Why the Meta Quest Store’s Poor Design is Hurting the VR Experience
First of all, the Meta Quest library has grown a lot over the years and now boasts a great selection of games in all genres. From shooting zombies with your pet dog to commandeering a spaceship, the options are great at this point. But there is one problem, it’s getting harder and harder to find any of these games due to the layout of the store.
Just 3 days ago the Quest 3 had a flagship release in the form of Hitman 3, and whilst the game may be terrible, it isn’t front and centre on the store like it should be. It’s buried beneath layers of menus, when I tested it just now I had to use the search function to find it. This is a game that Meta hyped up as a massive release, so why isn’t it easy to find?
It didn’t always use to be this way, things used to be better, not great but better. But that all changed a few months back and Meta made a baffling decision to ruin the layout of the store. This was when Meta decided to heavily promote Horizon Worlds and try to push people to try it out.
Now when you open the mobile app you are not presented with games, you are presented with various Horizon Worlds that most people are simply not interested in. To even get to the games section that most people are interested in, you need to tap the tiny tiny suitcase at the top left of the screen. When the update first happened it took me a while to even find the games store instead of the countless Horizon Worlds.
And when you do finally get to the games section it doesn’t get much better. And this is down to increasingly baffling decisions Meta has taken for their store. So what’s wrong with it?
App Lab Games
Before App Lab games came to Meta Store a few months back it was seen as a good decision. Before this was the case, the store was seen as too restrictive, and people were not happy that all these brilliant games from smaller developers were hidden away on the SideQuest store. So now these developers have the option to get these games on a proper marketplace.
However this has come with a caveat, whilst there are some gems on the App Lab, due to the nature of these games being made by small independent developers, a lot of them are not great. So now we have a huge number of shovelware flooding the store making the good games hard to find.
Poor Layout and Navigation
On top of this the store itself is insanely hard to navigate. Look at how Steam or the PSN works, it’s easy and simple to find what you are looking for. You can easily choose New Releases, the genres are properly grouped and the sorting options are easy to use. None of that is the case on the Quest store.
On top of this some truly baffling features are missing. Why don’t we have the option to view the trailers in full screen? Why is the amount of space required so hidden away? This is important information and it makes it feel like Meta is shooting themselves in the foot and lowering their own sales.
How can Meta fix the store?
In order for Meta to fix the store, there are a few things they need to do.
- Put the games front and center. Whilst Horizon Worlds has potential and is an interesting concept, ultimately it is just a chatroom with admittedly poorly designed worlds that done match what we get from some of the games available for the Meta Quest. When you open the app, we should be seeing the games themselves are at the forefront, not the countless Horizon Worlds we currently get.
- Separate the App Lab games fully from the regular games store. It’s good that App Lab games now have a proper market place and are easier to obtain. But in its current form it is just flooding the store with poorly made shovelware. If we want to see App Lab games there should be a separate tab that lets us search for those games.
- Fix the navigation and layout issues. I am no UI designer but it has been almost 20 years since Meta made Facebook, it’s not as if they don’t have world class UI designers available to fix this. Make it easier to search the store, mimic how the PSN Store and Steam work and make it easy to find key information about the games instead of the cluttered complicated layout we have right now.
The Meta Quest Store has grown alongside the impressive library of VR games, yet its current state is frustrating for users. Meta’s focus on promoting Horizon Worlds has shifted attention away from the games, leaving many hidden behind poor navigation and cluttered menus. Combined with the flood of App Lab shovelware, the store has become difficult to use, even for flagship releases like Hitman 3.
To restore the store’s functionality, Meta needs to prioritize games, separate App Lab content from the main marketplace, and overhaul the navigation. Simplifying the layout and making games more accessible, as seen on other platforms like Steam or PSN.
