Games platform Recording room it is now a unicorn, valued at $ 1.25 billion during a recent $ 100 million financing round. It appears to be one of the first, if not the first, virtual reality-focused startup to achieve unicorn status, a notable feat since Oculus VR’s remarkable $ 2.4 billion Facebook acquisition in 2014 helped establish the modern business of VR.
Founded in 2016, Recording room is a free application that allows players to build personalized virtual spaces and games that can be played on multiple platforms. The Seattle-based company launched Steam as a VR-focused platform and, in 2018, expanded to non-VR platforms. It is now available on Xbox, PlayStation, iOS and PC. CEO Nick Fajt said in an interview with The Verge that the use of VR on the platform increased during the holiday season due in part to sales of the Oculus Quest 2 headset.
In 2020, Recording room saw a 566% increase in revenue – most of it comes from in-game purchases – and now has more than 15 million lifetime users. Fajt says the company now has 1 million active VR users per month, a number that tripled during the pandemic, THE Wall Street Journal reported.
The main users of the platform are teenagers between 13 and 16 years old, said Fajt. Recording room benefited from the fact that students stayed online longer during the coronavirus blockages of 2020. But it was also growing in popularity before people were confined to their homes.
“The trends of accelerating the pandemic that we saw several years ago,” said Fajt. “Many people are looking for a digital third place that is different from home and school or work, where they can meet friends, go out, explore and be creative. I think this is true whether teenagers are going to school physically or at Zoom. People need a space like this. ”
He added that while it is possible that the platform will suffer a decrease in the number of users, once teenagers can meet in person, he sees Recording room as more than just a substitute for real life socialization. “It is helping many people to maintain connections with friends who are hundreds or thousands of miles away,” said Fajt. “They are friends separated by physical distance and not just social. So if Recording room it has become part of their routine, I suspect it will continue even after the pandemic. “
Recording room is preparing for an IPO in the coming years. Meanwhile, other gaming platforms continue to grow thanks to an increase in pandemic audiences. Roblox, an online gaming platform for users a little younger than Recording room ‘s, also noted a marked increase in use during the pandemic. Roblox it went public through direct listing earlier this month and said in its prospectus that it has 31.1 million daily users, who spent an average of 2.6 hours a day on the platform last year.
Roblox told The Verge last summer, more than half of American children and teenagers under the age of 16 played. During the pandemic, there was a lot of concern about increasing children’s viewing time, but games like Roblox and Epic Games’ Fifteen days provide socialization, but not the face-to-face type we’re used to.
Before the pandemic, part of the appetite for developing new AR and VR hardware began to wane – Sony PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan suggested in October that an update to Sony’s PlayStation VR headset would still take some years. (Sony has since provided more details about its next PlayStation VR iteration with a formal product announcement, followed by images of its new controllers.)
But for years, other companies have been stepping up their efforts on AR and VR hardware. The information reported earlier this month that Facebook has about 10,000 employees – about a fifth of its workforce – focused on new devices in both fields, and the company has already exhibited prototypes of experimental research products and plans to launch a couple of Ray-Ban branded smart glasses products later this year. Apple has long been rumored to be working on augmented reality and virtual reality hardware, and recent reports suggest that the iPhone maker will launch a virtual reality device in 2022.
“The market has shown an increasing appetite for game companies,” said Fajt. “I think this will only grow as more data becomes available about the strength and durability of these companies”.