Rec Room AMA - the final AMA!

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Hey guys, we are back with a AMA.

[00:00:02]Unfortunately, this is our last one. I'm here with Gribly and uh Hey, >> this is a a very bittersweet thing, but I think it's a really good conclusion to uh Recck Room and just being >> It's Harry, you know what it is? It's the end of an era.

[00:00:17]>> It really is. I can't believe it. Yeah, >> me either. I know it's it's hard to know what to say really, isn't it? It's been a reck room journey and uh wow, there's so much that's you know that we've been through and since 2016.

[00:00:30]>> I know we've done so many of those video so many of these videos together. I had so much fun doing them with you, man.

[00:00:35]Thank you for doing one final one with me. I really really appreciate it.

[00:00:38]>> I've had I've had many many good laughs with you uh pretending to punch you out, going through all the different rooms.

[00:00:44]>> Yeah, we have >> answering your questions in the stupidest possible way.

[00:00:47]>> Well, one we got we got one last AMA in us, Harry.

[00:00:50]>> Yeah, this is uh this is bittersweet.

[00:00:52]And um yeah, thank you guys again so much for submitting all your questions.

[00:00:56]Grim is going to try his best to answer them as much as you can.

[00:00:59]>> Dodge and weave where I where I need to.

[00:01:00]Dodge and weave, >> right? Dodge and weave. Okay. Are you ready for that dodge and weaving though?

[00:01:04]Cuz there's some hard-hitting questions here.

[00:01:06]>> Yeah. I'm a little out I'm a little rusty, so I'll probably get hit by a few that I don't.

[00:01:10]>> Okay. All right. On to the first question. Let's go.

[00:01:13]>> I'm having so much nostalgia coming back onto this map. Like I remember the early days building this with the team. Like what an incredible job. Look how beautiful this map is and it's so many people have played this and enjoyed it over the years, >> man. It's it's incredible.

[00:01:29]>> The first question comes from the Holy Tree Man. What are your personal plans for the future and will you work on any new major projects?

[00:01:35]>> Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean that's a good question cuz yeah, we're definitely wrapping up Recck Room. You know, I think as we record this, we're about 48 hours from the shutdown.

[00:01:44]>> So, you know, so kind of amazing. So, thing number one, I'm going to take a little bit of a break. I hope. You know, it's been uh a long time working on Recck Room. It's been super fun, super amazing, but woo, it's been a lot. So, probably take a little break and then I definitely plan to make another game. I um you know, I don't know exactly what form that's going to take yet. I've definitely got another game in me. Um and I definitely want to make more music and release more music. Like, people keep asking me about that. Um it's been a really fun thing for me to kind of put out music and and see people stream it on uh on the OSTs and stuff like that.

[00:02:17]So, yeah. So, there'll probably be some weird Gribbly music to release. Um, would you I want you to do me a favor, Harry, because people keep asking me what's next.

[00:02:27]>> I made on my website. I made uh gribbly.org/hq.

[00:02:32]>> Okay.

[00:02:32]>> Gribbly.org/hq. And that basically is a place you can put in your email and uh it'll sign you up to a a mailing list.

[00:02:39]And if you want to know what's next from me and and I'll also include like, you know, other people who are working, you know, people in the extended Recck Room cinematic universe when there's new projects and things that people are doing, I'll kind of blast it out on that email. Um, and so yeah, if you want to know what's kind of happening for for me and the other Recck Room uh creators, um, uh, that's a good way to to uh to to stay uh connected. So to set expectations, you know, like this is not going to be a ton of I'm not going to be sending out messages all the time. like I I'm going to take a break like I said, but yeah, if you want to know what's next and you know when I've got a new game to announce, um that'll be a good way to do it.

[00:03:14]>> Question number two we got from Crystal Bunny. Genuinely, what happened to the 2029 plan?

[00:03:20]>> Yeah, so what Crystal Bunny is asking about is, you know, I think I think I got don't remember. I'm terrible with dates. Um probably anyone who has watched these AMAs over the years knows that I'm very bad with dates. Um, but a while back, you know, uh, I I talked about like, hey, we got a plan. You know, Recck Room is funded through 2029.

[00:03:37]Um, and we we're going to keep pushing, >> but obviously we're shutting things down a little earlier than that. You know, why why is that? And it's a really really simple answer, you know, like we we always were looking into the future of like, all right, we've got to get Recck Room from being a popular app that a lot of people are spending a lot of time in into being sustainably profitable, right? And we we had our moments, you know, we definitely had some good months here and there, but recck room was never sustainably profitable. And really the reason, you know, we're shutting things down earlier than we initially thought we might, even though, you know, we still have some funding and things like that, is that we basically tried all the ideas we had to reach sustainable profitability and just weren't really confident that any of them were going to work. you know, were like really trying as hard as we could to sell subscriptions and to sell uh in-game content and just not really getting the results we wanted. And so, we just couldn't really see a path to profitability. And so, we decided that rather than just grind it out uh and you know, just and and never quite get there, we would shut things down while we we were still in control of the situation, we could you know, uh look after the staff as best as we could. We could give people months of preparation.

[00:04:45]You know, we didn't just suddenly disappear overnight. you know, people have known that the shutdown is coming for a long time. We've been able to do things like let people download their rooms and download their creations and uh download the avatars they created. Um and so, you know, I think that's obviously it's it's sad news and we we don't want to be shutting things down, but if we have to shut it down, we're able to do it in the way that that feels good to us and that's why we're doing it now as opposed to, you know, in a couple of years when we're just truly out of money. You know, I I I wish it I wish it wasn't it wasn't what we had to do, but um if we have to do it, this is the best way to do it.

[00:05:18]>> All right, the next question we got is from Techie 804. Will there be an offline mode where we could do a limited amount of things like offline? And also, what is your favorite song in Recck Room?

[00:05:28]>> So, on the first question, uh sadly no, no offline mode. Uh when Recck Room servers are turned off on Monday, um that'll be it. You will no longer be able to log into Recck Room. There won't be an offline. So, so yeah. So, so that's really really the end of line.

[00:05:41]Um, in terms of of favorite song, um, that's a good question. Uh, had a lot of fun making a lot of music and and I should say like it wasn't just me who made the music. I did a lot of I did the bulk of the early music, but shout out to Radiant Blur who not only so so >> Radiant Blur uh, was kind of the lead designer for all of the early RROS, including Paintball. He was instrumental in making this amazing map. um along with Cloud and Alkar on the art team. I think we're really really instrumental building this one.

[00:06:11]>> Um and uh he played the iconic Ubie guitar part.

[00:06:15]>> Oh wow.

[00:06:16]>> That everyone knows. Um yeah, that was so that was recorded by him on a very beat up uh uh nylon string acoustic in a closet >> in the old recck room offices in Belltown on his own.

[00:06:28]>> Oh, that's awesome.

[00:06:29]>> So So that's that's an important one.

[00:06:31]And then then I took that uh that iconic guitar riff of his and and turned it into the first impression song that plays on the title screen today. So So Radiant Blur, you know, uh definitely helped out with the music. Uh Chasuya in the later years, um if you go on Spotify and look up the Recck Room OST volume four and five, um he did a lot of that music for things like uh uh Run the Block for things like My Little Monsters, you know, some great music there. Um, and also Slide uh 20XX was a local Seattle musician helped us. He did some things like the charades music. He did some of the iconic sound effects like when you res in and out of the room, the pew pew sound. Uh, that was Slide 20XX.

[00:07:10]>> Oh, nice.

[00:07:11]>> Um, who, you know, he's gone on to do all kinds of game projects. So, so thank you. Thank you to all of them.

[00:07:15]>> In terms but, you know, my favorite song I would have to say I looking back on it, I really I really think we did a good job with um, Crescendo uh, and is of lost. Those are probably my favorites. If you go on to Spotify and you listen to uh Piracy on the High Seas, which is on the volume one soundtrack, that's a favorite of mine. I think that's the battle music from Isisle of Lost Skulls when you're like, you know, throwing jugs and swinging your your sword around. Um I just think we got a good cinematic feel on that one. I feel good about that one.

[00:07:44]>> Yeah. And then in u then in Crescendo, I'm a big fan of the the Gavot of the Blood Moon. Uh that's also on the volume one if you go listen to that. I think that just turned out really good. It's kind of like fancy. I remember Cloud made this beautiful uh like lobby when you when you like halfway through Crescendo, you kind of get to this um like uh castle with all the like beams of light coming through. He just made this beautiful space and I think that and the music go together so well. I've always been fond of that one.

[00:08:10]>> Yeah, it just it really set the tone and the atmosphere going on a quest.

[00:08:14]>> People get hyped up and then a lot of the speedrunners just really just love just going through it and just, you know, getting everyone pumped up.

[00:08:20]>> So yeah. Oh man, the the the Quest speedrun community over the years have just completely blown my mind. It's been amazing to see how much people played those games and how how good they got at it. Just like absolutely incredible.

[00:08:31]Shout out to the speedr runners. Lily But Epic asks, "We've been told that 2019 that Recrim barely turned over profit, but the game blew up insanely in 2020 and 2021. Are you able to let us the players know where it really started to go downhill financially in any form?

[00:08:45]Was it influx or AI server cost or something completely different?" Yeah.

[00:08:49]So, it wasn't really any of those things. I mean, server costs were a big issue. The way recck rooms architected, it is uh fairly expensive to run. Um, but yeah, like I think what really happened, you know, like the game did blow up pretty big in uh 2021. That was really on the back of uh supporting uh screen mode, you know, so we could have PC players, console players, um mobile players, uh and you know, and the game got really big for a while there. But what we what we did a didn't do a great job of was was uh you know I don't like this word actually but I'll I'll use it cuz it it's how how the industry works.

[00:09:23]Um monetizing those players. We didn't do a great job of like you know asking those people for money. And so we had a lot of players but they weren't really giving us much money.

[00:09:33]>> Um you know compared to a lot of other online games you know like I think there's a question later about Roblox you know as an obvious comparison.

[00:09:39]They're just much better at uh at monetizing their user base. Um, and so yeah, as a result, even though we had a lot of players and were very popular, um, that wasn't translating into money and enough to to offset the development cost and the server costs. Um, and so that's really what it boils down to. You know, the uh the the math ultimately didn't math correctly. It was interesting at the time. I remember talking to players and doing some of these AMAs at the time. We would get questions cuz I think the perception was uh even at the time like because there were so many recck room Room players and Recck Room, you know, was pretty high profile at the time, everyone assumed that we must be just drowning in money and that was not really true.

[00:10:14]>> I'm looking at uh I'm looking at the the paintball leaderboard global alltime wins. Number one, the oat cake.

[00:10:21]>> Yeah, the cake.

[00:10:22]>> 27,000 wins.

[00:10:24]>> You want to know what position I am on the leaderboard?

[00:10:26]>> Guys, want to give a guess? Number 11.

[00:10:27]>> I'd love to know what people guess is. I am I'm going to I'm going to say it. I am number 676,412.

[00:10:35]>> Wa.

[00:10:38]>> That's an achievement. Let's go. All right.

[00:10:40]>> That really is an achievement. Yeah.

[00:10:42]>> Okay. All right.

[00:10:43]>> Yeah. This one cracks me up.

[00:10:46]>> We got to do We got to do an AMA here on this hill.

[00:10:48]>> Oh, heck no. This one. This is the worst. This is the worst one.

[00:10:53]>> You know how many people you made people cry playing this uh this course here? Oh my god. Everyone was everyone was so mad. So, you know, so I didn't do a lot of level design for Recck Room. That was uh >> you know that that was more like Radiant Blur and and the design team. But I did do this one and yeah, the the troll hole is my proudest proudest level design creation in all of Rec Room history.

[00:11:13]>> So this like this one really takes me back to this was the first thing that I really made with Odzilla.

[00:11:19]>> Oh. um who you know was with Rec Room the whole whole journey through um she's an incredible developer and uh and this was the first time I really got to work with her closely on something and we had a ton of fun making this map together uh including the troll hole. We we we laughed and we got in a lot of trouble from the rest of the team when they were play testing like what the hell are you doing? But yeah, really good stuff.

[00:11:40]>> From Willie Man. He asked if you could turn back time is there anything you would do differently to try to prevent the shutdown?

[00:11:46]>> H it's a good question. Uh, I think the answer is not really. I don't think so.

[00:11:51]I think, you know, we we we would we were trying to always trying to make the best decisions we could with the information we had at the time. I think the truth is Recck Room was always pretty much predicated on VR blowing up um in a way that it hasn't really, you know, like VR's continued to be pretty popular, but it it hasn't really exploded and become this huge mainstream hit that, you know, we really needed it to. Um, and I think if it had, Recck Room was positioned very well to, uh, to take advantage of that. But, uh, because it, you know, it didn't, it kind of reached a ceiling and then kind of plateaued. That's always been a headwind for Rec Room, you know, and always something that we've tried to work around, even though, you know, at its at its in its DNA, RecRoom wants to be a VR experience, and that's where it it really has always shined the best. I think the only other thing I might look at doing differently is um you know I think I sometimes on Reddit I see people complaining about the performance of Recck Room. You know like Recck Room is not always the most optimized game out there and I think that's true. And that led us to investing pretty deeply in the rooms 2 system. Like when we were like doing a lot of UGC stuff, um the performance uh you know the the the amount of stuff you could put in a room was always so low and we couldn't really let people build the kind of interesting cool experiences we thought uh they would want to. It was hard to make even something of like wreck room original quality like something like paintball quality with the UTC tools >> because of the performance. So anyway, long story short, we we put a lot of effort into rooms 2 trying to get that to be the solution to that problem and we never quite got there. Um, you know, a lot of good work, a lot of really smart people. We we did a lot of, you know, we really tried our best, but with the benefit of hindsight, I'd probably adjust the uh the balance there. And um and I think, you know, we we we probably neglected the existing systems a bit too much, chasing after the the higher performance of Room 2. So, I might do that a little differently, but I think, you know, like I said, we made the best decisions we could with the information we had at the time. So, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe we'd do that a little differently. But um but ultimately I think it's really all about the VR headwinds. You know, Recck Room Recck Room was right there. If if VR had exploded to be the dominant, you know, paradigm that, you know, like people aren't playing on PlayStation anymore.

[00:14:01]It's it's all VR headsets. I think we we were right there. We were struggling a little bit. something I'll always be proud of, you know, and that you were a part of and and all of the team was a part of is that, you know, whatever happens with the future of of Recck Room and immersive spatial entertainment and all that kind of stuff. Um, Recck Room is always going to be a part of that story. You know, there's always going to be a little piece of Rec Room decay in, you know, in in 200 years time when everyone's living in the metaverse and uh, you know, there'll be a little bit of rec room in there.

[00:14:28]>> You know, something you know, something I thought was really funny and that that my family thought was really funny was when um, you know, the show Mythic Quest.

[00:14:35]>> Oh, yeah. heard about that. Yep.

[00:14:37]>> Yeah. So, so Mythic Quest by the the Always Sunny guy. I forget it. Rob Rob Mcny. Anyway, they they did a pretty funny parody of Recck Room in one of their seasons. Um like season Yeah. They had a Recck Room parody. I'm pretty sure it was a Rec Room parody. It was called Play Pen. Had these like weird little avatars. Uh >> it was super funny. Was like that was a funny funny thing to think like look.

[00:14:57]Hey, Recck Room definitely made an impression like whatever else happens.

[00:15:01]Poppy the funny Australian game dev in that show that was her baby. I was like, "Yes."

[00:15:05]>> TGM Ethan, he asked, "I know this is most likely not going to be happen, but with the less and safe private servers of Recrim versions like Radium and Vanilla, are you guys maybe going to release an official version like those so we can create our own local private servers? It would be really cool if you guys would do that." No. The next question is from Septic Squid 956. He asks, "What's going to happen to the official Threadless shop? Will that stay up to support you guys in any way, shape, or form? What was your favorite part about working in Recrim? If you had one final message to all players, what would it be?

[00:15:34]>> H. All right, that's a three-part question from Septic Squid. Um, Threadless Store. I'm actually not sure.

[00:15:40]I think it'll probably get shut down.

[00:15:42]Um, so if you did want to buy something from there, I'd do it now. I don't know exactly when, but yeah, I wouldn't rely on that staying up. Um, second question, what was that? Favorite memory of working on >> Rec. Favorite memory of working room.

[00:15:54]>> I mean, look, I mean, I have a lot of really great memories of working on Rec Room. It honestly was like, you know, every every month brought something new and different and and I had a lot of great times and great laughs. The one that's coming to mind as you asked me the question is um like when we were making paintball clearcut um so the kind of like you know sort of lumberjack, you know, sawmill kind of vibbey one. Um I was doing the music for that one.

[00:16:16]>> Oh, you did?

[00:16:17]>> And uh Okay.

[00:16:18]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh and I remember wanting I wanted kind of like a kind of really guttural like kind of noise like so it's the whole team.

[00:16:28]>> So uh so so yeah after a team meeting in the old office in Belltown team was probably like 30 40 people at the time.

[00:16:35]Um, I kept everyone and I had my little a little portable voice recorder and I made them all kind of go at at the time and so I just have this had this memory of just like everyone kind of laughing and just thinking I'm the biggest idiot but having a good time doing it and just like yelling at the top of their lungs like and that's what you hear in the track if you go listen to the clearcut track. Um, you'll hear occasionally it's like it's got like an anvil sound and it's kind of like this kind of goofy song but it's got the whole team going and it's it's just a really fun memory for me. So the third question was if I had a final message, right? Like to to you know that's kind of a big question.

[00:17:08]I feel like that's a big responsibility.

[00:17:10]One is like a game developer answer and that just one is like you know I think a lesson of Recck Room is that you can create a lot of fun uh on kind of a shoestring budget. You know Rec Room's never been the fanciest game. It's never been you know the the highest fidelity game. especially on the audio side, you know, uh, Radiant Blur, uh, and myself, you know, we did all of the sound effects and music in the early days and we were just rubbing two sticks together, like, you know, he did he did that Ubie track recording it on an iPhone in a closet, you know. So, uh, you know, people love that track. So, it's like never be put off by like, you know, having the fanciest tools or having the fanciest graphics or whatever. Like, just make something really really fun if you're making a game. That's that's really the key to it. And then in terms of like recck room, you know, I think for me the biggest lesson of recck room has been um is that people are really looking for reasons to connect with with each other and looking for reasons to socialize.

[00:18:01]And it's been a really eye openening lesson and a really valuable lesson to see how how little it takes to get people to connect. Like I think I think everyone is waiting for everyone else often. Mhm. And >> so I think if I was to say something to people out there is like just just understand that kind of everyone's waiting for everyone else to initiate some kind of contact, initiate some kind of connection and you'd be surprised how little you need to do to get the ball rolling on making a new friend on making a new connection. So just kind of put that in your mind as a lesson from recck room. like so many people found a way to connect and it was because there was just the simplest excuse to get together and like play a goofy disc golf game or play a paintball game or just you know go and visit some crazy UGC room. It just takes a little bit. So, so don't be afraid of putting yourself out there making a new connection, making a new friend. You might be surprised just how easy it can be and how many people are actually looking to make that connection and just waiting for you to get the ball rolling. Capital campaign 462 asks, "What was the original vision for the park? I've noticed that there are multiple leaderboards projectors in the park with no real function. The other question is, do you feel investing in recal with the new seasons and items would have been good idea given how popular it was. So, let me do I'll go in reverse order. So, Recal season 2, I know there was a popular request. I doubt it would have made a difference to the, you know, financial trajectory of the company. I know people would have loved it. I know we would have enjoyed making it. And uh Mama Monkey saw this on on Reddit and she wanted me to mention like I think Almar was pitching for Recre Royale season 2. She had a pretty cool vision of like winter on Frontier Island, like a kind of winter Yellowstone kind of thing.

[00:19:37]>> Uh snow covered uh like and you're driving around on snowmobiles. She had a really smart idea like that means we don't have to have leaves on the trees and grass so the pur would be better.

[00:19:47]>> She wanted geezers that would like knock you up into the sky. So, I think I think we had there was had some fun ideas for it, but um but yeah, no, I don't think it would have made a difference if we'd done it.

[00:19:56]>> Um, in terms of the park, so the park was another one that Odzilla was responsible for for the level design and layout of that one, just like uh Disc Golf Propulsion where Ozilla and I made this one together like I was talking about before. So, she was uh really really instrumental in building out the park. And the reason it has those projectors and things in it is I think what we wanted and what we hoped for was that people would use the park and um and they would build on top of it kind of field games like you know you could play baseball or basketball or stuff like that. But I think two things we learned um one is you know I don't think our systems were really uh up to the task of making like a really good baseball game. You know our physics was never quite as good as it needed to be.

[00:20:36]So I don't think we really saw those.

[00:20:38]Um, and then two, something that really surprised us early on, we thought a lot of the UGC rooms um would kind of copy things like the park and build on top of them. But what we found was 99% of the UGC in Recck Room um was on top of the maker room. Everyone really wanted to start from the kind of blank canvas um is is kind of what we learned. So uh so yeah, the park never really kind of uh devel it was kind of a UGC uh inspired thing. It ended up being more of just a kind of fun social hangout uh space, >> but um you know, I think, man, I think I think I think uh Odzilla and the team nailed a a a real wreck room vibe in that outdoor space. It was really cool.

[00:21:15]>> Yeah, it was like it was very spacious but not too too big that people get lost, you know? It's kind of hard to explain, but it's like a really good social like environment, especially like the uh >> I remember I I remember too there was some early UGC stuff. I I remember the first time I became aware of Marica was when she built this crazy pirate ship and that was floating above that main field of the park and like we were like wo someone can do that with the makeup pan like that was crazy. Okay, so I thought we should get some footage of like the graduation statue that's in disc golf propulsion. This was kind of from back when uh you know we still kind of thought of the recck room world as kind of against gravity university as opposed to recck room. Um, and so we had this idea of like the science department and the way they would do like a statue is like it's the bean statue and it's all of the anti-gravity tech which is why it's kind of wobbling around like this. And this was like, you know, some some alumni student who's graduated has been honored with a statue. Thought it's a fun detail to point out on, you know, what is essentially graduation day for all of the rec room players is the the original anti-gravity the original against gravity uh uh statue.

[00:22:22]>> You got the ghost bow. Yeah, I used I used to brag about this until you guys brought it back. I'm like, "No."

[00:22:30]>> Oh, man. Let me think. So, Golden Trophy was the first quest we made, and I think, >> you know, with this in many ways, it was a response to paintball, which got really popular, but what we found with with paintball was like super fun, but it didn't really give people time to talk to each other or interact with each other. It wasn't It wasn't You weren't really going to make new friends playing paintball. I think people did. But um with the Quest, it was very deliberately designed like we like to be a co-op experience step one. So you're working together and then it was designed to have like moments like you got to gather up on the pad, you know, before you can go to the next room to get everyone together. So you'd have these moments where like there's no one attacking you.

[00:23:10]You've kind of cleared out the wave of enemies. You got to get back together as a group, which just leads to, you know, you're talking to each other. Um, we had the revive mechanic, so everyone had to like help each other by getting physically close and high-fiving.

[00:23:21]There's a lot of like design detail in in Quest that may not be obviously um, you know, I think if you're a game designer, you probably see it, but you know, like I think a lot of people maybe don't think about it how carefully designed it is to to be a social friend making experience. Um, which that was a very deliberate choice because it was like we don't and obviously people did figure it out. Again, shout out to the speedrunning community and people who can solo quest. I've never soloed golden trophy. It's too hard for me. I haven't.

[00:23:47]>> But um >> this hard.

[00:23:48]>> That's why that's why we made the quest so hard is so it forced you to work as a group, you know, again to to get people to work together and and have these incredible experiences. So when you finally got through to the end, you're like, "Holy, that was a lot." And you kind of like, you know, you want to hang out again, do it again.

[00:24:04]>> Capital campaign 462 asks, "Do you regret not implementing more of what the OG player base wanted like weeklies?"

[00:24:11]>> No, not really. I mean, I know I know probably people get mad at me about that, but like I think um again, I don't think it would have changed the trajectory of the app. I think we had kind of bigger headwinds and issues that we were dealing with and um you know, I don't think we were poised to do a really I I if I would have wanted to do weeklyies in a way where we could do a great job of them and I don't think we're ever in a position to do that really. So, so no, I don't really regret it.

[00:24:34]>> All right, the next question we got from Natty Lynn asks, "No questions, just say thanks for everything, Griy. I'll never be able to emphasize how much recrim back in 2017 it changed my life to be what it is today. Y'all really made it something really special.

[00:24:48]So, thank you for the nice words, Natty Lynn. I remember hanging out with you uh back in 2017. I remember hanging out with you in rack room. I don't remember which room, but you know what? I also remember hanging out with Natty Lynn in the wave for for OG Vive players >> who remember the wave.

[00:25:05]>> That's crazy. uh you know you kind of go have a crazy uh you know nightclub experience and I remember seeing Natty Lynn in there one night and saying hi.

[00:25:12]So uh so thank you Natty Lynn. Thanks for everything. Speaking of more OG players we got from Star Creon. He asked having context of the shutdown. Do you think everyone can create as a philosophy is well meaning but inherently a mistake. What I mean is that letting everyone publish rooms inventions etc. without much of a funnel or process to pass whether gatekeep achievement or payment meant that there was so much trash to weigh through in order to find gems. Not to mention the moderation cost of trying to contain inappropriate content as a result. Yeah, I think it's a reasonable question. I think maybe I'm naive and optimistic, but but no, I I I still think everyone can create is the right philosophy. I don't think at the end of the day we did a great job uh expressing that philosophy, and that's no shade to the team. I would put I would put that on my doorstep and Nick's doorstep. I I I don't think we provided the right uh guidance for the team to get this exactly right. But I do believe it's possible and I and I I do think that everyone can create like everyone's got access to the tools. Everyone can have a shot at publishing something is the right way to do it. I mean after all this is the way things like Tik Tok and YouTube work. um you know, everyone can have a go and you know, and all of these all of these platforms have the same kind of problems where like only only a small number of people can ever be popular on a platform. Um and you know, and if you're not getting popular, it it can be really frustrating and you can be really frustrated about the rules of the platform and you can be like, "Ah, look at this slop that's getting more popular than my stuff." You know, I think these are just inherent to UGC platforms. But no, at the end of the day, I think I if I was ever going to do something like this again, I would I would do everyone can create again. I think I would double down even stronger on it and I would really try and just do a better job of that. Um, you know, what is the discovery funnel for finding the best content that's I I you know, I think a lot of people did a lot of really smart work, but I would put it on really I put it on my own shoulders of like I don't think I ever provided the right guidance to get that exactly right.

[00:27:08]>> Oh, this is a tough question. Okay, this is one of those like hard-hitting questions, guys. Are you ready for this one?

[00:27:13]>> Yes, I'm ready. All right, let me let me set this stance. Okay, >> holding no uh let me hang on. Let me get a shield.

[00:27:18]>> Oh, >> I don't see a shield, but I've got a water bucket. That'll do the job.

[00:27:22]>> Oh, that's even better. Okay. All right, we got a water bucket now. All right, this is uh from Turbulent Suspect 862.

[00:27:31]He asked, "How much money did Nick, the CEO, get to run away with after deciding to shut down the game? How many times per year did Nick actually play the game himself after these horrible design choices began? And how much did it cost per year to run the game servers? And then he asked, "How much money was poured into the research and development for UGC Record Studio and AI features?"

[00:27:50]That is a really tough question.

[00:27:51]>> Spicy question. Spicy question. All right. Well, so all right, let's talk about it. So Nick Nick played the game all the time. Like Nick was really Nick was a huge fan of Rec Room. He spent a lot of time playing the game. um a lot on mobile in the later years, a lot in VR in the early years, but yeah, he was a fan of the game and and for a CEO, a really really good uh product thinker.

[00:28:12]>> Um just as one example like I that comes to mind is like it the original costume dummy where you like you would decorate it with the makeup pen and then press a button and it would go boop onto your avatar. That was Nick's idea.

[00:28:23]>> Oh, that was his idea. Oh my gosh, that's cool.

[00:28:25]>> Yeah. Yeah. He was the he was the one who suggested that and you know the team obviously ran with it and implemented and there's a lot of details to it but that was Nick's original idea. So you know he was a a fan of Rec Room. He spent a lot of time in there. Um so yeah definitely no concern there. I don't really feel comfortable talking about Nick's financial situation but I will say he worked very hard. Um and he always had the best interest of the team and the company at heart.

[00:28:48]>> Yeah.

[00:28:48]>> So you know look Nick and I I I stay in touch. He's going to do great things in the future. I'm I'm absolutely sure of it. So, uh, nothing but love for Nick.

[00:28:56]>> Um, in terms of how expensive it is to run the game, like I don't have the numbers. Like I'm a creative guy. I'm not really the numbers guy, but the answer is really expensive. Um, I, you know, just as one kind of like I can give you a detail like and and the servers cost a lot to run and we did put a lot of money into uh R&D of of UGC and all that kind of stuff for sure. Um, as an example, we we took a serious look once we knew the shutdown was coming. We took a really serious look at spinning out uh Paintball as a standalone app.

[00:29:27]Just like, hey, what if we just took Paintball? People seem to like that.

[00:29:30]Let's just make it a standalone app.

[00:29:32]What we kind of found though was like the server side of it, just cuz just because of inherently the way Rec Room works, the server side is really expensive to run.

[00:29:40]>> Mhm.

[00:29:41]>> It would cost a lot of money per month to run PayPal. And as a result, you would have to monetize it in a really quite aggressive way. Like you'd be asking players for a lot of money every month just to cover the cost. It's like not to make not even to make a profit but just to cover the cost. So in many ways like paintball has been subsidized by recck room all these many years you know so that we could afford to run it.

[00:30:03]Um so yeah so yeah the the way the app works is just inherently very expensive.

[00:30:08]Um and you know and as a result we're like we can't really see a way to make the economics of a standalone paintball make sense.

[00:30:14]>> Um but so that's an indirect way of answering the question to say like man really expensive. The next question we have is from Camping for Cats asks, "When will go-karts come to the game?"

[00:30:29]Next question. Okay, we are here at Make It to Midnight. Super fun game. But what what I think of here is like, don't yell at me, Ry Guy, if I got this wrong. I think this was like the first game we had Ry Guy direct. Um, and you know, really stepping up from being a designer on the team to like really owning the whole game. And man, he just crushed it.

[00:30:48]really did a did a great job. Ry Guy is an incredible game designer.

[00:30:52]>> Oh yeah. Really amazing. I remember when this game came out and people just love the atmosphere just immediately.

[00:30:56]>> Yeah.

[00:30:57]>> The setting and everything. So Ry Guy, thank you so much for creating such a instant classic for Recrim original. I mean, >> Bonkey is like, you know, now like like a meme in Recrim. So that's really cool.

[00:31:07]>> Great character. Great character.

[00:31:09]>> The next question we have is from I am Jaden YT asks, "Why are friend requests disabled during the shutdown?"

[00:31:14]>> Oh yeah. No, good question. So the simple, it's really simple answer. Um, friend requests, um, and you know, new accounts, we actually like turned off both of those for the same reason. Um, they're really big hacking and trolling vectors. Uh, and so just turning those off just really simplified things. You know, when we had a much smaller skeleton crew for the shutdown, we was like, look, this is going to be much simpler. Um, you know, the, uh, you know, everyone who's really really going to care about playing Recck Room has already got an account. um you know you probably a bad thing to create an account just for you know the three months before the game shuts down. So yeah that's why we turned that off was really just to to simplify the the kind of hacking and trolling kind of aspects.

[00:31:52]>> Oh yeah totally understandable. Yeah, I never thought about that. Pervasive Hedgehog asks, "What could have possibly been going in your life to think that AI art should have been in the game about creativity?"

[00:32:02]>> H yeah, no, good question and I know that uh that AI was controversial in Rec Room and remains controversial uh generally. Um and um you know what was going through our mind? Well, look, you know, I think AI, whether you love it or you hate it, it's an extremely powerful tool. I think it's a tool that's going to be here to stay. It's it's something that's got having a big impact in um in game development and software development generally. That's not to say it's all good, not to say it's all bad.

[00:32:30]You know, something that I I my feeling when I look at people talking about AI is I feel like, you know, it's a pretty polarized discussion. You've got people who are like AI boosters. They're like, "AI is amazing. It's the only thing that matters." Blah, blah, blah. And then you've got AI haters who are like, "AI is terrible. It can't do anything. It's it's it's all just awful." And I think, you know, really my position is is like, "Look, recp aspects and bad aspects." And I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

[00:32:57]Like, uh, you know, it's it's not all positives and it's not all negatives.

[00:33:01]You know, I personally, um, enjoy using AI for coding assistance, for example.

[00:33:06]you know, I think I find it a really I'm a very mediocre programmer. Always have been. Um, but I find that, you know, I can I can really explore game ideas faster with the assistance of an AI coding agent and that's really really powerful and and it enables my creativity. Um, but I totally get on the other hand why people are scheved out by like uh you know the fact that it's trained on so much human output without consent or or compensation. Like that's a big deal. Um, so I totally get why people have strong feelings around it.

[00:33:34]As for why we experimented it with with it in uh in Rec Room, I mean again it's like I think it is going to be an important part of the future and we really really wanted to understand how it would work and one of our company principles is when in doubt build it. We were in a lot of doubt so we were like let's go build it and I think what we learned is um certainly I mean in in AI years you know this was like what 18 months 2 years ago something like that um you know so the tools were not as as evolved even as they are now. I think we learned it's not really wasn't really ready for prime time in the context of of rec room. Um the token cost was very very high. We we with the exception of Roomie um we we struggled to find many things that were were even like revenue neutral let alone uh profitable and so those were all really good good lessons and yeah and definitely we we we noted that um you know with the the rec room creative uh population there wasn't a lot of appetite for it. People were not really clamoring for it. And I think some people, you know, played with it, but yeah, overall people were like, "Ah, not really interested." So, all all good lessons, but, you know, I I I stand by the experimentation. I think we had to go dip our toe in that pool and understand what was going on. I think we we >> we ended up understanding things a lot better um than than before we tried all of that. I get it. You know, I've I've said this to many people in, you know, like I'm I'm old now and I've been in I've been making video games for more than 30 years and um so I found myself in a lot of conversations with more junior game developers, you know, who are like trying to figure out like, man, what does this AI thing mean? Does this mean I don't have a job anymore? Like blah blah blah. And the way I've the way I've said what I've said to them is like to to me from my perspective, I was making games before the internet, if you can believe it. So, I was making games in the mid '90s before the internet had really really become a mainstream thing that most people had. And so, I kind of was in the industry um as that transition took place. And it has a similar feel. AI has a similar feel and that like man, it's like look, all of the traditional skills uh are still going to be very valuable. You're still going to have to know how to make a game. You're still going to have to have good taste. Um but it is going to transform a lot of things. It's going to make things that were expensive very cheap. Like like the thing about the internet is it made distributing your game which used to be extremely expensive. You had to physically manufacture a disc physically ship it.

[00:35:50]You know, it was incredibly hard to distribute your game to people. Suddenly the cost of that went to zero.

[00:35:55]>> We're seeing something similar with that with like generating code now. The cost of like generating code. Like for the longest time if you wanted to make a game, one of the most expensive parts was making the code appear. Uh cuz you needed to pay an engineer to do that. um that that balance is changing and it's not going to go away. It's just going to change. Like I would say the the availability of of free engines like Unreal and Unity have been as impactful on this on this front too because now all of your engine code is is much cheaper. Um so look, it's going to change things for sure, but I don't think it's like some existential event.

[00:36:28]The game industry for as long as I've been in it has been extremely flexible and adaptable and every year has been different to the previous. And the people who do it well in the games industry are the people who are uh the most adaptable and flexible, willing to learn new tools. So yeah, that would be my advice. Don't go to either of the extremes. AI is not the be all and end all. Uh and AI is is not something that's going to fizzle out and go away.

[00:36:53]The truth will be somewhere in the middle. Um and uh yeah, and that's why we experimented with it. Uh Clutch the Husky asked, "Was there any plans on the ideas for quests after Crescendo? If so, what kind of quest ideas were there?

[00:37:06]>> Yeah, we definitely had some ideas and uh and you know, man, if I don't really have many regrets. Uh but if I would love I would have loved if we could have made another quest cuz I am a a huge fan of that genre of experience. I think it really captured something super special.

[00:37:20]Um like I was talking about in Golden Trophy before. So one, we always wanted to do a sequel to Jumbotron. We wanted to do Jumbotron 2. I think that would have been really really fun. Like I think Jumbotron was just such a cool vibe um that I think that would have been really cool space to play in. The other one I know the team was excited about exploring was a western quest. So a kind of cowboy quest, you know, with like quick draw mechanics and like you know >> Yeah. I mean you would be dressed for it.

[00:37:45]>> And did that turn out to be a showdown at some point instead of like a quest?

[00:37:49]You think?

[00:37:50]>> Uh maybe. I don't know that there was much of a relationship there. Maybe maybe we're like thinking about that theme so that's why we ended up there.

[00:37:56]But um >> Okay. But yeah, the uh that I think that would have made a pretty cool quest.

[00:38:00]>> Oh, that's really awesome. Yeah, the first time I'm hearing that, that's that's pretty amazing. Question we have is from 3yx3 asks, "Will you all make the files open source so maybe people could host their own servers or perhaps in offline mode?"

[00:38:12]>> Uh yeah, I think we we've had this question in a in a couple of different forms. Uh no, >> I'm just a Justin. Okay. How many Justin have you met in your life?

[00:38:23]>> At least two.

[00:38:24]>> Two? Yeah, like a handful of dozens probably.

[00:38:27]>> Yeah.

[00:38:27]>> All right.

[00:38:27]>> They're out there.

[00:38:29]>> Uh he asked, "What mistakes did you learn?"

[00:38:32]>> What mistakes do we learn? Well, that's a broad question. Uh in life, in rec room, I think in rec room context, man, look, I I'm sure we screwed up a ton of things. Um you know, amongst getting a few things right. I think something that jumps to mind, I think an easy way to answer the question is I think we learned that UI systems are complicated and expensive to make. And I think at the, you know, with with 48 hours or or whatever to go before we shut the game down, I think we're at we are we are now at three separate unfinished UI systems in the game. Um, and so I think lesson learned is that like that is harder than I anticipated.

[00:39:09]>> Collector they asked, "Is there any chance of something happening with the game anytime in the future or can we safely guarantee it is finished indefinitely?"

[00:39:17]>> Yeah, this is the end of the line. I'm sorry to say. Yeah, I would definitely do not hold your breath for a sudden resurrection or anything like that. This is uh Monday, June 1st at noon Pacific really is the end of the line for record. I've been on a bit of a Beatles kick. You know, I grew up as uh listening for the Beatles as a kid and um and then you listen to like the Beatles solo career and George Harrison has an album titled All Things Must Pass and I think that's what we're experiencing for Recck Room. That'll be a really good montage to listen to, you know, while you listen to your >> If you go to Spotify, forget George Harrison, go and listen to Gribbly.

[00:39:51]>> Hey. Yeah, guys.

[00:39:55]A like this was a room we used for like during co when um you know, we were like fully remote and we were really using the game as a way to like have meetings and stuff. We would go into like the the boardroom, the conference room here in in the lounge and we would have like morning scrum in there. So, I remember like having always coming into this room in the morning like the start of the workday like really fun to kind of >> and um and then I also remember like way back in the day I wonder if we're even allowed to talk about this. Probably we are. Um we did a eye tracking prototype for um for Valve. Uh and uh and I remember like we used the the poker room as like we were like playing poker and like doing the shifty eyes and that was like a really fun >> thing. I saw I saw the gift for that.

[00:40:37]I'm like, "Whoa, when is that coming out?" And I just uh Yeah, it's pretty cool. Very, very cool concept, though.

[00:40:43]This is from Take Over Monkey 222. He asked, "Will you still make music?"

[00:40:48]>> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I talked about this um from that first question, you know, the kind of what do you what's going to what's happening next? Um yeah. No, I definitely look I I'm always going to make music. That's always been a hobby of mine ever since I was a little kid.

[00:41:01]So, I'll always be doing that. Um you know, it's fun. I think I'll use the Gribbly account just to kind of publish, you know, sort of increasingly weird less and less rec room related music.

[00:41:10]So, if you've enjoyed, you know, any of the kind of strange noises that I've made uh over the years, uh that's that'll be a good way to um to to listen to it. But yeah, no, I'm I'll continue to do that. And actually, it's been funny like a few people have reached out to me on Reddit and and um you know, in DMs on socials, and they've there's there's people who have kind of gone exploring and found like old Soundcloud tracks and Band Cam tracks that that I had uploaded years and years ago, way before Back Room, and they kind of come back and like, "Hey, we kind of like these songs." I was like, "Oh, that's kind of amazing. I'm amazed that people put effort in to find it." It was It's kind of funny. I honestly kind of forgot about a lot of that stuff. So, um, so you know, maybe I'll dust off some of that stuff and put it on, uh, put on Spotify or something. But, uh, but yeah, no, definitely definitely we'll make more music for better or for worse.

[00:41:54]>> Yeah, that would be awesome. Do you have a favorite like instrument, your go-to that that you like playing?

[00:41:58]>> Yeah, I mean, you know, people like, so I was chat chatting with people on Reddit about this and and someone on YouTube, I can't remember their YouTube name. Maybe I can send you the account, you could link to it. Um, there was someone who made like a pretty good explainer video of of how some of the rec room music is made. I use um software called Reason uh Reason Studios. I've used it for 20 years now.

[00:42:19]It's like, man, amazing piece of software. And a lot of the a lot of the rec room soundtrack that I did was was done with that overlaid with real guitar. So guitar is kind of probably my main real instrument that I play.

[00:42:30]Although increasingly um as I as I get older, I'm getting more and more into the piano. I love playing the piano.

[00:42:36]>> Uh the next question we have from Cheesecake Common 9080. He asked, "Was RecRum intended to be a direct competitor to Roblox when the room creation and screen mode came around alongside things like UGC cosmetics or was it a largely by coincidence inspiration that ended up being similar in a way that they are?"

[00:42:51]>> Yeah. So, I think it's a little bit from column A, a little bit from column B.

[00:42:54]Like certainly we didn't set out to be like we're going to make something like Roblox. Um, you know, we really recruit was kind of its own thing, but you know, as really the inspiration for for adding screen mode was much more VR chat back in the day than it was Roblox. We were like looking at VR Chat. They were a VR first app, but they had this really rich screen mode experience and we were like, hm, we could probably do that. Um, so that was kind of got what that's what got us thinking in that direction. Uh, not Roblox. It was it was more VR chat.

[00:43:21]Um, obviously once we added Rec Room Studio and, uh, you know, the product shape then became a lot more like Roblox. And so there's kind of just a lot of convergent evolution there where we're like, you know, oh, okay, we're starting to splash around in the same pool. you know, Roblox, you know, to to give them credit, that is a juggernaut of a product. Like they're that's an amazing product. Obviously, they have incredible user base. Uh they they do really well monetizing those users. Um you know, and so it it it it's a huge gravity well that, you know, I think we did get sucked into a bit and and we definitely had some Roblox envy for a while there. You know, made some things that were like, man, if we could if we could, you know, have some of their engagement, some of their monetization, that would be really healthy for us as a company. Um, I'm not sure it was always best for us as a product. Um, but no, we didn't set out to make a Roblox clone or anything like that. Um, we did, you know, we did pick a fight with Roblox and become a Roblox competitor, but yeah, it was kind of more convergent evolution than it was like that is our goal. I'm sure we're going to see some some recck room creators go on have some success in uh in Roblox or, you know, maybe in UEFN or or whatever. You know, it'll be beautiful to see.

[00:44:28]>> Typical Broski. Yes. Is there any meaning behind the recck room logo besides it being a smiling face with a headband? What did you make the game uh you are most proud of?

[00:44:37]>> Oh, okay. So, so that's two questions, right? So, one is what is there any hidden meaning in the recck room logo? I mean, yeah. So, it's actually it's actually three things. So, the recck room logo is meant to be number one, um it's like a court. It's like a tennis court. So, if you imagine the lines of a tennis court, that was kind of the initial inspiration. And then we're like, "Okay, using that style, we'll draw a smiley face cuz it's like, you know, happy, friendly, social place to be." And then C, the third thing, it's got the headband because for whatever reason, I was completely obsessed with headbands in the early days of of Rec Room. I think you part of it was like I probably people have heard me say this before, but like in the very early days of Recck Room, um, Cloud, our out director, and myself high-fived on the vibe of Recck Room being Wii Sports directed by Wes Anderson. That was kind of our our north star creatively. And Wes Anderson in the Royal Tenon Bounds, Wes Anderson has the kind of like iconic headband shots of like I think it's Owen Wilson and and some others. And so like yeah, in the early days of the rec room avatar system, I was like, we got to have a million headbands. They're still in there. Like >> that's actually >> So yeah. So it's so Yeah. So it's it's meant to be inspired by like a tennis court, but the lines are painted in the shape of a face and a headband. concept artist Terrence, who did that way back in the day, um really did a great job.

[00:45:51]We we've spent the next decade plastering it all over everything.

[00:45:54]>> I remember when I met Terrence for the first time, he he explained what the re logo was and he also said that was a plug too for the eyes to plug in your headset. I think that's what he said too. I'm not sure.

[00:46:02]>> Oh yeah, I think he had a thing about like the eyes being like a energy plug like you're plugging into social energy and plugging in your headset. Like there was a second part of that question, wasn't there?

[00:46:12]>> The other question was what did you make for the game that you are most proud of?

[00:46:16]Like me personally, yes. Um, >> oh, I don't know. That's like I mean honestly like like I I I always had the most fun doing the music like like you know like being being just being a a little part of the the RORO teams making the quests and and and things like Rec Royale was super fun. I think like I don't know if it's the thing I'm the most proud of but it's just triggering a memory of like making the rec roale music was super super fun because like I didn't know what to do for that. Like it's you know what are you going to do?

[00:46:44]Like but then I had this kind of like it was like this scout theme like it's Frontier Island it's like a boy scout camp and so I kind of had this thing it's like should be like a like a brass band like a scout band like a boy scout brass band and I happened to have a friend a high school friend >> um who now lives in in uh in Ireland who I hadn't seen since we were kids in in school together in Australia and uh I got in touch with him and cuz he grew up in the Salvation Army. He's a trombone player. He's and he now writes music for brass bands. And so I was like, "Man, how do you write brass band music?" And he like gave me all this all this advice about how to write for brass bands. And um and I used all of that to like, you know, make the synthetic brass band. Um and I was really happy with the way that turned out. And I was like, "Oh, that was kind of fun." So I'm proud of that.

[00:47:26]I guess when I talk to young game developers these days, I always say to them like audio is some of the highest return on investment stuff you can do.

[00:47:34]Like I think people sometimes sleep on audio and how powerful it is. Like both music and sound effects. Like in terms of like how difficult it is to create and how like complex it is technically it's some of the simplest stuff you know you're like hey look you play a wave file or whatever but in terms of the emotional impact and how it changes the experience it can be night and day.

[00:47:52]>> Mr. Enrich he asked is there a chance we could see more of early development or prototype builds of Recrim. I'm a big fan of the behind the scenes screenshots of the games that are really early in development. So we will see more of that type of content. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've shared some of that on the Discord over the years and you know, and with the shutdown, you know, like there's probably like stuff I I might have been like I would might have wondered if I could share it or not in the past. I I feel we'll feel free to do that. So, I'd love to do that. Question is where should I where and how should I do it?

[00:48:20]Um, maybe we'll have to think about that. I think a good place could be uh the recck room subreddit.

[00:48:26]>> I'm planning to keep the recck room subreddit running. Mhm.

[00:48:29]>> Um, like I I think I've posted this a few times with with our Recck Room. You know, obviously we won't have much to say about Rec Room the game anymore. My plan is to kind of use that as a space to post about uh projects um in the extended Rec Room universe. Like so from people who used to be part of Rec Room, used to be part of the team, like let's celebrate, you know, the next work they're doing. And and you know, we could also post fun things like, you know, here's old design documents. I know I know Radiant Blur has some great old like graph paper designs of like the quest layouts and stuff like that that you know there's probably three people out there who'd be interested. Baja, of course he's called Baja. This was I from memory this was the first you know you know was kind of we were always confused whether to call these RRO's cuz these were built with the UGC tools and this was the first room with the the first major UGC uh RRO that was built with rooms 2 and honestly my main memory is how incredibly painful it was for the team and what a great job they did pushing through like both the rooms 2 team who were who were building the support and the content team who were building the room it was just a herculean effort from all of them. And so I just I just shout out to them for pushing through and and and making something cool. And but then, you know, really the my main memory is like how delightful the world they created is. Um you know, the uh the the forest that you explore and the little play pen and of course the monsters themselves like that little Moth Man, you know, captured a lot of hearts.

[00:49:55]>> It really does.

[00:49:56]>> Oh yeah, Moth Man. Moth Man was a a fan favorite for sure from a lot of people.

[00:50:01]>> Yeah. I think if I think you know you know uh no no no no shade to to Sasquatches but I think Moth Man would win the popularity contest.

[00:50:08]>> All right, we have a question from Definitely Not Frank. He asks, "Excited for you to begin development on Flying Car Game 2 Gribbly."

[00:50:17]>> All right, >> so I definitely So definitely not Frank is teasing me about a game I made prerec Room. Um I made a I made a very little demo for the Ouya. If people remember the Ouya, it was the first Kickstarted game console.

[00:50:31]>> You made a game for >> like tiny little box. I did make a game for that. I made a flying car game >> which uh you can you can search it up on YouTube and find people making fun of me about it cuz of how basic it looks. But you know what? It was fun and I stand by it.

[00:50:44]>> Do you think if Reckum was a paid game with more RO with no UGC, whether it be different modes and maps and against Gravity worked on developing other games rather than just focusing on Recrim, y'all could have been become profitable.

[00:50:55]Um, so if we just made Recck Room a paid experience, uh, I think no, probably not. You know, obviously we'll never know like if we were to make other games. We never had banth like Rec Room like I think something another thing people maybe didn't really understand is how small the Recck Room team relative is relative how small the Recck Room team was relative to a lot of, you know, comparable things like Roblox or like Fortnite or anything like that. Like Uno was shipping on 9 10 platforms. uh all of this content the UGC platform like it was an insanely ambitious uh you know game and the team you know I think we you know we peaked at several hundred people but like for most of the game it was you know you know a couple hundred people at most that's a small team for the amount of stuff we're trying to do so it's not like there was really anyone spared that could be like let's incubate another game over here and you know look the games business is hard like if we had chosen to make another game there's no guarantee that it's a hit you know look I'm going to go make another game after recck room there's no guarantee that'll be a Um, you know, so you games industry is fickle. Games is is is a very, you know, creatively driven, hit driven business.

[00:51:59]You just never know, you know. So, it's really hard to say one way or the other.

[00:52:02]Like, hey, maybe we would have made, you know, a game that that blew up and and was, you know, huge, but I don't know.

[00:52:08]>> The next question we have is from Brain Dead Reesei 9,000. He asked, "Will the Recrim Discord be preserved? So many information regarding the rec room is still sitting there, and I feel like deleting the server would be a massive waste."

[00:52:19]>> Yeah. No. So, we will we will archive the Discord server. It'll be in readonly mode. So, you you'll be able to like go and look and and see, but you won't be able to make new posts. Um, and while we're talking about stuff like that, same for the YouTube and the Tik Tok.

[00:52:31]We're going to leave those channels up for for >> posterity. Oh, very cool. Yeah, it'll be pretty much a time capsule. So, if you guys want to go back and >> Oh, that's so sad. Just Just going back to look at memories again. Oh my gosh.

[00:52:43]>> Tubily VR, they asked, "What will happen to the console version of the game? Will there be an unlisted from the stores on June 1st or at that later date?

[00:52:52]>> Yeah, so definitely they will be unlisted from the store so you'll no longer be able to find it in the store.

[00:52:56]As for exactly when, I'm not sure. I'm uh with consoles and stuff there's often a bit of a lag between when you ask for something and when it happens. So I don't know exactly when that'll happen, but yes, you know, uh the the app will be delisted from the stores.

[00:53:10]>> New Bones Red, he asks, "Hi Gribby, I want to ask about your thoughts on the VR industry at the moment. I'm currently writing a paper that has a focus on current state of VR and I was very sad to hear that the announcement of the shutdown, especially with the VR studios being shut down and the major layoffs as well. Where do you see the VR industry going in the upcoming years? Will you continue to develop for VR and will you focus on elsewhere? That's a good question. Yeah, it is a good question.

[00:53:33]So, I mean, look, we talked a little bit in in one of the previous questions about, you know, how how Recck Room, you know, really was designed for VR and, uh, you know, it definitely would have been, I think, a much easier ride for us as a company if VR had accelerated and there was, you know, a couple hundred million headsets out there, um, as opposed to the, you know, tens of millions that there are. Um, so yeah, I think, you know, what do I see for the VR industry? like in the near term in the next few years, I think it's hard to see an explosion happening and suddenly VR in this form becoming this incredibly popular thing. That said, you know, there does seem to be, you know, a really core audience there that, you know, the the Quest audience is is is very very solid. There's a lot of people playing on the Quest. I think Meta remain, you know, fairly committed to it. You know, they're obviously pulled back a little bit, but um, you know, they they they say they're going to ship another headset and, um, they they remain committed to it. Um, so, you know, I I think it's going to be more of the same. You know, I think I think it's going to be a slow boil. Um, I have had uh I've been lucky enough to to try out the Steam Frame. Um, which that's a great headset. You know, I wouldn't expect it to revolutionize the VR market, but it's it's a great headset and I think that's, you know, for people who are into VR, that's going to be a very exciting moment when that when that becomes available. Um, but yeah, but I can't I I think we're just going to see it kind of like just kind of plot along like it has been. I don't think we're going to see this amazing hockey stick moment that'll really change the trajectory of VR. I think if we were going to see that, we would have seen it by now. I think, you know, to give Meta some credit, I think, you know, headsets like the Quest 2 and the Quest 3 are really great headsets that are about as good as this form factor can be. They're easy, they're convenient, they work well. Um, you know, I'm I'm a big fan of them. Um, so I think if we were going to see that explosive growth, we would have seen it. Um, I think the fact is that there's a lot of people just don't like putting the headset on. You know, it's just a barrier. You know, even myself, I've had some great times in VR. You know, created incredible memories in Recck Room and in other VR apps. It's like an incredible thing. Um, but even I'm too lazy to to put my VR headset on quite often. It's just so much easier to play on Steam Deck or, you know, browse YouTube on my phone or whatever. And I think that's just that's just a fundamental challenge for for the current wave of VR headsets is that that activation energy of just like, man, there's so many other things to do. Do I want to put the the the headset on, go find the controls, make sure they're charged? It's just a it's just a challenge. And so I think, you know, so my prediction is I think we'll see it kind of just continue to to potter along the way it has been. There are a lot of companies looking at what is the next form factor, right? you know, kind of going after more like the glasses form factor, which I think is very much targeted at at resolving that activation energy problem. I think if we can see some compelling products there where it's like you can have a questlike experience but in a glasses form factor, I think that, you know, then I think you, you know, that could get interesting. I think, you know, that might be the next opportunity that VR has to see some real growth and and and appeal to a lot more people. But until that happens, I think we'll see pretty flat uh VR um growth, unfortunately. You know, I'd love it. I'd love it if it was different. But I but yeah, that's that's what I see in terms of what I do next.

[00:56:46]Uh my next game won't be a VR game.

[00:56:49]>> Oh, it won't be. Okay. All right. You guys hear heard it here first. The next question we have is from Nexus VR1234.

[00:56:56]They ask, "Genuine question. Do you think you'll make more music outside of Recrim?"

[00:57:00]>> Oh, well, I think we kind of covered this one. Yeah, absolutely. Um, grebly.org/hq if you want to if you want to know when.

[00:57:07]Um, yeah. No, absolutely. I think um I have a ton of fun doing it and um and you know if there's anyone out there who wants to listen to it, even better.

[00:57:14]>> King 1046. They ask, "I like to add a onto this. How was Recrim's music made?"

[00:57:20]>> Oh, yeah. Well, we talked about that a little bit, too. So, yeah. So, I use Reason for that. How about this, Harry?

[00:57:25]I think you and I should collab on a recck room soundtrack video at some point where we can go through >> we should go through and be like let's let's pick one of maybe maybe you could uh talk to chat figure out who wants what what rec room song are they most interested in like maybe one of the quest soundtracks or a paintball song or something like that and we can literally go in and do like go in and like unpack it how it works how it was made all that kind of thing.

[00:57:51]>> Oh that would be so cool actually kind of a really breakdown of it. Yeah.

[00:57:55]>> Yeah.

[00:57:56]>> Everyone in in chat, please comment your favorite songs and then upvote the best ones and we'll definitely take a look and it would be so cool to see a a really cool breakdown of how the music is made. Uh Craigella, hey Gribbly, what has been your favorite memory while working on Recck Room? And also, is there a specific moment where you and the team realized they had a real game on their hands? Um, well, I mean, I think I talked about a favorite memory like, you know, recording the team doing the music. That's always so fun. One that always comes back to me too is like and and probably this is an answer to the second question. I think in the early days, you know, we were really nervous, you know, we were I was posting on Reddit just be like, "Hey, come play test our game. You can you can still see those posts in our vibe." I saw someone dug them up like with me posting 10 years ago like, "Oh, we've got this weird thing called Recrim. Come and check it out." Um, and you know, and I think we we just didn't know. It was kind of like throwing a party like we we put the servers up. We put it out there and you know people just started coming into you know I think it was the locker room at the time or the very early rec center and it was just amazing to see people turn up and I think what the time I realized that we had something special was like a couple of weeks in and we realized that recck room had never been empty from the moment we we opened it up to allow people to come in. It had never been empty. There was someone in it 24/7. That ended up being true for years with the exception of of server outages.

[00:59:13]I think it's true to this day with the exception of server outages. recck room has never been empty since the first day we turned it on, which is incredible to think about. Um, and I remember like playing disc golf and justing around and coming across these two people who turned out to be French brothers or cousins or something, I can't remember.

[00:59:31]And they were just sitting at a picnic table and chatting with each other. And I kind of was like, they're not even playing disc golf. And I went over and chatted with them and they're like, oh yeah, we just use it to hang around and like we catch up and we're just chatting and like he moved away for for college or whatever. And uh and I was just like, "Holy this is there's something special going on here."

[00:59:49]>> Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:59:50]>> It was a few a few things like that just like early on just kind of like seeing, you know, these interesting people from all around the world and just being like, you know, they're just like it it was starting to take on life beyond anything that that we were providing.

[01:00:02]And I was like, "Yeah, we got some something special is happening here."

[01:00:06]>> All right, this is our last and final question to the AMA. All right, this is from Fearless Couple 4800. He asked, "What are the devs going to do after the shutdown? Any new projects or you all go your own ways?"

[01:00:18]>> Yeah, man. Good question for the final question of the final AMA. What What's going to happen for the devs? So, first of all, just let me take this as an excuse to shout out the incredible Recck Room team. Like, this has been really the honor of a game development career uh to work with this team. Some of the most amazing developers I've ever worked with have been on this team. So many people put in so much uh amazing work, creativity, dedication. I just want to say thank you to all of you. Anyone who worked on the recck room team. I love you. Thank you for everything you did.

[01:00:49]This was an amazing ride. I hope you're proud of what we achieved together. Uh because you should be in terms Yeah. So what are people going to go and do? So look, I already am aware of some new game teams that are forming. Um it's not my place to make announcements on their behalf, but I know there are some things brewing. Yeah. So I so I know there'll be announcements coming up. Um, and so one thing I wanted to say is my plan is to use our recreck room uh as a place to kind of like just post and continue to to notify people about projects from recck room alumni. So as those things become ripe and ready for people to talk about, that'll be a good place if people want to check there. Um, and also that that Gribbly uh gribbly.org hq link um you know when people have got games to announce or cool stuff is coming I'll be sure to like mail out to to anyone who's interested. So that'll be a way to find out. But yeah, I think you're going to see um a whole bunch of, you know, Recck Room uh Recck Room DNA and Recck Room thinking and Recck Room heart and soul kind of go out into the industry and and really start to influence other games and create new games. Um you know what something that I'm incredibly delighted by is seeing some people who joined us in on the Recck Room team. you know, really as as brand new developers fresh out of college, you know, I'm thinking here of of people like Saras or Carthage who, you know, really, you know, came to us as brilliant youngsters and I've got to work with them over the years as they've become incredible seasoned developers who are going to go and do amazing work on their next thing and that that makes me incredibly proud and happy. Um, so I think you're going to see some amazing things from the Rec Room developers. I I can't tell you what it's going to be yet, but I know it's going to happen. I think I think that that'll be part of Recrim Recrim's legacy is is what the team goes on to do. And you know, and while and look, while I'm saying thank you, um, you know, I have to say thank you to the players. I have to say thank you to the community. I have to say everyone who was a part of Recck Room. I've said it.

[01:02:40]How many times have I said it, Harry? Is like Rec Room is nothing without the community. Nothing without the players.

[01:02:45]That's so obviously true. So, if you were a part of Rec Room, thank you. I I love you for playing. Uh, I I I really hope you go on to find the best version of your life after recck room. We're all kind of graduating, you know, and going on to the next level as as coach said in her very heartfelt farewell. So, yeah.

[01:03:02]So, I I just wish everyone the best. Um, I I hope you find what's best for you. I hope Reck Room was something that brought you joy. Um, I think it was in one of our AMAs, Harry, um, where I spontaneously said that, you know, I think one of the questions was, you know, what does Recck Room mean to you, Gribbly? And I think my spontaneous answer just off the cuff was um RecRoom is an explosion of love and creativity all around the world. I think, you know, I really think that's what it's been and I'm really proud of that. You know, I think there's an energy that was created around Recck Room that that people really took to heart. Um and that makes me feel really really happy and really really blessed. And so just thank you to everybody for being a part of Rec Room.

[01:03:38]You know, it's it's it's sad in a way that it has to come to an end, but I think it's been a beautiful thing. Um, and lastly, thank you to you, my friend, for for doing one last AMA with me. I really appreciate it.

[01:03:49]>> It's my pleasure. And, uh, yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way. Just to say that thank you so much for just in this whole journey.

[01:03:57]>> So much Lis cuz you know, all these years, but I just I just want to say thank you to the community. You guys are very inspiring and uh, we love to see it you explore that, you know, elsewhere as well. So, >> all right, go forth and be creative. Go forth and give it your recck room best.

[01:04:12]And yeah, this is now the end of Recck Room. Thank you guys so much for sharing your adventures with us. We all graduated and remember, give it your reckon best out there. Goodbye everybody. Bye.