By all accounts, the Oculus Quest has been a big success for Facebook and the developers currently selling their titles through the Oculus Store. But the store is heavily curated so you don’t get a deluge of videogames as you’d see on other platforms. This does mean its harder to get onto. Next year, however, Oculus has revealed plans to make it easier for developers to distribute their apps away from Oculus Store.
Few details have been mentioned so far as to how this will work with the company simply saying: “We’re excited to announce that in early 2021 we’ll offer a new way for developers to distribute Quest apps. This will enable developers to share their apps to anyone with a Quest, without having to be accepted into the Oculus Store, and without the need for sideloading.”
While the Oculus Store is the official way to get content, SideQuest has become a popular solution for developers looking to reach the Oculus Quest audience. Since its launch in 2019, the platform has grown massively, with an abundance of content and strong community following.
Oculus has also revealed this news early to help steer developers who are working on Oculus Go projects towards Quest instead. This is because Oculus Go sales will be halted this year and no new apps will be published after December. While that might not be possible for some projects, the aim is that a more open distribution platform will make it easier to reach the Quest audience and encourage engaging content.
Therefore Oculus has released new resources to aid developers as they switch from 3DoF to a 6DoF control scheme.
Over the last few months, Facebook has detailed software sales figures for Oculus Quest, noting that owners have spent over $100 million USD on content and that 10 titles on the store have exceeded $2 million revenue. Certainly encouraging figures. As further details are released on this new distribution method, VRFocus will keep you updated.
