Samantha Ryan, vice president of content at Meta’s Reality Labs division, announced to day the division is shifting focus, starting by shifting the focus of Horizon Worlds to emphasize mobile experiences rather than virtual reality.
Our lead news writer Alex Lee anticipated this weeks ago and wrote that story for GamesBeat.
In a blog post, Ryan said, “Meta is founded on experimentation. It’s always been part of our DNA, and it’s how we test, learn, and improve things over time. Sometimes, we knock it out of the park. Other times, we get things wrong. And when we do, we look at the data, take in feedback, make decisive adjustments to our business strategy, and keep building.”
She noted the division made big changes, including “right-sizing our Reality Labs.” The company laid off an estimated 1,500 people, or 10% of the Reality Labs division. The aim was to “ensure that our efforts remain sustainable over time.”
That spooked a lot of XR advocates, as Meta has been driving virtual reality and extended reality forward with its Meta Quest hardware for years. But Ryan sought to allay the worst fears. Rather than walk away from VR, she said the firm will double down on it.
“We’ve been in this space for over a decade, and we aren’t going anywhere. We’re in it for the long haul,” Ryan wrote.
Shifting Focus
She said the goal remains constant: to empower developers and creators as they build long-term, sustainable businesses.
“We used to have a pretty well-defined audience for VR, but as we’ve grown, we’ve attracted new audiences — who want different things — and the onus is on us to make sure that each of these distinct groups can find the apps and games that appeal to them,” she said.
Ryan added this is why the company is changing its roadmaps to increase chances for success.
“We’re explicitly separating our Quest VR platform from our Worlds platform in order to create more space for both products to grow,” she wrote. “We’re doubling down on the VR developer ecosystem while shifting the focus of Worlds to be almost exclusively mobile. By breaking things down into two distinct platforms, we’ll be better able to clearly focus on each.”
Doubling down on VR
As Meta CTO and Head of Reality Labs Andrew “Boz” Bosworth recently acknowledged, the VR industry hasn’t grown as much or as quickly as Meta hoped, Ryan said.
“But it is growing — thanks to the years of dedication and creativity from the developer community. It’s no secret that we’re still in the hardware game. We have a robust roadmap of future VR headsets that will be tailored to different audience segments as the market grows and matures,” Ryan said. “And Meta remains the single biggest investor in the VR industry. Why? Because we believe in VR as a critical technology on the path to the next computing platform.”
Meta Quest is the biggest player in the VR space, with device sales far ahead of all competitors, she said. She noted Meta has “a tremendous holiday season that was on par with our 2024 results — all despite the fact that we didn’t launch any new devices for the year.”
She said total payment volume on the platform remained similar year-over-year in 2025.
“Out of all our revenue streams, we saw a significant increase in in-app purchases (+13%),” Ryan said.
Though premium app sales still lead total revenue, in-app purchase revenue is growing very quickly. Meta Horizon+ hit over 1 million active subscribers in 2025 and now boasts a games catalog of 100+ titles, Ryan said.
“To continue driving growth of the VR platform moving forward, we’re focused on supporting the third-party developer community and sustaining our VR investment over the long term,” Ryan said. “While we’re proud of the world-class work from Oculus Studios over the years, among 1P and 3P apps, 86% of the effective time people spend in their VR headsets is with third-party apps.”
She said Meta will continue to support the third-party community through strategic partnerships and targeted investments — as we have since the beginning. I’d describe this as similar to what Disney has done in games — get the third parties to make the games.
Ryan said that in 2025, Meta invested nearly $150 million in VR developer programs, including the Start Developer Competition. The successes included Hard Bullett, The Thrill of the Fight 2, and UG earned millions in revenue showing that a mix of genres have an audience on Quest.
From funding individual titles and providing new educational opportunities and resources to case studies, consultations, and more, Meta remains committed to helping the third-party developer community grow, thrive, and better understand VR consumers over time, she said.
“We know clarity is critical for you and your business. And to have a chance at success, you need to know who you’re building for,” Ryan said.
“Our consumer base continues to expand and evolve, from VR elites to teens and young adults. We also continue to see casual adult consumers who gravitate toward entertainment and enjoy streaming their favorite shows, movies, and sports,” Ryan said.
This group enjoys hand tracking and is interested in games and experiences that don’t require controllers. Meta expects this category of experiences to expand over time.
A better platform for developers
Ryan said Meta heard their feedback loud and clear, and after a year of collecting data and running experiments, we agree.
“We’re removing individual worlds from our store shelves in VR, and we’re separating worlds from the Store in our mobile app. This change should result in more impressions for apps on the store,” she said.
she said it’s important to make it as easy as possible to build for Quest while also delivering tools that help you monetize and engage your audiences.
“That’s why we built new monetization tools like season passes and featured bundles,” Ryan said. “We’ve also improved discoverability, adding new entry points like the ‘Deals’ tab while continuing to improve how we match people with apps and games. And we’ve introduced and improved engagement features, adding comments and other new features to Dev Posts, introducing Developer Profiles, and dramatically improving the analytics on our platform to help you better reach and understand your audience.”
She said Meta wants to make Quest a better home for developers all around.
“We’ll double down on our focus on software quality and make it easier to build with us,” she said. “We’re committed to improving platform quality and stability as we go. We have a long list of projects to continue improving developer efficiency alongside monetization and discovery tooling in 2026.”
And with the launch of Feedback Center and its voting board, Meta is making it easier to share your feedback and understand how your requests are tracking.
With this narrower, more targeted focus on the VR platform, Meta will do fewer things — and do them better — in lock-step with the rate of growth in the ecosystem.
A new focus on mobile worlds
Meta started Worlds for VR with a small crew of dedicated creators who set out to build immersive experiences on their own.
“Last year, we began to experiment with Worlds as a mobile platform, and we saw positive momentum. Now, to truly change the game and tap into a much larger market, we’re going all-in on mobile,” Ryan said.
She said Meta is in a strong position to deliver synchronous social games at scale, thanks to its unique ability to connect those games with billions of people on the world’s biggest social networks.
“You saw this strategy start to unfold in 2025, and now, it’s our main focus,” she said.
Thanks to the 2025 Creator Fund, Meta said it has grown mobile-only worlds from 0 to 2,000+ over the last year. Top creators like Do Big Studio have joined the program, bringing with them engaging worlds like Steal a Brainrot.
She said mobile MAUs grew over four times in 2025, and creators are finding success on the platform. In fact, four creators have hit the $1 million milestone in lifetime revenue, and nearly a hundred earned six figures last year.
These developers succeeded despite our early mobile runtime. With the introduction of Meta Horizon Studio and Meta Horizon Engine, which were custom-designed for this purpose, we expect the next wave of mobile worlds to look better, load faster, and retain people for longer. And we’re excited to make Horizon Studio available to even more people in the coming months.
Changing for Good
Being on the cutting edge means embracing change.
“We’ll continue to innovate. We’ll continue to iterate, moving fast and learning as we go. And we’ll continue to listen to your feedback as we navigate uncharted waters,” Ryan said.
She added, “We’ll also remain transparent, with a focus on clear communication and education — helping developers and creators better understand who our consumers are so they match their skillsets to the right groups.”
There’s a well-worn saying here at Meta: “This journey is 1% finished,” Ryan said.
“We look forward to tackling the next 99% with all of you.We’ll see you at GDC,” she said.