Rec Room Raised Another $100M And Earns $1.25B Valuation

Today Rec Room revealed another fund raising round, led by current investors Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures, to the tune of $100M at a valuation of $1.25B overall.

Popularity continues to rise for Rec Room, the free-to-play social gaming platform that originally got its start in PC VR. Since then it’s launched on every major VR platform, including Quest, Quest 2, and PSVR, and is available outside of VR on PC, PS4, mobile, and Xbox. The number of potential users is pretty astronomical compared to any other social VR application—even if a lot of those users aren’t even in VR.

This year has seen a big boom in investment for social gaming platforms and user-generated content apps, which isn’t surprising given the pandemic. Roblox (which has very limited VR support) just went public at a massive valuation and Rec Room recently pledged to pay more than $1M out to its creators this year.

Rec Room CEO Nick Fajt told VentureBeat:

“We’ve had strong growth over the last 12 months,” Fajt said. “We think that Rec Room can become an enduring large business that fuses games and social. We think this can be one of those things that really impacts culture. We think it can be one of the biggest games in the world. And so we really want to invest in that future.”

Reportedly, VR users make up only around 25% of the Rec Room userbase now following its launches on various non-VR platforms. “VR is still a very important part of what we do,” Fajt said. “We’re probably still a top two or top three VR app.”

In the past year as monetization efforts have finally started to take off in Rec Room, revenue grew 566% by letting users charge other players for their in-game items and by charging for a subscription for users to regularly get more in-game currency. There are now over 5 million rooms to explore, more than 2 million people have made content of some kind, and over 20,000 new rooms per day get added. Currently, over 15 million people have used Rec Room so far.

Rec Room is making big strides and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Do you still play Rec Room? What do you think are some of the best rooms to visit in Rec Room? Let us know down below!

Rec Room Laser Tag Mode Now Available On Oculus Quest

Rec Room received an update this week that brings the Laser Tag game modes and maps to the Oculus Quest version of the game. The mode was previously only available to users on other platforms.

Laser Tag is one of the more popular game modes in Rec Room, which sees two teams of four compete with futuristic weapons in a team deathmatch format. As of this latest update, Quest users will be able to join the Laser Tag fun, with both maps, “Hangar” and “Cyberjunk City”, available on the Quest.

This isn’t the only new addition for Quest players either – according to a Reddit post detailing the update, “Quest players can now visit The Park (and all custom rooms build [sic] on top that base room).”

Rec Room was a launch title for the Oculus Quest, but it launched on the platform without some of its major game modes and drawcards. Laser Tag was one of them, but it was also notably missing the battle royale mode, Rec Royale. Despite the Quest port receiving some of those missing game modes since launch, such as Laser Tag, it likely won’t ever receive Rec Royale, due to the sheer size of the map and the work that would be required to bring it to the portable system.

Last September, Rec Room received a new game mode on all platforms called Stunt Runner. Not only was Stunt Runner available on all VR platforms, but it was available in the 2D versions of Rec Room on PS4 and mobile devices. The iPhone beta for Rec Room mobile started rolling out last June.

This Rec Room update also includes some other creation tool changes for all platforms. You can read the full patch notes for the update here.

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10 Best And Most Fun Custom Rooms In Rec Room

Rec Room is still one of the most active and consistently updated online multiplayer platforms in VR. That said, much of its appeal is through creating and sharing custom rooms, which have allowed people to invent their own ways to play together with others.

If you’re curious about playing around in Rec Room, you might find that there are an overwhelming number of custom rooms to try out. We’re absolutely just skimming the surface here, as it’s virtually impossible to know how many great new rooms have been created in the time since this article was written, but here are our top picks for custom rooms in Rec Room thus far, simply ordered alphabetically!

And if you haven’t already, definitely check out the official game modes like Paintball, Questing, Stunt Runner, and more.


recroom_armadilloPVP_4

^armadilloPVP

^armadilloPVP is a remake of Armadillo from the Red Dead Redemption series. Players drop in for free-for-all PVP combat here, which doesn’t actually have any end goal or structure, and can quickly become frantic as a result. Despite the annoying bits, the ^armadilloPVP map itself is the most interesting part of the package, complete with an arsenal of cleverly disguised weapons (made to look like their counterparts from RDR) and a delicately reconstructed model of the Armadillo settlement.

recroom_bloodborne_8

^BloodBorne

^BloodBorne is a near-perfect replica of the Hunter’s Dream from PS4-exclusive action-RPG Bloodborne. It captures the spooky aura of the original extremely well, making it a cool place to bring out your dark side. As an added bonus, it even contains a few custom weapons based on the ones available in Bloodborne. There’s also a ‘training ground’ where you can try them out on dummies.

recroom_carouselpark_3

^CarouselPark

^CarouselPark is exactly what it sounds like: a carousel park that you can visit with friends and even jump aboard for a spin. The carousel is fully animated and climbable, letting you saddle up and sit back. Adding to the atmosphere is music, art installations, and toy action figures that you can pick up and play with.

recroom_escaperoomhauntedmansion_2

^EscapeRoomHauntedMansion

Don’t assume that a Rec Room room can’t scare you. ^EscapeRoomHauntedMansion is more haunted, in the literal sense, than it has any right to be. It’s full of low-budget jumpscares and unsettling world design – the mansion is cursed with plenty of tight corners and spooky-looking figures – but what stands out is its use of lighting, or rather, the lack thereof. Most of the haunted house is pitch black, forcing you and your buddies to use flashlights to navigate through it.

recroom_magicaeacademy_1 (1)

^MagicaeAcademy

Ever wanted to hang out and sling spells at your buds in Rec Room? ^MagicaeAcademy is a fully-modeled high fantasy castle, almost like a cross between the Disney Castle and Hogwarts, where you can use gestures to cast spells with – or against – other wizards. The tall structures and elegant architecture are a breathtaking sight to behold in Rec Room, showing just how robust the Maker Pen can be. This room is currently private, but we got a chance to peek at it and we hope it goes public again soon!

recroom_millenniumfalcon_5

^Millennium_Falcon

^Millennium_Falcon is a loving recreation of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, complete with explorable corridors, cockpit, cargo bay, and lounge. Everybody’s favorite little droid R2D2 makes an appearance onboard the replica ship as well. This is easily one of the coolest ‘tourist’ locations to bring your friends for photos and long Star Wars-related debates.

recroom_recrockclimbing_2

^RecRockClimbing

If you’re interested in getting physical during your visit to Rec Room, there’s always rock climbing. ^RecRockClimbing is possibly the most interesting of the custom climbing rooms in Rec Room, offering at least seven different courses to climb up, each with their own gimmicks and challenges.

recroom_rpunioncity_1

^rp_unioncity

^rp_unioncity is like the Rec Room variant of DarkRP, a roleplay mod made famous by Garry’s Mod that simulates persistent factions in a ‘real life’ setting. ^rp_unioncity attempts to reinterpret this with gangs and delivery drops, though the gameplay is pretty light. The ^rp_unioncity map is impressive, however, boasting an entire downtown district with moving vehicles.

recroom_spookymanor_2

^SpookyManor

^SpookyManor is like a much more chilled out version of ^EscapeRoomHaunted, placing you on a moving ride that takes you through a Halloween-themed mansion. It doesn’t have any jumpscares to speak of, so bring some friends, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

recroom_tacowinterlodge_2

^TacoWinterLodge

There’s no place like home for the holidays. That’s why ^TacoWinterLodge is the best place to call home in Rec Room. It’s a gorgeous winter lodge nestled at the top of some explorable foothills, and once you make your way up the trail to the lodge, you’re met with Christmas tunes and a roaring fire that feels too inviting not to sit down next to. ^TacoWinterLodge is a lovely place to hang out with others during the holiday season; the only thing missing is a mug of hot cocoa.


What are some of your favorites? Let us know down in the comments below!

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Rec Room’s New Stunt Runner Game Looks A Lot Like Sprint Vector

Rec Room developer Against Gravity today revealed the debut trailer of its next new game mode: Stunt Runner, coming in September to all platforms.

From what we can tell Stunt Runner is a race-based mini game that pits players against each other to get through a series of obstacles as quickly as possible. There are walls to jump off of, large gaps to jump across, speed boosts to collect, and more. Based on the gameplay footage shown in the trailer below it certainly seems to be heavily inspired by Sprint Vector.

Since Rec Room typically uses either teleport-based locomotion or smooth movement via analog sticks it’s hard to tell exactly how Stunt Runner will accommodate all control schemes. At one point near the end of the trailer the three players are seen swinging their arms as if they’re actually running — but I can’t tell if that’s just theatrics for the trailer or if that’s a new movement scheme adopted for this new game mode.

According to the YouTube trailer description:

“Stunt Runner is an obstacle-based, extreme sports game show set in Rec Room! In this high-speed obstacle course where every second counts, four contestants must sprint, climb, wall jump, mantle, and dodge hazards to survive. Pick the perfect route and execute flawlessly to set a record time and become leaderboard champs!”

Stunt Runner joins the likes of Paintball, Bowling, Laser Tag, Rec Royale, and tons of other options for things to do with friends in VR using Rec Room’s free social VR hub. Gradually it’s grown to included more and more players, including Oculus Quest, PSVR, iOS, and even non-VR  gamers on PC and console.

We’re looking forward to giving Stunt Runner a try when it launches later this year in September. A representative from Against Gravity confirmed to us that Stunt Runner will be coming to all platforms, include cross-play like other games, and continues to be entirely free.

Specifically, I’m most excited to see what sort of custom Stunt Runner rooms players will make.

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Rec Room iPhone Beta Roll-out Begins

Rec Room iPhone Beta Roll-out Begins

The first wave of invites are on the way for Rec Room’s iPhone early testing program.

The addition of Apple’s handhelds to the cross-platform social service represents a major expansion for Against Gravity, the Seattle-based startup building Rec Room. The service encompasses a set of activities including paintball,  dodgeball and cooperative quests. There are also creative tools in Rec Room players use to construct their own worlds and inventions they can share. We even watched an entire production of The Princess Bride made inside Rec Room. It is a bit like Roblox or Minecraft except that Rec Room is supported on practically every major VR headset, including Oculus Quest, with flat screen modes added more recently on PlayStation 4 and PC.

There’s also an economy inside Rec Room and the software designers hope to let “creators charge in-app tokens for inventions they created, costumes, events, and for different things they can build into their games and rooms.”

A thread on Reddit outlines guidelines for reporting bugs and you can still sign up for a chance to enter the beta program. Fans of the service recently named iOS, Android and Switch as the top three platforms on which they’d like to see Rec Room. Extending multiplayer games across three completely different interaction paradigms from phones to VR to desktop is a major undertaking by Against Gravity and we’ll be curious to see how the service works on Apple’s devices. And if they can add Android and/or Switch too? It should be a very big year for Against Gravity.

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Studio Behind Social VR App ‘Rec Room’ Raises $24 Million in Funding

Against Gravity, the studio behind the popular social VR game Rec Room, has raised an addition $24 million in venture capital across two investment rounds.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Against Gravity says that it has raised $24 million in venture funding in previously undisclosed Series A and Series B rounds, led by VC firms Sequoia and Index Ventures. This reportedly brings the company’s total venture funding to $29 million.

It’s big news for Against Gravity, which has been increasingly focusing its social VR app Rec Room around user-generated content, and ensuring that the title is available on a wide range of headsets (and soon even mobile devices) allowing friends to connect easily across VR platforms (a point of significant friction between most VR platforms). The company tells TechCrunch that Rec Room is nearing 1 million user-created rooms. Additionally, the company’s emphasis on a family-friendly aesthetic gives it a more general appeal than something like VRChat, another social VR app which serves up subculture vibes.

Rec Room has seen increasing recognition from the VR community as a top social VR app; it’s still tiny, but may represent a growing threat to Facebook’s messy social VR approach which is fragmented even between the company’s own headsets.

Still, Facebook is surely a much larger threat to Rec Room than the other way around; like Apple with iOS, Facebook has the option to build deeper social features into the core VR software of its headsets—features which third-party developers aren’t allowed to build—like the ability to connect players across between separate VR applications.

Last month’s launch of Oculus Quest (on which Rec Room has been available since day one) was likely a moment of validation for Against Gravity and potential investors. Among the headsets on which Rec Room is available, Quest is far and away the easiest to use, making Rec Room’s brand of ‘what should we do today?’ fun that much more approachable.

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However, Rec Room has been free from the start, and the company is still sorting out its long term monetization strategy, but—like any tech startup—is clearly most focused right now on user growth backed by VC funding.

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Rec Room’s ‘Golden Trophy’ Is A Cornerstone Oculus Quest Adventure

Rec Room’s ‘Golden Trophy’ Is A Cornerstone Oculus Quest Adventure

Over the weekend I received early access to Rec Room’s first major update since the launch of Oculus Quest on May 21. I gathered in the living room with my family for a three-person adventure in Rec Room’s Quest For The Golden Trophy and the time we spent together ranks as some the the most fun I’ve ever had in VR.

Quest For The Golden Trophy opens up a whole new genre of co-op experience on the standalone Oculus Quest VR console. We still see people confused by this, so we have to remind folks that Oculus Quest is a VR headset with a pair of controllers that starts at around $400 all-in. No separate PC, game console, phone, or box is needed to run VR. There are dozens of high quality apps to buy on the headset, like Superhot and Beat Saber, that can provide hours of fun. It is simply magic to walk from an AR view of your room into a completely virtual space with the Insight tracking system. Facebook sent me two of the headsets (one for early review and another for attending F8) and I bought a third Quest too. We’ve now purchased Beat Saber across multiple devices so that we can compete for high scores.

Rec Room is the other staple across all of our headsets.

Quest For The Golden Trophy

Rec Room is a free-to-play social VR service out now on Quest, PSVR, and PC VR headsets made by Seattle-based Against Gravity. It is available in flat screen non-VR mode on some devices (such as PC and PS4) with full cross-platform multiplayer on everything — and it’s coming soon to iOS as well.

Rec Room is a little like Fortnite and Minecraft but, where those are centered on a single game, Rec Room meshes together creative tools with shared activities like paintball and dodgeball similar to Roblox. Not all of Rec Room’s activities are supported yet on the Oculus Quest, like the popular Rec Royale mode. Questing, though, is a major addition and puts you and up to three others on an adventure together down long hallways in search of this fabled Golden Trophy as you battle pop-up minions along the way. There are swords, bows, shields, and crossbows to use in fighting off the enemies. The bow, in particular, I found to be a joy to use with unlimited ammo and a solid demonstration of Quest’s tracking quality.

Quest For The Golden Trophy is a challenging, punishing cooperative adventure. You’ll surely encounter enemies coming at you from unexpected directions to send you all the way back to the beginning of the journey. This is challenging, even frustrating, in the best possible way. We had only our teamwork and our poor aim to blame for our failures. Even though my family and I haven’t yet succeeded in completing the adventure together, we battled hard all the way to Act V and the moments we shared along the way — from accidental friendly fire or a just-in-time fist bump revive — were some of the most memorable I’ve had in any headset.

Quest For The Golden Trophy is now available free on Oculus Quest in Rec Room including cross-play with players on all other platforms.

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Rec Room Coming To iPhone And iPad ‘Really Soon’

Rec Room Coming To iPhone And iPad ‘Really Soon’

Seattle-based startup Against Gravity is bringing social service Rec Room to iPhone and iPad soon with invites to a testing release slated to go out this month.

The startup is offering a “Rec Room Mobile” signup page for potential access to a testing release of the service on iOS devices. “We will let you know once we’re ready for testers and once we hit the app store,” the page states.

“We’ll be launching Rec Room on iOS really soon,” a statement from Against Gravity reads. “We’re doing internal testing now and we’ll start sending out beta testing invites this month. Based on how that goes, we should hit the app store shortly after testing wraps up.”

Creators Getting Paid

Against Gravity has big plans for Rec Room with the goal that “someone in school with no coding knowledge can build a game in an afternoon and ship it on console, PC, mobile, and VR. We’re already seeing this happen, but we think the ability to instantly build and publish a game gets a lot more interesting when you open up the audience to anyone with a mobile device.”

In addition to cross-platform creation tools, the company is also looking into ways for creators to get paid for their works in Rec Room.

“We’re looking into letting creators charge in-app tokens for inventions they created, costumes, events, and for different things they can build into their games and rooms,” according to the company.

Getting players paid for making stuff in Rec Room? As far as goals go it doesn’t get too much bigger than that. Creating a single community that enjoys fun things together across flat screens, phones and VR is not an easy task. We’ll report back as soon as we get our hands on Rec Room mobile and have a sense of how the game extends onto touchscreens.

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Rec Room Plans More Platforms For 2019 As Fans Request iPhone, Android And Switch

rec room quest

Against Gravity’s Rec Room exceeded our expectations for social VR interactions on Oculus Quest, but the Seattle-based startup isn’t stopping there with its roll-out in 2019.

Late last year fans of the free-to-play cross-platform social games service requested iOS (iPhone/iPad), Android and Switch as the top platforms they want to see supported in further expansion to Rec Room. While not specifically stating which platform(s) they are targeting next, a statement from Against Gravity suggests that after Oculus Quest they still plan to support more platforms in 2019.

“Players kept telling us they wanted to hang out with their friends who didn’t have a headset. Last year we took that feedback and launched screen mode, allowing anyone on a PS4 or PC to play Rec Room along with our VR players,” a statement from the company reads. “We’ve seen really great growth and creativity in the community on screens and we’re looking forward to bringing Rec Room to even more platforms in 2019.”

Cross-Platform Concerns

Any of the top three platforms requested by fans would be an incredibly large expansion to Rec Room’s reach. Support for those platforms could have lasting implications for both the startup and the community it is building. Interaction models are different from TVs to phones to VR and ensuring players have an enjoyable experience playing games like paintball or dodgeball across every type of device will be a daunting task. Such expansion could also make it harder for Rec Room to roll out new features for its entire community. Other startups, like Altspace, ran out of money on a path to building cross-platform support. Bigscreen and Against Gravity, though, focused their platforms around finding fun things for people to do together and they seem to be gaining traction with that approach.

We’ll bring you updates as soon as Against Gravity reveals which platforms it is targeting next and when we can expect them to launch.

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Against Gravity’s Rec Room Finally Confirmed For Oculus Quest

Against Gravity’s Rec Room Finally Confirmed For Oculus Quest

Another much-anticipated VR app is on its way to the Oculus Quest headset. Against Gravity’s social VR platform, Rec Room, will come to the device this spring.

Rec Room is a free-to-play platform that allows friends to meet up, play a variety of games and create content together as customized avatars. Players can either meet up in open hang out spaces or play sports games like dodgeball together. You can even take on more elaborate games like co-op adventure quests, paintball, and Rec Room’s take on battle royale.

We’ve long thought of Rec Room as one of VR’s most important apps. On top of playing together, players can also customize rooms to their own look and then share them with others to provide new types of experiences. In January, we reported that the game had reached over one million players.

Against Gravity also confirmed to UploadVR that the Quest version of the game will support cross-play. this is a key feature for Rec Room, allowing those with an Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR headset and even a PSVR to meet up online. Adding Quest to that mix should help expand the player base.

Quest is due to launch this spring too, so it’s likely Rec Room will arrive alongside it. The headset costs $399 for a 64GB version but a 128GB device will arrive for $499 too.

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