We’re all familiar with the process when it is about the Oculus Storefront and its strict curation. This is how we maintain the quality of games and apps top-notch, and keep poor-quality apps from getting past. This makes it difficult for independent developers to publish their VR content on Oculus.
To combat this, Oculus recently announced a new program called “App Lab” to give independent developers an official place to publish their VR content without having to go through the rigorous curation process of the Oculus storefront. The App Lab is very similar to the Oculus storefront. You can browse and download apps in the same way as you would in a traditional virtual storefront. However, it’s much less controlled.
If your app performs well in the App Lab, it might be pushed to the official Oculus storefront where it can gain more attention and more people to download it. However this isn’t just based on the number of downloads, but also on other factors like retention metrics and long-term profitability, the development team, etc.
If you’re looking to explore the full range of Oculus Quest apps, we recommend you to enable developer mode on your Meta headset and then try App Lab. There are lots of interesting games and experiences waiting to be found, including well-known non-games such as Tilt Brush, which turns your headset into a virtual art studio. Quill Theater is a cool VR media app that showcases amazing 6DoF animations and movies created by the community.
https://renderingwithstyle.com/2021/12/29/oculus-rift-game-design/
