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One of the most prominent VR game piracy groups has been shut down following a DMCA notice which was apparently issued by Meta.

As first reported by Heise Online, the game piracy group ‘VRPirates’ issued a statement on its public Discord last week notifying members that it was ceasing operations.

“Due to a recent DMCA notice from Meta, VRP will be shutting down. As a result, we will no longer accept donations, provide sponsored mirrors, or host content publicly. All related operations are being discontinued effective immediately,” the group said.

According to archived versions of the VRPirates website, the group was engaged in sourcing, testing and distributing torrents of cracked Quest and PC VR games.

The group also offered its own ‘Rookie’ sideloader for Quest, which, much like SideQuest, allowed users to browse a library of content and sideload APKs directly.

While the group has been in operation since at least late 2023, VRP admin ‘Maxine’ says in a recent r/QuestPiracy subreddit post that it was actually the release of a cracked version of Beat Saber (2018) that was the last straw.

“[A]s much as I hate to say, they’re well within their right,” Maxine said, referring to Meta pursuing legal action against piracy of its first-party game.

According to UploadVR, Rookie Sideloader still allows users to sideload self-sourced APKs, however the library of VRPirate-hosted cracked content is now officially offline.