Meta Quest Hits All-Time High Users as VR Revenue Tops $2.2 Billion

While VR developers watched studios close and workforces shrink through 2024 and 2025, something quieter was building inside the Quest ecosystem. More than 100 individual Quest store titles each cleared $1 million in gross revenue during 2025, in-app purchase revenue climbed over 10% year-over-year, and the platform hit an all-time high in active users. Meta's Director of Games Chris Pruett laid out those numbers at the GDC Festival of Gaming last week, and they land differently when set against the prevailing narrative of a VR market in freefall.

Reality Labs, the Meta division that houses Quest, recorded $2.2 billion in content revenue for 2025. That figure reflects a content economy growing in both breadth and depth: premium applications drove the bulk of IAP growth, and the number of IAP titles reaching $500,000 or more in earnings rose by 20%. The Horizon+ subscription service crossed one million subscribers and paid out nearly $20 million to participating developers, with subscription revenues growing by double-digit percentage points year-over-year, though they remain a relatively small share of the overall ecosystem and are largely disconnected from gaming content specifically.

Pruett was explicit about what the numbers represent in the current climate. "Our commitment to Meta Quest and its games is robust," he said. "We are exploring new hardware, audiences, and games. Despite competition, Meta's investment in VR remains the foremost globally by a significant margin."

That same division posting $2.2 billion in content revenue also recorded a $19.2 billion operating loss for 2025. Reality Labs has spent years burning capital on hardware development, R&D, and platform infrastructure, and those costs continue to dwarf the content business. The $2.2 billion figure is real progress; it does not resolve the underlying financial structure of the unit.

Pruett also addressed the removal of Horizon Worlds from the Meta Horizon Store in June. "The inclusion of Worlds on the Store was intended to enhance device usage retention," he said. After a year of data collection and iteration, the experiment failed on its own terms. "After a year of gathering data and trying various approaches, it became evident that the assumption regarding Worlds' role in device retention did not hold." His framing of the retreat was characteristically measured: "The process of experimenting, learning, and adapting is typical for Meta. We avoid relying on unverified assumptions, and we adjust course when needed. Additionally, it's critical for our developers to know their feedback influenced this decision substantially."

The unresolved question is whether the growth visible at the top of the market filters down. A platform where 100-plus titles cross $1 million is meaningfully healthier than one held up by five or ten, but the gap between that tier and the hundreds of smaller developers trying to find commercial traction remains wide. Whether the next hardware generation and Meta's ongoing developer payout policies produce revenue momentum for that middle tier, not just the top performers, will determine whether 2025 looks like a turning point or simply a strong year inside a bifurcated market.