Meta has announced a significant partnership with Roblox, one of the leading platforms in social gaming. Roblox is set to make its initial appearance on the Quest App Lab in the next few weeks, with a broader release on the full Quest Store to follow. This will allow users of Quest headsets such as Quest 2, Quest Pro, and later this year Quest 3, to enter the world of Roblox in VR and encourage the huge audience of Roblox players to consider playing Roblox in VR.
Boasting over 200 million monthly active users, including an estimated 66 million daily participants, Roblox is an undeniable powerhouse in the gaming world. The platform’s popularity is especially pronounced among younger demographics, with around 45% of Roblox users being under the age of 13, and over half of American children under 16 reported to be active on the platform.
In alignment with this demographic trend, Meta is planning to lower the official minimum age requirement for using Quest headsets from 13 to 10 years old later this year. This move will accommodate the introduction of preteen accounts and align the platform more closely with Roblox’s user base.
Addressing potential performance issues in VR, Roblox is introducing a new ‘VR’ device type checkbox in its Experience settings. Given the variation in performance across the Roblox worlds or ‘Experiences’, this feature is critical to maintaining good performance, which is vital in VR to prevent discomfort from frame drops, judder, or stutter.
The checkbox will be on by default for Experiences using default player scripts, enabling optimal VR performance right out of the box. It will be off by default for all other Experiences, giving creators the opportunity during the Open Beta to fine-tune their creations for VR headsets.
Roblox, a platform that already supports PC-based VR, has shifted its separate SteamVR and Oculus PC API integration to OpenXR, including support for Quest Link, Rift and Rift S, Valve Index, and HTC Vive.
While the arrival of Roblox on Meta Quest could be a boon for Meta, especially as it prepares to launch the Quest 3 to a potentially wider and younger market this holiday season, it also raises questions about the future of Meta’s own social VR platform, Horizon Worlds.
Given the immense popularity of Roblox, content creators looking for the largest return on investment may be more attracted to Roblox than Horizon. It’s yet to be seen how this development will affect Horizon Worlds, but it undoubtedly brings a new level of competition to the VR space.
In terms of content compatibility, not all of the 15 million existing Roblox experiences will be suitable for Quest. Roblox Corp plans to automatically enable VR support for some experiences, particularly those that use default player scripts, which usually perform well in VR without modifications. However, the specifics of how many experiences will receive this automatic update remain unclear.
As Roblox embarks on its journey into VR territory with Meta Quest, the industry awaits the potential sea change in social gaming. With a new competitive landscape on the horizon, VR’s expansion into a younger market, and a flood of user-generated content, this partnership signals a new era in the evolution of virtual reality.