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Quest 2 grew the VR market by ~10x. What was the killer app? Beat Saber is the first install, but not what kept it going for 3 years. It's the ecosystem. VR Ch

Quest 2 grew the VR market by ~10x. What was the killer app? Beat Saber is the first install, but not what kept it going for 3 years. It's the ecosystem. VR Chat for some, social game for others, immersive experiments like Bonelab, and a few studio titles. I'm glad Meta didn't hype the Quest 3 too much. It's easy for VR expectations to outrun current tech. VR seems to be in the trough of disillusionment where it's moving forward (2023 games are way more playable than 2021 games) but it's a slow burn. "Hey this isn't a step change" is probably right about the Quest 3, but I think also misses the bigger picture. It's a platform and people are still figuring out what to build on it.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Beat Saber is still hella fun. I know some people that just play that (but play it daily) on their Quest. I'm not sure Facebook is particularly happy about that, however, since those people aren't buying apps or making them much money (maybe just the occasional song pack). I'm guessing Beat Saber is the only reason the Quest is even sold in Japan and Korea.
- zem 3y ago
  honestly, if the quest weren't tied to an account I would have considered getting one just to play beat saber too. it's fun and you feel like you're getting exercise at the same time.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Beat Saber really is lots of fun. It really has that DDR vibe, and you don't need super expensive equipment to do it. I only connected with my facebook account a few months ago, I guess was grandfathered in under the previous system until they nagged me to do it.
- cableshaft 3y ago
  The song packs come out really slowly too. They've released just one song pack with 11 songs on it this year, the Queen one back in May, as well as added 10 songs to existing song packs. For a total of 21 songs total this year so far. And 210 official songs since it first came out back in 2018. Meanwhile the PCVR version has a ridiculous 65,000[1] custom songs made for it at this point. Not sure why they can't get closer to the Rock Band model, where it released new songs all the time, and had 2,743 songs total (and 84 songs THIS YEAR according to Wikipedia[2]...had no idea there was even an actively supported Rock Band game out there still). Beat Saber should be making them enough money to allow them to at least do double or triple what they're doing now. [1]: https://bsaber.com/ultimate-guide-to-beat-saber-custom-songs/ https://bsaber.com/ultimate-guide-to-beat-saber-custom-songs... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_downloadable_songs_for_the_Rock_Band_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_downloadable_songs_for...
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    I agree! But the modding...that is all legally dubious, it makes sense that Meta can't just release whatever song they want. I wish it could be attached to spotify or something: you get to listen to the song because you have a subscription, and just play custom beat saber levels with it. Heck, I would be happy if they just were able to do as well as Konami did with DDR. But Meta seems to be taking a slow growth approach on Beat Saber.
    - cableshaft 3y ago
      I understand they need to get the rights to it, I'm just surprised they aren't more aggressively doing so. Rock Band has shown it should be doable to negotiate a lot more licenses more quickly than they have. I understand they like to make a bit of a visual stage experience to each song pack, but not every song pack needs that necessarily, and they should also be able to have multiple teams working on song packs in parallel you'd think, as opposed to one every once in a while, even if they insisted on making new visual themes for each one. As it is, I'd love to buy more song packs from them, but I'm not that into Queen, or Lizzo, or several others they've done the past couple of years (Electronic Mixtape released in May 2022 was the last one that excited me). And other people have their tastes too. Putting out songs more often insures that people have something new they can support and a reason to get back into it more than once every other year. The reason I brought up the custom songs, is they could potentially use those for ideas of what players would really like to see in the game, based on custom song usage, as well as possibly once they do get rights to those songs, possibly get permission from the creator to use the beat patterns (or whatever they're called) and save some development time. I know they hired at least one person from the custom song community before, they could potentially get permission from some others (with some compensation).
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        I had a discussion with someone who had some real knowledge, and they said Meta can't really make a business with Quest just via Beat Saber. It has some backing, but not a lot of backing, most of their effort on Quest are elsewhere. I totally get that, I just wish it wasn't so. To me, Quest is the ultimate fitness/active but casual gaming device.
- numpad0 3y ago
  > I'm guessing Beat Saber is the only reason the Quest is even sold in Japan and Korea. Not sure about that[1][2]... 1: JP: https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=JP&q=Beat%20Saber,VRChat,Booth,Quest&hl=en https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&... 2: KR: https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=KR&q=Beat%20Saber,VRChat,Booth,Quest&hl=en https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&...
ActorNightly 3y ago
>Quest 2 grew the VR market by ~10x Did it really? So far I don't see any uptick in anything VR related in terms of average daily use. I read somewhere that most people get VR, try it for a week, then get bored of it.
- MBCook 3y ago
  In terms of hardware sales, yeah. But I agree I’m not sure the users stuck around. It feels almost like a fad. It was in the right place at the right time by being available when people were in lockdown early in the pandemic. And it sold out, which of course increased demand more. But three years later, things don’t feel that different from 1/1/2020. It feels like that wave came and went without any long term change in things.
- cheriot 3y ago
  I meant headset sales since I've never been able to find actual usage numbers. Afaict, on usage, everyone is guessing.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Beat Saber is still hella fun. I know some people that just play that (but play it daily) on their Quest. I'm not sure Facebook is particularly happy about that, however, since those people aren't buying apps or making them much money (maybe just the occasional song pack). I'm guessing Beat Saber is the only reason the Quest is even sold in Japan and Korea.

zem 3y ago
honestly, if the quest weren't tied to an account I would have considered getting one just to play beat saber too. it's fun and you feel like you're getting exercise at the same time.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Beat Saber really is lots of fun. It really has that DDR vibe, and you don't need super expensive equipment to do it. I only connected with my facebook account a few months ago, I guess was grandfathered in under the previous system until they nagged me to do it.
cableshaft 3y ago
The song packs come out really slowly too. They've released just one song pack with 11 songs on it this year, the Queen one back in May, as well as added 10 songs to existing song packs. For a total of 21 songs total this year so far. And 210 official songs since it first came out back in 2018. Meanwhile the PCVR version has a ridiculous 65,000[1] custom songs made for it at this point. Not sure why they can't get closer to the Rock Band model, where it released new songs all the time, and had 2,743 songs total (and 84 songs THIS YEAR according to Wikipedia[2]...had no idea there was even an actively supported Rock Band game out there still). Beat Saber should be making them enough money to allow them to at least do double or triple what they're doing now. [1]: https://bsaber.com/ultimate-guide-to-beat-saber-custom-songs/ https://bsaber.com/ultimate-guide-to-beat-saber-custom-songs... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_downloadable_songs_for_the_Rock_Band_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_downloadable_songs_for...
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I agree! But the modding...that is all legally dubious, it makes sense that Meta can't just release whatever song they want. I wish it could be attached to spotify or something: you get to listen to the song because you have a subscription, and just play custom beat saber levels with it. Heck, I would be happy if they just were able to do as well as Konami did with DDR. But Meta seems to be taking a slow growth approach on Beat Saber.
  - cableshaft 3y ago
    I understand they need to get the rights to it, I'm just surprised they aren't more aggressively doing so. Rock Band has shown it should be doable to negotiate a lot more licenses more quickly than they have. I understand they like to make a bit of a visual stage experience to each song pack, but not every song pack needs that necessarily, and they should also be able to have multiple teams working on song packs in parallel you'd think, as opposed to one every once in a while, even if they insisted on making new visual themes for each one. As it is, I'd love to buy more song packs from them, but I'm not that into Queen, or Lizzo, or several others they've done the past couple of years (Electronic Mixtape released in May 2022 was the last one that excited me). And other people have their tastes too. Putting out songs more often insures that people have something new they can support and a reason to get back into it more than once every other year. The reason I brought up the custom songs, is they could potentially use those for ideas of what players would really like to see in the game, based on custom song usage, as well as possibly once they do get rights to those songs, possibly get permission from the creator to use the beat patterns (or whatever they're called) and save some development time. I know they hired at least one person from the custom song community before, they could potentially get permission from some others (with some compensation).
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      I had a discussion with someone who had some real knowledge, and they said Meta can't really make a business with Quest just via Beat Saber. It has some backing, but not a lot of backing, most of their effort on Quest are elsewhere. I totally get that, I just wish it wasn't so. To me, Quest is the ultimate fitness/active but casual gaming device.
numpad0 3y ago
> I'm guessing Beat Saber is the only reason the Quest is even sold in Japan and Korea. Not sure about that[1][2]... 1: JP: https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=JP&q=Beat%20Saber,VRChat,Booth,Quest&hl=en https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&... 2: KR: https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=KR&q=Beat%20Saber,VRChat,Booth,Quest&hl=en https://trends.google.co.jp/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&...

ActorNightly 3y ago

>Quest 2 grew the VR market by ~10x Did it really? So far I don't see any uptick in anything VR related in terms of average daily use. I read somewhere that most people get VR, try it for a week, then get bored of it.

MBCook 3y ago
In terms of hardware sales, yeah. But I agree I’m not sure the users stuck around. It feels almost like a fad. It was in the right place at the right time by being available when people were in lockdown early in the pandemic. And it sold out, which of course increased demand more. But three years later, things don’t feel that different from 1/1/2020. It feels like that wave came and went without any long term change in things.
cheriot 3y ago
I meant headset sales since I've never been able to find actual usage numbers. Afaict, on usage, everyone is guessing.