Whereas a flurry of VR studio cuts and closures within the final 12 months has painted an image of a deeply struggling panorama for VR builders, trendy Quest success tales have largely flown below the radar. The free-to-play title UG, as an example, has exploded in each reputation and earnings, matching prime titles like Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber in mere months. In an interview with Highway to VR, the creators of UG have shared a uncommon look contained in the success of Quest’s newest hit.
By the Numbers
Launched on Quest lower than six months in the past, UG has shortly turn out to be one of many platform’s hottest, best-rated, and top-earning titles. The sport shares broad similarities to the likes of contemporary VR video games like Gorilla Tag (ie: free-to-play, social multiplayer, arm-based locomotion), however revolves round hatching, elevating, driving, buying and selling, and adventuring on digital dinosaur pets.
The formulation has been a success with the Quest viewers, blasting off to turn out to be the most-rated title on the Horizon retailer with 245,000 critiques. That not solely places it above contemporaries like Animal Firm (180,000 critiques) and Gorilla Tag (167,000 critiques), nevertheless it’s additionally the best-rated of the three. UG has managed to keep up a 4.9 out of 5 star consumer ranking, which is remarkable for a Quest sport with so many critiques.
In an interview with Highway to VR, the creators of UG provided distinctive perception into the success of the sport, revealing it has already reached 1.2 million distinctive customers, averaging greater than 100,000 day by day energetic customers, and a peak of 40,000 concurrent customers.
“[UG‘s] retention and playtime have truthfully exceeded something we anticipated,” says Michael Murdock, lead sport designer of UG and co-owner of the studio, Continuum. “The common participant has now spent over 14 hours in UG, and that quantity retains climbing as gamers maintain coming again. Every day common playtime is often near an hour and has approached two hours at occasions.”
Now available on the market for 5 years, Gorilla Tag actually nonetheless leads the way in which in whole income. However when it comes to weekly income, UG is holding its personal in opposition to Gorilla Tag. In accordance with Meta’s “top-selling” chart, UG has been constantly among the many prime performers, together with often stealing the highest spot from Gorilla Tag. Murdock says the sport has occupied the #1 spot “about 95% of the time” since UG’s launch.
UG’s success is greater than a fluke. The studio behind the sport, Contiuum, additionally constructed the Quest title Monkey Doo—one other free-to-play multiplayer sport—which, at 11,000 critiques, has been a relative success in its personal proper. However UG has reached one other stage solely; not simply in participant counts, however income too.
“We’re seeing a median income per-user (ARPU) of over $14,” says Murdock. “That’s almost 20 occasions what we’ve skilled in our different free-to-play titles [like Monkey Doo].”
The Previous, Current, and Way forward for UG
Murdock walked me by way of the backstory of the sport’s improvement, which begins with the formation of the Utah-based studio, Continuum, again in 2020.
“We began as a VR/AR company making immersive experiences primarily for advertising and marketing and training. Over time, as we refined our abilities and our crew, it turned clear that what we actually needed to construct was VR video games,” he says. “Earlier than UG, we labored on the single-player model of Sail with Pink Workforce Interactive in 2021. Internally, we additionally constructed Monkey Doo, adopted by Cactus Jam, and we helped develop Immediate Occasion. Every of these taught us so much about what works, and what doesn’t, in VR. Up till UG, we have been nonetheless splitting our time between sport improvement and company work. Lastly, we made the choice to cease splitting our consideration and go all in on our VR studio.”
Improvement on UG began in October 2024, Murdock says. After validating the idea, the studio discovered funding.
“We took a six-figure sum from a strategic companion. In change, we agreed to a scaling income share from sport gross sales. We didn’t give away any studio shares or IP possession.”
Apparently, the funding got here from Trass Video games, the studio behind one more trendy Quest success, Yeeps (2024). In some ways, Yeeps and UG are opponents within the VR market, however Murdock says the partnership has been nothing however constructive for each studios.
“[Our funding partner] Trass Video games (and we) don’t have a shortage mindset in relation to VR. Trass needed to proceed to make Yeeps their #1 precedence whereas contributing in a significant approach to one other VR title,” he defined. “The collaboration continues, we meet weekly with them to speak ongoing technique and updates. The success has appeared to be an absolute win-win and Yeeps remains to be going fairly sturdy with out a lot seeming cannibalism of the market.”
After receiving funding, the crew developed the sport for about eight months earlier than launching an early entry model in August 2025.
The ‘dino farming’ facet of UG is what makes it stand out essentially the most from related free-to-play Quest video games. The concept, Murdock says, got here from a variety of inspirations spanning from his youth to the fashionable gaming panorama.
Rising up, I cherished the film Jurassic Park (1993). I can nonetheless keep in mind being seven years previous, and seeing it for the primary time, sitting within the entrance row of a sold-out theater in Tucson, Arizona. That film has been an inspiration. Plus I obsessively performed Pokémon rising up. The concept of capturing, amassing, and driving dinosaurs naturally advanced into UG.
Video games like Gorilla Tag, Yeeps, Animal Firm, and Pokémon have been all influences. As soon as I knew the overall path we have been going I performed an embarrassing quantity of Undertake Me (in Roblox) to raised perceive their mannequin for elevating and buying and selling pets. We didn’t attempt to reinvent something that we didn’t must, however as an alternative we centered on placing our personal spin on concepts that have been already confirmed.
UG remains to be in early entry and present process fast improvement. The studio simply launched a serious replace which added flying dinosaurs and a brand new flying boss for gamers to battle. And there’s far more on the roadmap, says Murdock.
“Developing, we’ve dino coaching techniques, swimming dinosaurs, PvP arenas, and naturally a ton of recent dinos. [The game world] was designed as a live-service world, so evolving the map and increasing the sport over time is an enormous a part of the plan.”
The complete 1.0 launch of UG is anticipated within the second half of this 12 months. To get there, the studio hopes to ship “a extra balanced and polished model of the sport, with higher quality-of-life options, a stronger launch rhythm, and a deeper roster of dinosaurs,” says Murdock. “Constructing so quick with a small crew meant launching with imperfections, however early entry has helped us deal with what truly issues to gamers. We now have labored intently with our neighborhood to refine and excellent our sport little by little with each weekly replace.”
The success of UG and its contemporaries is the clearest proof of what Meta was formally speaking to builders at the very least way back to early 2025: the bulk Quest demographic has shifted youthful, with extra curiosity in free-to-play, social, and multiplayer content material than the premium single-player VR video games that after outlined the medium.
The publish Sleeper Hit ‘UG’ Has Change into One among Quest’s Most In style and Prime Incomes Video games in Much less Than 6 Months appeared first on Highway to VR.