The number of discoverable search apps has more than tripled with the addition of App Lab

Meta has begun the process of merging App Lab’s “unlisted” apps into the main Quest store, tripling the number of discoverable apps.

The App Lab, as many of you know, is the holding area for apps that were not self-selected by the Meta to be included in the main Quest store. Until now, App Lab apps have effectively been ‘unlisted’, meaning they can’t be discovered in the Quest store unless you have a direct URL or search for the exact app name.

After years of this separation as the status quo, Meta has recently begun merging App Lab with Quest’s main store, making App Lab apps discoverable through broader browsing and search terms.

Before this merger, there were about 660 apps in Quest’s main store. While this is by far the largest library of VR apps on a standalone headset, it pales in comparison to the additional 2,200 apps that are hidden away in App Lab (data courtesy VRDB).

With App Lab apps now included in the main Quest store, users can now find more than 2,860 Quest apps. This more than triples the original number.

Why Meta Made App Lab

Meta’s initial decision to sequester App Lab apps was to ensure that only high-quality and original VR experiences (in its judgment) were shown to users. Apps that were smaller, less polished, or experimental would remain hidden in the App Lab. This left developers to figure out how to drive an audience to their app without any help from browsing or recommendation features (although Meta continued to take the same cut in revenue).

And while it’s true that many of the apps you’ll find in the App Lab are few and far between, there are also plenty of gems—many of which garnered enough attention to be promoted to Quest’s main store. In fact, one of the most popular Quest games to date, Tag Gorillait became a viral success long before it moved from the App Lab to the main Quest store.

But, developers have argued, perhaps such apps would have found success sooner if they hadn’t been hidden in the first place.

A watershed moment?

Despite the inclusion of 2,200 new apps in the main Quest store, developers are unlikely to see a new increase in traffic. Meta is still maintaining a separation between the two sets of applications; users browsing the store will have to browse purposefully to the Lab app section to find that set of apps. But here, at least, Meta is making an effort to curate this large group of apps into browseable categories, similar to how it does in the main store.

In the future, Meta says it plans to disband the App Lab section entirely, completely absorbing App Lab games into the main Quest store. At this point, the company will likely continue to mark some apps as ‘experimental’ and rely entirely on curation to make key content more visible. However, with the walls broken down, hopefully there will be a more direct route for surprise hits like Tag Gorilla to bubble to the top.