When it comes to the world of virtual reality gaming, there are a few projects that you can pick out as defining titles. Beat Saber, Superhot, Rec Room. We bring this up as one of these icons will soon be shutting down for good.
It has been revealed that on June 1, Rec Room will be closing down, despite boasting an audience of over 150 million players since it debuted. The announcement blog relating to this change does explain the reason for the decision, while simultaneously explaining that the user-generated content project led to a grand total of over 68,000 years of playtime with some of its most popular rooms delivering over 500 years of playtime each.
As for why this shut down is happening, the statement explains: "Despite this popularity, we never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business. Our costs always ended up overwhelming the revenue we brought in.
"We spent a long time trying to find a way to make the numbers work. But with the recent shift in the VR market, along with broader headwinds in gaming, the path to profitability has gotten tough enough that we've made the difficult decision to shut things down.
"We're making this decision now, while we still have the ability to wind things down thoughtfully and do right by the people who built this with us."
With this change in mind, those who do intend to keep playing until the final bell tolls, you will notice that first-party content is now 80% cheaper while some Rec Room+ items no longer require the service to access them. Anyone who does have an RR+ membership has had theirs extended until shut down on June 1 for no extra cost, and those who do intend to check out the game during this final stretch will find doing so a challenge, as you can no longer create new accounts to access the title.
The developers sign off by stating that working on the game has been "an honor and a career highlight" and that witnessing the community enjoy the title has been a "source of great inspiration and joy."
Are you surprised by this news?