It seems this past month had a wave of bad news for the Metaverse. Last time was Horizon Worlds, now it’s Rec Room’s turn.
While the timing feels like an April Fools’ joke, it is as real as it gets. On March 30th, the founders announced the end of Rec Room. They said that they couldn’t find a profitable business model for the platform, and the operational costs were very high.
Seems Rec Room made a number of bad decisions that brought the game to its demise, like the failure to appeal to the creators to continue building worlds and experiences. The intent to compete with Roblox using a mobile adaptation was also a failure. With a confusing economy for the creators and the flood of slop games, the once interesting curated experience for native VR players, became an average place that lost its personality.
Even having a 150 million player base didn’t help them to keep the boat afloat. This should be a warning for most world builders to be cautious on how to handle their creations and those who want to implement a Metaverse like this, to push for a good business model.
The platform will be alive until June 1st, so you can go visit and say goodbye to your Rec Room friends or you can still retrieve your photos and take some more for posterity.