PowerWash Simulator garnered viral success when it launched on Steam Early Access in 2021, prompting developer FuturLab to not only add a mountain of DLC to the game, but also port the flatscreen hit to a standalone VR title. Now, the studio says it’s shelving PowerWash Simulator VR (2023) only 14 months since its launch on Quest.

The team released the news in a post on X, seen below in full:

“I am so sorry to let you know that we won’t be continuing support of PowerWash Simulator VR. We absolutely love and believe in VR, so this doesn’t mean that we won’t support it in the future but we aren’t able to continue with support right now.

We have been faced with a cross roads: we have a truly excellent and kind VR team who were working on a platform which costs us more than it makes, while also having a list of job openings that were looking to be filled on other projects. We took the decision to redeploy our VR team into those other projects/roles. Whilst I would love to live in a world where we could support PowerWash Simulator on every platform going, I will always choose job security for my team. Every time. While I know that you must be so disappointed, I also know that if you were in my position you would have made the same decision.

– Kirsty Rigden, CEO, FuturLab

The studio further notes that, while it’s ending future updates and DLC content, the VR-native base game and existent DLC packs will still be purchasable and playable on Quest via the Horizon Store, and that saves will also be safe, however just don’t expect updates or DLC of any kind.

It’s difficult to prognosticate why the VR game didn’t meet expectations, or even what the studio’s expectations of the game were in the first place. What is certain though is the game’s sales were significantly lower that the PC version, both of which were priced at $25.

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At the time of this writing PowerWash Simulator VR has garnered a [4.3/5] user rating from over 1,100 users. On Steam, the game boasts over 43,000 lifetime user reviews, giving it an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ score.

As the game’s name suggests, PowerWash Simulator tasks you with using your trusty power washer and blasting away every speck of dirt and grime you can find, capitalizing on the fad that took YouTube by storm starting in 2018 and serving up a Zen-like casual gameplay experience. And the VR version is pretty much what you’d expect, giving users the ability to pressure wash by hand and swap out nozzles on the fly.

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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.
  • John Doe

    "only" after 14 months?
    This is a "meme" game, it overstayed it's welcome.
    What actually killed it, is the hyper-dominance of shovel ware in form of I AM CAT/SECURITY, once the YouTube algorithm favored cat game for kids, the "content" "creators" turned playing that into full time job, trying to exploit the blessing of trending page.

    It's still superior to H3VR Hot Dogs calling his game "early access" after 9 years.

    • Stephen Bard

      Yes, this and Lawn Mowing Simulator get the awards for Most Boring Game Concepts.

    • VR5

      By no definition is I am Cat shovelware. It is neither low quality nor quantity over quality.

      PowerWash Simulator DLC is still selling on other platforms, they are only discontinuing work on the VR version. Quest piracy might play a role, as well as bad retention of VR compared to flat games.

      • John Doe

        The studio released 9 games in 1 year.
        It is low quality, and they delivered on quantity.

        It’s just gimmicky VR tech demo with cute animal. Of course kids are going to love it.

  • Dragon Marble

    While this may not be everyone's favorite game, Horizon Store does have a discoverability problem at the moment. I am more worried about the likes of Metro and Behemoth. They both have less uer ratings than on PSVR2 as of now.

    It's kinda dumb to open the floodgate of App Lab and try to push AAA/AA content in the same year.

  • 石雨濛

    Perhaps developers learning that Quest is a garbage platform and hopefully more devs will STOP targeting mobile trash as their basis for game development.

  • Octogod

    It’s difficult to prognosticate why the VR game didn’t meet expectations, or even what the studio’s expectations of the game were in the first place.

    Meta opened the store to all apps in August, merging App Lab into the main store. That's all there is.

    What used to be a store of 400-500 curated, QA'd titles, which received features for new releases and rotated distribution is now a store of 10,000 uncurated, unfeatured, non-QA-d titles which receive random distribution.

    Instead of highlighting compelling new VR titles, the front of the store is filled with scams. Yesterday I saw Squid Game VR and Super Mario VR on the homepage, one free and one paid, all using Netflix's and Nintendo's artwork. Ignoring the illegality of them, they take focus away from the actual high effort VR work.

    Every developer I spoke to has shared their sales were down 60% or more last month. Considering Christmas carries indie devs in this ecosystem, it means that many more studios are headed this way. Most just aren't going to be announcing it.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    The issue is similar to game support for Mac or Linux: it seems obvious that porting an existing PC game to another platform is much cheaper than creating a new title, and game engines like Unity remove most of the obstacles, so its a simple way to increase sales/make more money. But with these platforms often only generating 2-3% of the sales compared to Windows, the extra service and effort in the end just isn't worth it, and supporting them effectively hurts the main player base by binding resources that could otherwise be used to improve the version of the game the vast majority is actually playing.

    And there is no easy way out of this. You either have to increase sales numbers or price. More sales require more active users, something Meta is struggling to achieve despite huge investments. Quest users see Quest games as more mobile than console titles, so USD 40 is considered a lot, USD 70 like on PS5 unacceptable, with most games selling around USD 15-25.

    Valve worked around the issue by making Linux run Windows games directly, and now even discourages native SteamOS ports for the Steam Deck, instead recommending to ensure games work with the Proton compatibility layer. MacOS relies on the common OS base shared with iPhones that provide the user numbers to justify porting, and PCVR basically went "we'll do it ourselves then" with mods and UEVR. And you cannot even really blame the game developers that have a responsibility to use the available resources in a way that benefits the majority of their users the most, even if this means leaving behind some more niche platforms.

  • Mike

    Looking forward to their next game,
    "Yard Work Simulator".

  • Mike

    Reminds me of the watergun gameplay of Super Mario Sunshine.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    They don't get my money for the PC version as they seem to ignore PCVR completely, even though they already have the VR part running. Won't mind if it's a paid DLC, but until then, I'll just ignore them.