Only 1 in 3 Quest 2 owners are monthly users – a surprising statistic cited in Matthew Ball’s latest report
Author Matthew Ball metaverseWe’ve released a massive new report on the state of the broader gaming industry. "2024, the status of amazing but problematic games"It includes some pretty surprising passages about the current state of consumer VR.
According to IDC, global VR/AR headset sales fell 8.3% in 2023, one year after falling 20.9%. Some slowdown was expected after Meta revealed Quest 3 in May 2023 and set a fall release date, but Quest 3 seems to be selling slower than its predecessor. According to research Less than 1 in 3 Quest 2s are used on a monthly basis. (Which hurts both software and hardware sales).
My emphasis! I’m not entirely surprised by that meager statistic, which is based on activity reported to the Quest store and the device’s small connection speed average (2-3 game purchases per owner), but I checked with Matt at my source about this. He appears to be citing a study by the Wall Street Journal (cited here on Upload VR) which reported that there were 6.37 million monthly active Quest 2 users last October, when the total Quest 2 installed base was around 20 million.
One in three is a painfully low number, but it’s important to know going forward. Once again, I think the broader VR industry needs to recalibrate its market expectations. Especially around reports highlighted in my book that women and girls are more likely to feel nauseous in VR (along with a significant minority of men). A device that makes someone in your family sick enough to vomit probably won’t be of much use in the future.
As for the Metaverse, Matt doesn’t cover much directly in the report other than highlighting the continued growth of Roblox and Fortnite and the rise of UGC first developed on these platforms.
The market is now at a point where many of the best “UGC platform developers” (e.g. Roblox developers) are turning to standalone titles. deadly companywas released in October, grossed more than $120 million, and was created by a single 21-year-old developer who started on Roblox at age 10 and transitioned to itch.io and Steam at age 14.
amazing. However, we expect to see more stories like this in the future.
Read Matt Ball’s full report here. Also watch Matt and I talk about the Metaverse in Avatar here:
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Image via NYT