Category: Rec Room

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Rec Room Valued at $3.5B after new $145M Funding Round

Rec Room

Once a niche social virtual reality (VR) platform before expanding to more traditional devices like smartphones and consoles, Rec Room has today announced a new funding round and a massive valuation. Closing a new $145 million USD investment, Rec Room is now valued at $3.5 billion.

Rec Rally

It was only back in March that Rec Room managed to raise $100 million at a valuation of $1.25 billion. That’s quite the jump in nine months seeing Coatue Management as well as existing investors Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Madrona Venture Group all participating in the new round of funding.

“We love the world Rec Room has created for friends to build and play together,” said Matt Mazzeo of Coatue Management in a statement. “From phones to VR, millions of players are hanging out in Rec Room, and we’re excited to partner with the team as they make the digital world more fun and immersive.”

It’s not too surprising considering the year Rec Room has had. Excluding all the funding news Rec Room has expanded to Android devices, adding to the roster of supported platforms that include iOS, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Steam, Oculus Quest, and PC VR headsets. Following that, there was a full-body costume update, the addition of multiplayer racer Rec Rally and the Reclympics which took place over a couple of weeks.

Rec Room

“It’s been amazing to watch Rec Room grow from a tiny collection of mini-games into a global platform with millions of experiences built by the community. The platform has become a place where people can come together to form meaningful connections, build communities, and share their creativity,” said Rec Room co-founder and CEO Nick Fajt. “There’s still so much more we want to do, and as we head into 2022, we’re excited to build more experiences, expand to new platforms, invest in best in class trust and safety systems, and continue to expand our creator tools.” 

Launched in 2016, Rec Room expanded beyond VR a couple of years later seeing 37 million people use the platform. Free to download, Rec Room saw a 450% increase in user numbers since November 2020, mainly thanks to mobile support. For continued updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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Social VR App ‘Rec Room’ Raises $145M Funding, Now Valued at $3.5B

Social VR platform Rec Room has sealed another big funding round to close out the year. The Seattle-based startup today announced it’s secured a new $145 million financing round, bringing the company’s total valuation to $3.5 billion.

The funding round was led by Coatue Management, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Madrona Venture Group.

This comes on the heels of a $100 million raise in March, which at the time pushed the company’s valuation to a stunning $1.25 billion—the first of its kind to get ‘unicorn’ status. The most recent round brings the company’s lifetime financing to $294 million, pushing it now to a $3.5 billion valuation.

First released on Steam in 2016 for both VR and flatscreen play, Rec Room has evolved a great deal over the years, taking it from social VR platform that focused solely on first-party content and minigames to something much more akin to Roblox, including a heavy focus on user-generated content—over 12 million user-generated rooms now, the company says.

Although first-party content is still a big anchor, such as its recently released ‘Rec Rally’ mini-game, users can also make real-world cash for creating cool and interesting stuff.

Things like in-game objects and mini-games underpin Rec Room’s budding economy, which kicked off this year through a creator program. Through it, trusted creators can sell in-game creations for the game’s premium token currency, which can then be converted back to fiat cash.

“It’s been amazing to watch Rec Room grow from a tiny collection of mini-games into a global platform with millions of experiences built by the community. The platform has become a place where people can come together to form meaningful connections, build communities, and share their creativity,” said Nick Fajt, Rec Room co-founder and CEO. “There’s still so much more we want to do, and as we head into 2022, we’re excited to build more experiences, expand to new platforms, invest in best in class trust and safety systems, and continue to expand our creator tools.”

Over the past years the platform has expanded a great deal in search of the widest possible audience. Rec Room, a free app, not only serves VR users on Meta Quest, PSVR, and SteamVR headsets, it also offers cross-play to traditional gaming platforms and mobile devices, such as Android, iOS, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC via Steam, and more.

The post Social VR App ‘Rec Room’ Raises $145M Funding, Now Valued at $3.5B appeared first on Road to VR.

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Educator compares virtual worlds for education, prefers OpenSim

OpenSim is more flexible and economic to use when compared to other game engines like Minecraft, Mozilla Hubs, and Sansar, especially when it comes to creating and designing virtual worlds that can be applied for education. This is despite the OpenSim game engine being considered obsolete in graphical quality, said Techland grid owner and teacher Michela Occhioni.

“I have not found, until now, a platform that can be easy used in short time as OpenSim,” she told Hypergrid Business.

Occhioni uses Techland grid to teach math and science to underage and other students and for teaching sustainability topics to students in middle school.

Although the education version of Minecraft is widely used in educational paths, it is generally for virtual worlds targeted at elementary school students, she said. And while it is a huge competitor for the open-sourced OpenSim, it is not open-source and to collaborate in it, students and teachers need to have a PC server in the same local area network or rent a Windows server, which can get pricy.

“Sansar needs too much teachers’ skills,” she added, referring to Linden Lab’s VR-friendly successor to Second Life. “And Mozilla Hubs is good but just for mostly for exhibitions. It is not possible to make interactive objects or you have to do it in Blender, which is difficult for student and teachers. Vircadia can be a solution. I am studying about it.”

“I visited other virtual world with my Quest 2 or PC, such as SineWave, Altspace, VRchat, Rec Room, Vircadia, and Mozilla Hubs,” she said. “They are promising. I’m studying on, but probably not yet ready to be used at a large scale. Until now the real winner is Minecraft because pupils use it outside school,  so teachers had only to give the mission, but I do not like it too much, probably because I love OpenSim.”

When using virtual worlds for education, there is a huge potential for students to improve modeling, scripting, image editing, video editing, communication skills in storytelling and dialogues, and other skills that can be taught to students within the same environment. It can also help them acquire soft skills such as team work, collaboration, brainstorming, doing shared jobs, sharing objects, and of course socialization at a distance.

“I have experienced projects during lockdown where students logged from home, they notice a sense of presence and the feel to be really near their classmates making practical activities,” she said.

“I use the world in my teaching job, both to implement structured educational paths and carry out collaborative projects where students start from scratch a project,” she said. “I have to manage the desire for my world to be visited by outsiders and the fact I have underage students. So I create some restricted zones to visitors or temporary I block the access.”

Hypergrid connectivity is also turned off, she added, so students can’t teleport to other worlds.

Virtual worlds for sustainability

Techland Sustainability Hub. (Image courtesy David Kariuki.)

Another virtual world education project implemented at Techland grid is the Sustainability Hub. It is the starting point of the grid and features the starting points for several different educational paths including waste management, urban sustainability, water resources and so on. In addition, it hosts a section devoted to the planet Earth dynamics, to help students understand Earth systems as a whole.

Occhioni has been using this hub to teach sustainability topics to students since 2011. Currently, she is using it to teach sustainability to students in middle school from different regions of Italy.

She hopes to give a presentation about this project at the December OpenSim Community Conference for people interested in knowing more.

You can visit the Sustainability Hub in-world to learn more.

The hypergrid address is techlandgrid.it:8002.
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Hands-on: Rec Rally is Another Fun (and free) Slice of ‘Rec Room’ Magic

Rec Room is launching ‘Rec Rally’ on September 29th, which brings to the popular social VR platform a go-kart racer that feels like an awesome starting point for the studio’s first vehicle-based mini-game. We went hands-on so you can get a look at what to expect when it goes live on all supported platforms tomorrow.

Matches serve up to six players who duke it out across a single track in different colored dune buggies.

The track is big and has plenty of quirks and secondary pathways that branch off, which feels like home for anyone who loves the Mario Kart series (like me). Here’s a brief video overview, courtesy of VBunnyGo, which shows off the pit where you can hang out for a chat or buy stuff from the shop, the starting line, and the winner’s podium.

Buggies are simple arcade affairs, and are equipped with a steering wheel, a physical boost button and a handbrake for drifting fun. You can control the buggy either by using the analogue stick for both steering and acceleration, or by gripping the wheel directly with motion controllers. You can toggle between the two in the wristwatch-based settings menu both before and during gameplay.

I played on Quest 2, and I found the direct control method to be pretty difficult to master since the cart physically shifts along with the road, which is a series of bumps, hills, and tight racing terrain. It was hard to keep track of where my hands were, which was a bit of shame because of how much more immersive driving with my own two hands can feel.

That’s me below fumbling to smack the boost button and getting overtaken.

I felt most comfortable using the analogue control method, as it was the most simple, although it feels like forward motion should be mapped to a different button. You jam the stick on your dominant hand forward for max speed, and turn the same stick slightly left or right and the same time, which isn’t exactly geared for fine steering adjustments. I only had about a dozen laps in Rec Rally though, so I can see myself building the muscle memory needed to compete at a higher level.

To be honest, I was hoping to see more Mario Kart-inspired stuff like weapons and environmental traps, however the only pick-up for now is the boost tank. You need to collect three tanks to activate your boost button, which begins to flicker red when it’s ready. It’s basic, but a good enough game mechanic to keep things interesting as you vault over obstacles for hidden shortcuts and leave your competition in the dust.

Rec Rally is marked as ‘Intense’ in terms of user comfort within the app itself. VR games with cockpits like Rec Rally tend to be more comfortable than, say, going at the same speed and angular velocity without a cockpit, but the frenetic nature of the buggy and amount of obstacles you can smash into make for an unavoidable bumpy ride that may not be suitable for all.

And it is intense, almost to the point where I’d imagine screen-based users on PC, mobile, or console having a marked advantage, as they have greater control over their vehicles and zero comfort issues with having their POV jostled about the cockpit. I took a few breaks during my time with Rec Rally, and I would suggest any VR player to know when they should too. You can’t just push through motion sickness, I’m afraid.

In the end, if there’s one thing that’s constantly reinforced when playing Rec Room’s mini-games, its that the team ultimately excels at offering a buffet of bite-sized fun. Rec Rally is no exception, and while I’d love to see a bunch of new tracks and more game mechanics to support its growth, in the end it could easily just be another fun activity to go along with the platform’s highly polished first-party content, like its Rec Royale shooter and awesome co-op Quests.

Like all of its mini-games though, Rec Rally not only acts as a highly-polished anchor to attract users, but it also gives those same users a solid jumping-off point to inspire them create their own wild stuff, of which there is now a literal mountain. And with Rec Rally, we’re sure to see plenty of vehicle-based stuff in the near future that I just can’t wait to explore. (someone please make Rainbow Road)

You can find Rec Room for free on official app stores across Android, iOS, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC via Steam, Oculus Quest, and all SteamVR-compatible headsets. Rec Rally is free too, and is available for cross-play between all supported devices.

The post Hands-on: Rec Rally is Another Fun (and free) Slice of ‘Rec Room’ Magic appeared first on Road to VR.

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Rec Room Introduces Vehicles, Multiplayer Racing With Rec Rally On Sep 29

Available across all platforms from September 29, the Rec Rally update brings multiplayer racing and vehicles to Rec Room for the first time ever.

As you can see in the announcement trailer, embedded above, you’ll be racing in dune buggies across a sparse, dirt environment with a set race track. The map is designed to give you air time in select sections and you’ve got a boost button that pumps up your vehicle’s speed, which should make for some fun Mario Kart-esque moments.

The game supports up to 6 vehicles in each race, with cross-play enabled so you and your friends can race against each other no matter which platform they play on. This applies to both VR and traditional platforms too — Rec Room says that Rec Rally will be available and cross-play enabled on consoles, PC, Android, iOS, Oculus Quest and all other supported VR headsets.

We’ve reached out to confirm whether this specifically also includes the original Oculus Quest headset, which previously missed out on select content like Rec Royale. We will update this article if we receive a response.

Rec Room Rec Rally

According to Rec Room devs, the new dune buggy should also provide players with loads more combinations for existing social opportunities and experiences. “Rec Room users can go on a road trip with friends, or grab a paintball gun and hop in the driver’s seat for some vehicle-on-vehicle combat,” Rec Room said in a prepared statement. “Each vehicle supports dual-wielding objects while driving and has fully optimized controls across all platforms, with a clean intuitive feel on touch devices.”

The Rec Rally update goes live on September 29 at 10am PT on all supported Rec Room platforms.

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Get Your Rally on This Month in Rec Room

Rec Rally

Social app Rec Room is holding its annual Rec Con event this weekend, three days of panels, concerts, special events and announcements. As part of today’s roster, Rec Room has just unveiled a brand new game that is playable on supported devices later this week, Rec Rally.

Rec Rally

Part of a new feature where Rec Room adds driveable cars to the social world, Rec Rally has been built in-house by the Rec Room team. Introducing a brand new off-road environment, up to six players can race around the track and compete for first place, utilising boosts, jumps and powerslides to their advantage.

As mentioned, this feature allows all player to participate, whether they’re on iOS or Android devices, in full virtual reality (VR) on an Oculus Quest 2, PC VR headset or PlayStation VR, or on a TV screen playing on the latest PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S.

Really though, Rec Rally is more of a showcase for the vehicle feature. This is the first time players can have a fully realized vehicle experience in Rec Room, with all the creator options users know and love. With the Rally buggies, they’ll be able to create their own driving experiences for their rooms inviting friends to come and test a new track.

Rec Rally

The buggies support multiple passengers and dual-wielding objects while driving, so whether you’re in the buggy by yourself or with a passenger, combat racing is all part of the fun. The buggies can be found in the ‘Beta Features’ section of the maker pen.

This continues a recent bevvy of updates for the social app, seeing Android support introduced in August and Rec Room host its own Reclympics. All aided by recent investment rounds that have brought Rec Room’s total funding to date to $149 million USD.

Rec Room’s Rec Rally update will be released this Wednesday, 29th September at 10 am PT (6 pm BST) for free. See the new feature in action below and for further updates on the latest Rec Room news, keep reading VRFocus.

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‘Rec Room’ is Getting a Mario Kart-style Racer on September 29th, Trailer Here

Rec Room, arguably the most successful social VR platform, today announced at its annual Rec Con conference that it’s getting a new go-kart racing mini-game that will let you duke it out against your friends and strangers in six-player online matches.

Called ‘Rec Rally’, the new mini-game is set to launch on September 29th, arriving for free on all supported platforms.

Like many of its bespoke mini-games and user-generated creations, Rec Rally will be available with cross-play support so you can race your friends on any platform.

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Image courtesy Rec Room
Image courtesy Rec Room
Image courtesy Rec Room

We’re going hands-on before it launches, so make sure to check back soon for our impressions.

Rec Room’s outside financing, of which it now boasts a lifetime total of $149 million, has allowed the team to offer support to a wide range of devices over the past few years, now offering versions on Android, iOS, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC via Steam, Oculus Quest, and all SteamVR-compatible headsets.

Rec Room is free to play, however it’s been bolstered by its nascent digital economy where users can buy items using in-game tokens. One of the biggest additions of late is the ability for the platform’s premiums (paid) users to not only make and sell user-generated items for tokens, but also convert those tokens to real cash.

The post ‘Rec Room’ is Getting a Mario Kart-style Racer on September 29th, Trailer Here appeared first on Road to VR.

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Reclympics, A New Rec Room Event, Turns Games Into Medal Sports

Rec Room is hosting the Reclympics, a new event running until September 4 that sees some classic Rec Room games turned into medal competitions.

The event will give Rec Room players the chance to compete against each other while repesenting one of eight Rec Room regions, to “keep the Olympic torch and spirit going” within the Rec Room community.

There are seven Rec Room Olympic sports that players will be able to compete for a gold, silver and bronze medal, available at specific times between now and September 5.

rec room reclympics

Stunt Runner, for example, will become a solo Olympic obstacle course where you’ll races others for the fastest time. There will also be Archery, Laser Tag and Dodgeball events, along with Discus Throw and Ultimate Frisbee. And of course, what would the Reclympics be without one of Rec Room’s most classic games, Paintball.

The events are only available for limited windows, with 4 hour slots at set days across the next few weeks. Here’s the full schedule and registration deadlines:

– Archery: August 21, 11am – 3pm PST (registration closed)

– Dodgeball: August 22, 11am – 3pm PST (registration open closed)

– Ultimate Frisbee: August 15, 11am – 3pm PST (registration open until August 23)

– Paintball: September 4, 11am – 3pm PST (registration open until August 23)

All of the events will take place in a custom-built coliseum, and will be livestreamed to YouTube.

Users won’t be representing their country in the events, but one of eight Rec Room regions instead – Painball Plateau, Rec Room Main Campus, Cyberjunk City Limits, Creator Commonwealth, Isles of the Lost Skulls, Crimson Bog Swamp, Goblin Kingdom, Frontier Island.

rec room reclympics

After choosing a region to represent, players can sign up for events — only a limited number of players per region will be selected to compete in each event, selected by the community team staff. Prospective applicants must be over level 30 and be in good moderation standing.

You can read more about registration and the details of each event over on the Rec Room site.

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Rec Room’s Own Olympics Begins This Weekend

Rec Room

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics may have finished but that doesn’t mean the sporting action needs to end. At least Rec Room doesn’t seem to think so announcing the Reclympics. The social app is running its own event for players around the world, kicking off tomorrow for a couple of weeks.

To take part, Rec Room players have to sign-up to a region they wish to represent by joining the regions clubhouse. They can join multiple clubhouses if they want but can only represent one region during the games. Additionally, the Reclympics rules state that: “Players registering for multiple games must represent the same region for all applications.”

When it comes to the games themselves: “A limited number of players from each region will be able to compete. Players may register for multiple games but are not guaranteed to be selected.” The games will be a day-long tournament with the customary Bronze, Silver and Gold medals awarded.

The games and timings are as follows:

  • Stunt Runner – August 14th from 11am PST – 3pm PST (7pm – 11pm BST)
    • A solo obstacle course where players race for the fastest times
  • Laser Tag – August 15th from 11am PST – 3pm PST (7pm – 11pm BST)
    • Users can compete as a team event and battle different regions for the medals 
  • Archery – August 21st from 11am PST – 3pm PST (7pm – 11pm BST)
    • Users can compete in a skill-based, solo event that will showcase the talents of many of the Questing community
  • Dodgeball – August 22nd from 11am PST – 3pm PST (7pm – 11pm BST)
    • Dodgeball will be a team event based on a classic Rec Room game
  • Discus Throw – August 28th from 11am PST – 3pm PST (7pm – 11pm BST)
    • Discus Throw is a new twist on a classic sport, players will need to be accurate with their throws to win
  • Ultimate Frisbee – August 29th from 11am PST – 3pm PST (7pm – 11pm BST)
    • Ultimate Frisbee, one of the earliest UGC games in Rec Room, will allow teams to compete against each other
  • Paintball – September 4th from 11am PST – 3pm PST (7pm – 11pm BST)
    • A Rec Room classic, and the first game that inspired player-driven leagues. This event will be a day-long tournament.
Rec Room

Head to the official Reclympics page to signup for the event and do read through all the requirements to participate. These include having an account that is over level 30, having a good recent moderation history and having an account with an active email address.

While Rec Room did initially begin as a social virtual reality (VR) platform it has greatly expanded both its platform support and functionality. iOS, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Steam, Oculus Quest, and PC VR headsets all work with Rec Room as well as Android devices which were added this month. Another new change was the rolling out of full-body, animated costumes for users to wear.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Rec Room, reporting back with the latest updates.

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Rec Room Launches On Android

Rec Room is now available for Android devices.

You can pick up the massively multi-world multiplayer game right now on the Google Play Store. The release follows earlier launches on iOS, Playstation, Xbox, PC (and PC VR), and Oculus Quest. Rec Room says it is seeing 500% user growth since 2020 with “over 15M lifetime users” on the platform as well as “over 1M active monthly VR users.”

Rec Room raised $100 million from investors earlier this year as it competes with the likes of Roblox, VRChat, and Minecraft to enable a creative and playful space with all sorts of multiplayer worlds and activities to explore. Rec Room’s developers plan to pay out at least $1 million to users by the end of 2021 as part of a creator compensation program, though the amount paid “could be several times that given” the rapid growth.

General availability on Android devices is a major step in the platform’s push toward true cross-platform availability. Now the vast majority of people can expect that their friend has a device capable of playing Rec Room. We’ll be curious to see what that means for Rec Room over the coming year.