The social gaming platform drew more than 150 million players over a decade of operation.
SEATTLE — Rec Room, the social gaming platform that drew more than 150 million players over a decade of operation, announced Monday it will permanently shut down on June 1.
The company said it could not find a path to profitability even after building one of the largest user bases in social gaming.
“Despite this popularity, we never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business,” the company said in a statement posted to its blog. “Our costs always ended up overwhelming the revenue we brought in.”
Rec Room was founded in 2016 by Nick Fajt, Cameron Brown and other co-founders under the name Against Gravity. The startup built a cross-platform social gaming app that let players create and share games, virtual goods and experiences across phones, consoles, PCs and VR headsets.
Rec Room laid off 16% of its staff in March 2025 and then cut roughly half its remaining workforce five months later, eliminating 141 positions and shrinking from about 310 employees to just over 100.
The company blamed the “recent shift in the VR market” and “broader headwinds in gaming” for its inability to turn a profit. It’s not alone: Meta announced this month it was scaling back its Metaverse and shutting down Horizon Worlds, the virtual reality social network.
Users logging on Monday found the platform already beginning to wind down. Rec Room immediately blocked account creation, friend requests and new subscriptions to its Rec Room Plus membership. Token purchases will end May 1, creator earnings will stop May 18, and the platform will go fully dark at noon Pacific Time on June 1.
Cameron Brown, Rec Room’s chief creative officer known to users as “Gribbly,” “often described Rec Room as ‘an explosion of love and creativity all around the world,'” the company wrote. “We hope it was that for you. It certainly was for us.”
Rec Room users can download their photo archives and a personal “final report card” via the platform’s website before June 1. Gift cards can be redeemed through April 30, and unused balances can be refunded through June 15.
