VR ecosystem grew despite studio closures

Usage of Meta's VR headset Meta Quest reached an all-time high in 2025. More than 100 titles have grossed more than $1 million, according to Meta's game director Chris Pruett at the GDC Gaming Festival.

This achievement is noteworthy because it came at a time when Meta was closing its VR game studio and reducing its workforce last year. Meta's Reality Labs division had sales of $2.2 billion in 2025, but reported a loss of $19.2 billion.

Diversification of profit structure

In-app payment (IAP) revenue grew more than 10% year-on-year, and premium app sales remain the largest revenue source. The number of in-app payment apps that achieved more than $500,000 in revenue increased by 20%.

Subscription revenue also recorded double-digit percent growth. However, subscription services still account for a small portion of the overall ecosystem, and connectivity with video games is limited. The Meta Horizon+ subscription service has surpassed 1 million subscribers and paid out approximately $20 million to participating developers.

“Our investment in Meta Quest and quest games remains very high,” Pruett said. “There’s a lot going on – new hardware, new user bases, new games – and although there’s competition, Meta is still the biggest investor in VR in the world.”

Background to the decision to exit the Horizon World Store

Meta plans to remove Horizon Worlds from the Meta Horizon Store in June. “Including World in the store was based on the hypothesis that it would increase device retention,” Pruett explained of the decision.

“After collecting data for a year and experimenting with a variety of landing pages, we concluded that our hypothesis about World’s impact on device retention was not proven,” he said. He added, “The cycle of experimentation-learning-adjustment is a typical method of meta,” adding, “We try not to make assumptions that cannot be proven, and change direction when the assumptions are wrong.”

In particular, he emphasized communication with developers, saying, “Feedback from the developer community played an important role in this decision.”