Meta exec hopes VR teens will still be around

This is it Low corridor By Yanko Rutgersa newsletter about the ever-evolving intersection of technology and entertainment, published specifically for Edge Subscribers once a week.

“It’s a very difficult time for the gaming industry.”

Meta Reality Labs’ director of games, Chris Pruitt, didn’t mince his words when he returned to GDC for his annual State of VR Gaming talk this week. “I’ve been in this industry for almost 30 years at this point,” he said. “This is the most difficult period I have ever seen in my life.”

“It’s hard for everyone,” Pruitt said. “It’s tough for VR. We’re not immune.”

Pruitt made these statements two months after Meta More than 1,000 virtual reality-related jobs have been eliminated It greatly reduced the development of first party games. “We have closed many of our studios,” Pruitt admitted. “And make no mistake: these were top-notch studios.”

Meta’s deep cutbacks have caused concern among VR developers, especially since many third-party studios have seen layoffs. To be sure, revenue at the Quest store is still a bit up in 2025, according to Pruitt. However, most of the growth of this media has been driven by free titles such as GorillaTag and andwhich is popular with young teens with little disposable income.

Pruitt admitted that even older VR players “don’t spend as much as they used to.” However, he had a message of hope for desperate VR developers: these GorillaTag Players won’t stay 14 forever.

“As you get older and start becoming an adult, you look for things that are more challenging for you,” Pruitt said.

At the same time, these players likely won’t give up on VR entirely. “They’ve been playing it since they were 12 years old,” Pruitt said. They are accustomed to a different type of play with a greater emphasis on social interaction, and are less prone to motion sickness than older players.

“We’ve never had young adults who are VR natives,” Pruitt said. Although there is no firm data on what these gamers might do in the future, it has been suggested that older gamers may participate in games that retain some of the strange physical and social elements of gaming such as GorillaTag and andbut with more polish.

“I think they remain a core group of players,” Pruitt said. “But the games they play will change, and the amount of money they have to spend will change, too.”

In addition to these older teens, Meta is also betting on consumers over 30 to discover virtual reality over the next few years. “They watch a lot of movies, they watch a lot of sports, they watch a lot of Netflix shows,” Pruett said. “But they don’t know themselves as players.”

Pruitt suggested that many of these consumers will not buy VR headsets for gaming, but as personal televisions and devices for watching 3D content. The Meta has been courting this audience for some time, and reportedly has a lightweight headset with an external computing unit in development that is expected to ship. Sometime in 2027. The company even Partnered with James Cameron To start producing 3D content for this device.

These older consumers will still play a lot of games, even if they don’t identify themselves as gamers, Pruitt suggested. Meeting their needs may require different types of games, including games that can be played while sitting. “It’s a comfortable, low-friction experience for them, not a workout,” he said.

Although Pruett did not comment directly on the upcoming headsets, he strongly urged developers who want to target an older audience to embrace controller-free interaction. “These people will only be doing manual tracking,” he said. “They are less likely to own consoles, or use consoles.”

Meta isn’t the only company looking to adults with disposable income as a new target audience for immersive computing. Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro is optimized for consumers interested in media consumption and seated experiences, and Google and Samsung appear to be targeting a similar audience with their $1,800 Galaxy XR headphones.

The big caveat: So far, there’s little evidence that these audiences are large enough to move the needle in VR. Apple has reportedly cut production of the Vision Pro after lackluster sales, with IDC estimating the company It sold just 45,000 headphones last quarter.

Pruitt himself admitted that Meta was betting on older players, describing them as “the big looming crowd.”

“They are not on the podium today,” he said.