Rec Room lays off "roughly half" of staff as priorities shift away from broad UGC

• Rec Room has laid off "roughly half" of its staff as "a business necessity".
• The remaining team will focus more on Rec Room Originals.

UGC-based virtual reality platform Rec Room has laid off "roughly half" of its staff.

Among those let go are employees who have worked at Rec Room for years, helping build the platform "line-by-line".

Rec Room co-founder Cameron Brown assured this does not reflect the talents of those individuals affected, but was "a business necessity based on the financial trajectory of the company". He suggested that cutbacks are required to give Rec Room a chance to thrive moving forward.

Employees are being offered "generous" severance packages to leave the company, with every person departing set to be paid for three months thereafter. They will have the option to keep their work computer or laptop in order to find new work.

The impacted staff have been promised six months of health benefits.

Shifting priorities

Rec Room has invested in creation tools across PC, consoles, mobile and VR, but has seen a large disparity in the platforms used to create "impactful" UGC experiences.

PC and VR have been more successful, while creations on mobile and consoles have struggled to reach other users, despite the millions of pieces of content produced.

"This put a huge strain on the team, who had to figure out tools and procedures to review it all," Brown acknowledged.

Looking ahead, Rec Room intends to invest more into official games by the team, called Rec Room Originals. This will initially mean new features - some free and others paid - in existing games on the platform like Paintball.

Long-term, if the financial model proves successful, the remaining team may begin to make new Rec Room Originals.

Furthermore, work on Originals will shift from using Rec Room’s own UGC tools to Unity.

"We are not abandoning UGC," said Brown. "But we are narrowing our focus away from ‘everyone can create’ in favor of serving our very best creators. The closest analogy is Sega stepping out of hardware to focus on games. A large, painful, but necessary change.

"Today Nick and I had to make one of the toughest choices in Rec Room history. We’re saying goodbye to about half the Rec Room team. These are incredible people who have poured their talent, heart, and creativity into this company. They shaped our culture, built features loved by millions, and made Rec Room better in so many ways it’s impossible to count. We are heartbroken to see them go."