Quest App Lab Passes 500 Apps, Nearly Doubling Those on the Main Store ~ VIRTUALITY

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Back in February Oculus launched App Lab for Quest which allows developers to distribute their games on the headset without going through Oculus’ curation process. There’s now 501 games and apps available on App Lab, nearly double the number of apps on the main Quest store.

Update – August 10th, 2021

There’s now 501 apps available for Quest via App Lab, according to submissions tracked by App Lab DB. In just six months, the number of apps on App Lab has nearly doubled the number of apps on the main Quest store, which stands at 298 after more than two years of operation.

The discrepancy shows that many more developers would like to be on the main store than Oculus allows. To date we’re only aware of one app that made the leap from App Lab to the main Quest store.

Quest App Lab games tracked on App Lab DB

App Lab apps are functionally ‘unlisted’ (unsearchable) in the main Quest store, but receive a normal store page which can be accessed directly via a URL and installed with a single click once logged in, just like any Quest app in the main store. The difference is that Oculus picks and chooses which apps to include in the main Quest store based on some qualitative criteria, while App Lab apps don’t need to meet any specific bar outside of being technically sound.

Since its launch on February 3rd, and reaching 501 apps as of today, Oculus has approved an average of 2.7 apps per day to App Lab, which is up slightly compared to the first four months of App Lab. The main Quest store sits at 298 apps. Given the time since the launch of the main Quest store, that’s an average of 0.37 apps added to the store per day.

For additional context, the number of Oculus PC applications sits around 1,800, with Go applications also at 1,800, and SteamVR applications around 5,000. Though all of these platforms have been around for years longer, none of them have been subject to the sort of curation that Oculus has imposed on Quest applications in the headset’s main store.

Below is a breakdown of the top 20 App Lab applications by rating and popularity.

Best Rated Quest Games in App Lab

The rating of each application is an aggregate of user reviews and a useful way to understand the general reception of each title by users.

Rank	Name	Rating (# of ratings)
#1	X-BOOSTER	4.9 (56)
#2	HAX Demo	4.9 (52)
#3	Puzzling Places – Beta	4.9 (725)
#4	Smash Drums	4.8 (127)
#5	Ancient Dungeon Beta	4.8 (720)
#6	Sport Mode	4.8 (1,764)
#7	Ragnarock	4.8 (73)
#8	Arcaxer	4.8 (66)
#9	iB Cricket	4.8 (60)
#10	Help Yourself	4.8 (70)
#11	Crazy Kung Fu	4.8 (138)
#12	MarineVerse Cup	4.7 (61)
#13	Guardians	4.7 (136)
#14	TO THE TOP	4.7 (61)
#15	Smash Drums Demo	4.7 (185)
#16	Sep’s Diner	4.7 (50)
#17	Hitstream – Demo Version	4.7 (58)
#18	Deism	4.6 (431)
#19	Battle Talent	4.6 (313)
#20	Gorilla Tag	4.6 (3,467)

Most Popular Quest Games in App Lab

The number of ratings gives a ballpark idea of the relative popularity of each title; a title with more ratings is likely to have been downloaded more than a title with less, though there’s certainly an unknown margin of error.

Rank	Name	Number of Ratings (rating)
#1	Gorilla Tag	3,467 (3.6)
#2	Pavlov Shack Beta	1,868 (4.5)
#3	Sport Mode	1,764 (4.8)
#5	Puzzling Places – Beta	725 (4.9)
#4	Sport Mode	720 (4.8)
#6	Deisim	431 (4.6)
#7	Battle Talent	313 (4.6)
#8	Gun Raiders	287 (4.6)
#9	Crisis VRigade 2	229 (4.6)
#10	V-Speedway Alpha	201 (4.1)
#12	Gladius	179 (4.5)
#14	Gym Class	143 (4)
#13	Crazy Kung Fu	138 (4.8)
#15	Guardians	136 (4.7)
#11	Smash Drums	127 (4.8)
#16	Smash Drums	127 (4.8)
#17	Aim XR	127 (4.6)
#18	Crisis VRigade	114 (4.2)
#19	Painting VR	112 (4.6)
#20	The Unity Cube	58 (4.1)