- Rec Room is closing down in June
- The popular metaverse platform struggled to turn its success into profit
- Snap is reportedly buying some Rec Room assets
Living room — a popular VR multiplayer platform that reached over 150 million players during its lifetime — is shutting down in June, as the company explains, “Our costs always ended up overwhelming the revenue we brought in.” But it might live on in AR.
This follows the semi-shutdown of Meta’s Horizon worlds metaverse. This title will live on fully on mobile and will be playable in VR – but the once-flagship immersive experience on the Quest headset will not receive updates or new content as Meta shifts its focus to smartphones and glasses.
Before Living rooma similar shift also seems to be on the cards.
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Although not much is revealed in The school is out for living room blog post detailing the final days of the platform – such as 80% discounts, the removal of some RR+ membership exclusivity for certain items and for token payouts, and the ability to download your created rooms as a standalone Unity app (via Steam PC build only) – it’s being reported that the team’s efforts may be reborn in some form under Snap.
The Snapchat and AR glasses maker has reportedly acquired some Rec Room Inc. assets, including a few employees, according to Geek Wire. It has not been confirmed what they will do, but based on my experience with Snapchat’s specs, I have an educated guess that these fv. Living room developers will help turn Snap’s AR software into the virtual playground of my dreams.
I’ve loved VR multiplayer, but after experiencing AR multiplayer with Snap’s Spectacles, the in-person digital experience is a long shot, even in my admittedly limited demo.
Peridot multiplayer let a group of us see and interact with each other’s virtual pets, we could draw and create 3D art together in space, and while it wasn’t a game per se, multi-person AR translation with floating subtitles under each speaker felt like magic.
While the actual gameplay of these apps wasn’t terrible, the virtual and real blended experience was a joy – and my mind raced with what the future might hold.
With a few smart AR specs, you can turn a park into an AR paintball arena for you and your friends, turn your living room into a jungle adventure, or your backyard into a tennis court—the list goes on.
An AR version of Living roomwith its mix of pre-made and user-generated content, could be a killer AR app. Instead of waiting for someone to make the AR game you’ve been wanting, you’d have the tools to simply build it yourself.
Now, there’s no promise that this is what Snap has planned, but from my conversations and demos with the team there, it’s clear that the company has lofty AR ambitions — so this kind of move wouldn’t be out of the question. We’ll just have to wait and see what it has up its sleeve when its glasses debut later this year.
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