundreds more.

    Still considering Quest+, but only because it is the only offer for Meta’s walled garden, compared to anything available for PCVR as either subscription or just direct purchase, the offer is laughably bad. And the main purpose seems to be to deal with the low retention and people just stopping to buy new titles after a short while. Getting them to subscribe with the thread of losing all access to the library may stop new Quest users from cancelling again, so even a Quest that ends up collecting dust on a shelf may still generate USD 10 per month for Meta.

    • Hussain X

      You may or may not be aware, to quote article:

      “Meta says members can cancel at any time, which would mean you’d lose access to each game you redeemed, although the company says rejoining allows you to gain access to those previously redeemed titles.”

      So you can benefit from occasional monthly subscriptions plus not a case of, the later you cancel the more you’ll lose. As soon as a good title or two comes up, you can rejoin and get old redeems back. Plus by joining in middle of month, you get potentially 4 games to redeem at $8, ie $2 each.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Yeah, I got that, otherwise occasional monthly subscriptions wouldn’t make any sense at all, you’d basically always start anew with the two games from that month. The “four games by subscribing at the middle of the month” is of course a nice option, though the impact is probably small. Someone trying to basically double the number of apps by subscribing only every second month would end up paying USD 48 for 24 games, but only be able to play them for six months in total, while someone subscribing for the whole year would pay US 12 more for double the play time.

        What I didn’t fully grasp is that you actively have to redeem the titles to be added to your library each months. So someone sticking with the subscription despite not actively using the Quest, basically trying to let it accumulate titles, will either be surprised after a few months when none of the expected new titles has made it to the library, or have to activate the Quest/Quest mobile app at least once a month to redeem the new games. Ideally they’d use them anyway and voluntarily for the fun of the previously activated games, and not accidentally forget to redeem their new Quest+ games.

        This adds more hassle for the users and only benefits Meta. It would either allow Meta to save on license fees, if they only have to pay for games that users actively redeemed, and/or it is a way to drive up engagement, allowing Meta to inflate the numbers of users that use the Quest at least monthly by those that only use it to redeem the games. I’m pretty sure that a significant number of the regular Epic store users fall into that category, showing up only to claim the free games, but never really playing them.

    • Newlot

      Off-topic but: What are some of your favourite sites to learn stuff about tech? Any news outlet, blog or other pages you particularly like?

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Most importantly Google, with ~3 different phrasings of whatever question comes up, and then reading around 10 different articles on the same subject for added clues triggering further questions. Sites like R2VR, Upload, Mixed, VRxyz as starting points for questions, with reddit as starting points for those, and people like Karl Guttag and platform/engine specific developer forums/blogs for the nasty technical details, plus my own experiments and projects in Unity that come with a lot of reading documentation.

        On top the occasional research paper plus dozens of YouTube and Twitter subscriptions from the usual suspects, mostly skimmed in the background for interesting tidbits, as there is a lot of repetition. And my multi-thousand pages long log of everything I posted about XR myself that I regularly search for references and details, so I don’t have to re-research answers all the time.

  • Ookami

    This is a pretty good idea, considering the retention problem VR has. It’s a little underwhelming when compared to Gamepass, but hopefully it’ll pan out well and help VR grow more.

  • Not bad at all, especially if you don’t have many games in your library

  • Sky Castle

    Basically you pay them monthly to rent old indie games that already made their money and they choose for you what games to play. LOL yeah no.

    PS Plus does the same thing but at least they throw in AAA games. Maybe if Quest offered AAA games too…oh wait they don’t have any. Still most people get it for the online mulitplayer that’s gated behind a paywall which is also stupid.

    I guess these subscriptions are for those who really can’t afford to pay full prices for games, but again not being able to choose the games…

    • ViRGiN

      This truly reads like a batshit crazy rant of a steamvr fanboy who recently bought his second valve index set cause the first one just fell apart. From your post history it’s clear you have Quest-hate boner, because Quest is all people care about, and you with your toxic Valve Index is rotting away in the corner, completly forgotten. Let me guess, browsing SteamVR and sorting by lowest price is your new hobby now? I saw a big uptick in 2016 titles sold for 30 cents being the most popular VR titles. And you have the audacity to talk about lack of AAA? LMAO.

      • Sky Castle

        I own nearly every consoles and high end pc rig since atari 2600. Sucks to be poor and think gamers have to be fanboys to one particular system. Quest is for poor people on a budget. Get a Pro you poor fuck. Like I said subscriptions are for poor people. You’re hate is pathetic.

        • ViRGiN

          LMAO owning nearly every console and high end pc rig sounds more like a basment dweller thing to me. I bet you have more controllers than friends.
          You do not sound nearly as impressive as you think you do lmao.
          Keep beachin’.

          • Sky Castle

            Stupid people assume. Keep doing it.

          • ViRGiN

            Get a life you poor fuck

          • Sky Castle

            Says the dumbass who’s always on here 24/7
            Move out of your moms basement little kid.

  • GordonFreeman

    No thanks, miss a payment and lose access, what a load of horse s**t.

    • ViRGiN

      Oh noes! Muh 8 dollars! I’mma go on SteamVR and spend 100 dollars on games I’ll never play, that will show Meta!

      • ViRGiN

        On steam, you own the game, here with meta I own nothing. It’s better because it’s more eco friendly!!!

        • ViRGiN

          still unable to afford your own nickname, cause valve index set cost $1000?
          imagine hoarding games like a classic gabe footlicker.

          but i see the appeal – pcvr is dominated by very early games. since that’s all people ever play on pcvr, it makes sense wanting to keep it. everyone else tends to play a game, get a value out of it, and move onto other titles. digital garbage collection is exactly for steam users.

          • GordonFreeman

            Maybe I just like Half-life and the character.

            I like all old and new titles nothing wrong with that, thats just your hang-up!

            Whats wrong were you a little unimportant employee of Valve who was sacked and now just has to try a wreek havoc on all forms of social media putting them down and anyone who pays them any attention?

            I like all games, PCVR (and standalone VR), PC and consoles.

        • ViRGiN

          oh, and to clarify – you own the game on your account, but they will stop supporting your current hardware, just like they are cutting off millions of users from ever launching anything they ever bought on steam, cause they decided not to support your operating system anymore.
          so yeah, you get to keep your games – just make sure to regularly update to latest hardware and operating system. your old laptop will never play single player game only anymore.

      • GordonFreeman

        Or spend £8 for a game on Meta and keep it!

        A Steam game would be good too but we all know you might get a little upset if we mention your cryptonite, PCvr oh no!!

        • ViRGiN

          Keep it forever, but play for 3 hours and never play it again!

  • ViRGiN

    Oh yeassss Mark, take my money!!!
    So you can sell me your access to happiness but only for a limited paid time.
    I needed one more subscription.

    • ViRGiN

      did gaben personally denied RMA service for your worn out valve index?

  • NL_VR

    Nope not interested

  • ViRGiN

    you have unrealistic expectations/demands, and strange relationship with money/value.

  • Jistuce

    Just what everyone needs. ANOTHER cable bill.

  • Marcus K

    Hey Ben, just FYI the Quest Pro image on the right is actually a render I did ages ago

  • This is actually a great solution! I used a similar subscription in EA Games and it is very convenient.

    If Meta will eventually make not 2 games a month, but access to a whole set of titles for the same 8 bucks a month, then this will help both users to access content and developers to earn money.

    VR games are on the indie level for the most part, but they cost like full-fledged products. This approach can solve the problem with access to content.

  • CrusaderCaracal

    60 dollars a year is a really good value, you’d spend around 60 dollars buying maybe 2-3 games