This is it Low pass by Janko Roettgersnewsletter about the ever-evolving intersection of technology and entertainment, published just for The Verge subscribers once a week.
The VR industry has been on edge since Meta’s massive layoffs earlier this year: One executive called the layoff announcement “one of VR’s darkest weeks.” There’s talk of winter in VR, and several VR studios have made significant layoffs of their own.
For Gorilla brand creator Another axiom, but it’s a monkey – or, as one would say – a monkey – as usual. The most popular game on the Meta’s Quest VR headset reached a new audience this past weekend when 119,000 players joined its five-year anniversary event at the same time.
“We’ve broken the world record, as we understand it, for competitive gamers in VR,” says Another Axiom Marketing Director Jake Zim. (Social VR app VRChat boasted 150,000 concurrent users on New Year’s Day, but that number included people accessing its 3D worlds on flat screens).
It’s not just about special events: Gorilla brand attracts up to a million VR users every day. Most of them are Gen Alpha, and they all fight each other in chaotic games, powered by a unique arm-flapping style of locomotion. This free-to-play game often tops the bestseller charts in the Meta’s Quest store. The game’s characters, known as monks, have become so popular that Another Axiom regularly sells out of plush toys; total merchandise sales reached nearly $10 million, according to Zim.
“Fandom is bigger than just VR,” Zim tells me.
That’s why Another Axiom is now planning to expand beyond headsets: The company is working on a mobile game, a live event, and even a TV show. “We believe that tradition and the world Gorilla brand it can tell so many stories,” says Zim.
Of course, there’s a flip side to these planned expansion moves: Five years in and with no major titles to catch up to, Further Axiom’s executives are clearly aware that there may be a ceiling in VR and that Meta’s limitations are clouding the medium’s future. “VR as an ecosystem is very challenging,” Zim admitted. “With all the changes in the Meta, this is at best a transitional moment for VR.”
A moment of transition that probably caught Meta herself by surprise. For years, the company has been betting on gaming, fitness and social virtual reality to make headsets mainstream. Some of these efforts have undoubtedly worked: Meta has sold millions of headsets. VR rhythm game owned by Meta Beat Sabre cross $250 million in revenue in 2022 and several other VR games including Gorilla brandsince then, they’ve hit $100 million in revenue (“We’re well past that,” Zim tells me, without elaborating).
But Meta’s bet on the Horizon Worlds metaverse likely fell flat, and many AAA VR games saw their audiences dwindle, leading Meta to close several in-house VR studios. Instead, VR has seen a massive influx of younger gamers who prefer chaotic free-to-play titles to polished and more expensive single-player games. And while many of those younger players have picked up Meta’s entry-level Quest 3S headset, overall audience growth has happened “less quickly than we’d hoped,” as Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth recently told Alex Heath.
All of this has led to significant changes beyond last month’s layoffs. Meta is shifting some of its massive spending from Reality Labs toward AR and wearables, and has reportedly shelved a lightweight headset optimized for watching video. Third-party headsets from Lenovo and Asus have been canceled and Horizon Worlds development resources are being redirected to mobile games.
Zim would still like to believe that there is something to it all. “Pulling (Horizon Worlds) back and allowing what is essentially an independent third-party app market to exist is a good thing,” he says. At the same time, he knows that the lack of a cash infusion from Meta could lead to an outflow of talent. And if the company decides not to release any subsidized, affordable headsets in the future, it could further hamper the VR industry.
“2026 is this bridge year,” Zim tells me. “It’s not just (about) surviving, but figuring out how to speak directly to your audience and put them in places that make business sense.”
For Another Axiom, that also means looking beyond the headset. The company last year hired former Scopely CEO Austin Ashcraft as its general manager of mobile, with Zim telling me that “getting into non-VR platforms is a hugely strategic and important thing for us.” These efforts don’t have to stop at mobile devices. “We’ve been working on a whole bunch of different, unique versions of the game that really hold the IP and what’s sacred about it, but we’re putting it into formats and media where it makes sense,” he says.
Last summer, Another Axiom also hired Michael Vogel, who previously worked on animated shows like My little pony and Strawberry shortcake at Hasbro and WildBrain. “We’re going to do a TV show,” Zim confirms. “We’re working on it.” He declined to provide further details, but added that the company has been producing its own web shows for YouTube for some time. “We get tens of millions of views on our owned and operated channel,” he says.
Another Axiom is also experimenting with new business models and this month launched a superfan subscription. Finally, the company is moving forward with plans to host its own real-world event called Gorillacon — something Zim cheekily teased as a possibility on LinkedIn a few days ago.
“We knew the fans wanted it,” he says. “It will happen.”
Again, Zim declined to share more details — but if you’ve ever spent time in the Chaotic World Gorilla brandyou will know it will probably be bananas.