spatialcomputing.info

Rec Room is shutting down in June. Meta’s Horizon Worlds is searching for greener pastures on mobile. Now, VRChat co-founders say there’s no need to worry about the social VR platform’s future.

“In case you were wondering, VRChat is not going anywhere,” studio co-founders Graham Gaylor and Jesse Joudrey say in a recent blog post.

According to Gaylor and Joudrey, who founded VRChat in 2014, some of that confidence comes from the platform’s ability to consistently bring in record numbers of visitors across Quest, SteamVR, Pico headsets, PC, and mobile devices.

“Last New Year’s Eve, nearly 150,000 people were in VRChat at the same time—celebrating a worldwide event for yet another year. Most of those folks had visited us for New Years multiple times before, but for some, it was their first time,” the studio founders say. “It’s been three months since, and we’ve broken that user record twice since then. Our latest record? Nearly 160,000 people in VRChat at the same time.”

While those sorts of events periodically bring in usership peaks, it’s what people buy once they’re in VRChat that matters. And its creator economy is booming, the founders say.

“Not only that, but our creator economy, avatar marketplace, and first-party stores are all growing. Creators like Studio TrickForge, spookyghostboo, and nawty have made VRChat a place where they can create amazing communities, experiences, and identities, all while earning for their hard work. We onboard more creators every day.”

Notably, the platform rolled out its centralized marketplace for avatars and virtual items in mid-2025, which uses its in-game currency, VRChat Credits. Prior to this, users mostly bought and sold avatars through third-party markets, such as Booth or Gumroad, essentially making for a new revenue stream VRChat could tap into.

Gaylor and Joudrey say however one of the biggest reasons VRChat is still kicking in a time of market headwinds is its communities.

“Our community is the thing that makes VRChat different from every platform that has come and gone. You create worlds that defy imagination. You build avatars that embody expression and identity in ways never seen before. You welcome strangers into your communities, make them feel at home, and often change their lives for the better.”

This follows some pretty worrying signals from the broader VR gaming segment. It was revealed in January that Meta is making a monumental shift in its priorities as a supporter of VR gaming, as its Reality Labs XR division has shifted focus to AI and smart glasses.

Meanwhile, Meta has closed nearly all first-party VR studios and cancelled a number of in-progress games, such as an unannounced Batman: Arkham Shadow sequel from Sanzaru Games, an unannounced Harry Potter VR game for Quest from Skydance Games, and a major project from Moss developers Polyarc.

More recently, social VR platform Rec Room, once valued at $3.5 billion, announced it will be shutting down in June.