Facebook launched App Lab last week for Oculus Quest and while there’s a small selection of titles available, plenty of projects are still awaiting approval. This has been highlighted by a group of 12 indie developers banding together to create a “Waiting for App Lab” bundle over on itch.io.
The collection of videogames come from indie teams around the world, all of which, as the name indicates, have submitted their apps for review. Whilst they await confirmation, interested Oculus Quest owners can buy the bundle for $19 USD until 16th Feb – normally $93 so that’s a 79% saving.
Anybody that does purchase the bundle will also be rewarded with a free Oculus App Lab key when the videogame’s launch. There’s a nice mixture of titles available such as infinite flyer Perpetuum Mobile, puzzle builder with hand tracking support Jigsaw 360; burger-flipping Sep’s Diner, and cricket sim The Final Overs.
“Seeing everybody, the developers, the players so eager to have access to App Lab, but just waiting for the apps to drip and drop. Yes it was a bit frustrating! Our way of taking things into our own hands was to offer other developers to join the bundle, and to offer players a great deal on our apps before our prices are much less flexible on App Lab,” said Julien Dorra, the creator of Peco Peco in a statement.
“SideQuest already helped keep my focus on mobile VR development by giving me the opportunity to reach Quest players. Oculus App Labs now provides a large missing piece by providing platform services, easy installations and updates,” adds Brett Jackson, Jigsaw 360. The combination of SideQuest and App Labs could prove to be a powerful combination, allowing us to continue to innovate with an added degree of confidence of finding a market for our products.”
After App Lab arrived there had been a bit of confusion regarding what devs could and couldn’t do due to Oculus’ own FAQ wording. Chris Pruett, Director of Content Ecosystem at Oculus clarified in a tweet: “App Lab developers can sell keys to their apps, or give them away, or whatever they want, just as they’ve been able to for all of our platforms since Rift.”
As the App Lab library continues to grow, VRFocus will keep you updated.