Boneworks Developer Discusses Why Studios Aren’t Focused Solely on PC VR

If you’re active in the virtual reality scene online, you’ve probably seen people advocating for more high-end PC VR content as the key to advancing VR. However, Brandon J Laatsch, the mind behind Boneworks and Bonelab, recently shed some light on why developers are not rolling out VR games that demand top-tier PC specs.

In a candid exchange on X, Laatsch posed an intriguing question: when people envision PC VR, what specifications are they really imagining? With the Quest 3 already matching or even surpassing the CPU, RAM, GPU, and drive speeds of what was considered high-end back in 2016, he wondered what benchmarks should be set for 2025.

Laatsch further shared some industry insights, noting that investing $10 million in developing a VR game is a risky endeavor unless there’s a strong market to justify it. To break even on such a sizable investment, a game priced at $40 would need to sell about 416,000 copies—a target that remains elusive for most VR titles.

Even as the landscape sees new developments like the broader store access and Horizon Worlds, most VR developers see the Quest platform as their primary revenue stream. Ignoring it would necessitate a significant budget cut, which would inevitably result in a smaller, less ambitious game. According to Laatsch, finding the right mix of resources and targets can feel like piecing together a complicated puzzle.

A glance at Steam reveals a telling statistic: less than 2% of its users engage with a VR headset each month. This figure rises marginally to under 3% if you account for users in China, but it hasn’t budged significantly over the years. For VR games with high production values to truly thrive on PC VR—without backing from platform giants like Valve—this user base would need to grow substantially. Some enthusiasts were optimistic that a new Valve headset might help, but rumors of a hefty $1,200 price tag have dampened those hopes.