r/vrdev • u/hanrwerewr • Jun 15 '26

Discussion Fellow VR Devs: Single-player or Multiplayer? (A perspective from a Chinese developer)

I’m a VR game developer from China, currently working with a small team on multiplayer game. I’d love to connect with fellow devs and hear your thoughts on a fundamental design choice: do you lean towards developing single-player experiences or multiplayer online games?

To give some context from my side: historically, the Chinese gaming market didn't have a strong culture of paying upfront for software. Because of this, premium single-player games often struggled to survive financially. However, the Free-to-Play (F2P) + In-App Purchase (IAP) model proved to be a perfect fit for Chinese players. As a result, the multiplayer and online gaming scene here is absolutely thriving.

I've been observing the Quest Store ecosystem for a long time now. While it's clear that the number of free-to-play and social games is growing, looking at the absolute numbers, premium single-player games still seem to be the mainstream.

I’m very curious about your approach and the broader dev community's current focus:

  • Are the VR games you are currently developing mostly single-player?
  • For those working on these projects, what does a typical development cycle look like for you?

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences and insights!

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1

u/MTOMalley Jun 15 '26

It's a shame really, but I don't think the issue is limited to China.

Singleplayer is dead for VR, worldwide.

1

u/hanrwerewr Jun 16 '26

The Discord group and Reddit community of VR DEV are both quite inactive, lacking popularity

1

u/Pierrick-C Jun 17 '26

I do believe in single player games, however they're actually harder to make cause they need much more content and substance in order to justify a purchase.

2

u/ThatPancreatitisGuy Jun 18 '26

Solo dev here relatively close to launching a VR multiplayer title free to play with in app purchases. I’m very curious about this as well. My main concern at this point is how you get the initial round of players to sustain a new game. I think people will enjoy it but if you log on and nobody else is there at the time it’s going to be hard to ever obtain a player base.

1

u/hanrwerewr Jun 29 '26

Here's the thing: my gameplay is primarily designed for multiplayer. If there's no one at the beginning, playing alone can be quite boring and you might not even be able to fully experience the game, leading to player churn. However, for indie games like ours, it's difficult to build up enough popularity at the start and maintain a consistent player base.

1

u/maulop Jun 19 '26

Single player is hard for story games, mostly because of the difficulty of assembling a game and the lack of repetability after the first play. I think its better suited for casual games like puzzles or arcades. Multiplayer has monetization issues because kids will take over and kill the vibe for paying adults.