The despair among Rec Room players is real.
Users of the popular social gaming platform expressed their disbelief and sadness over the demise of the Seattle-based company, which announced Monday that it is shutting down on June 1, and that some of its assets are being acquired by Snap.
Rec Room — ranked No. 49 on the GeekWire 200 ranked index of the Pacific Northwest’s top startups — surged in popularity during the pandemic and was once valued at $3.5 billion. It attracted 150 million lifetime players who have been creating and sharing games, virtual goods and experiences across phones, consoles, PCs and VR headsets for a decade.
In the Rec Room Discord server on Tuesday, thousands of posts illustrated the impact that the loss of the gaming app will have on players. Many questioned whether the news was a joke, what went wrong, and where they will go now for such entertainment and community. Similar conversations were taking place on Reddit.
We rounded up a number of reactions from a variety of threads:
“If it is true, I guess thats it. Ive had alot of great memories in rec room and its really sad to see it finally shut down. From 2018/2019 I started playing. Or during the lockdown era in other words, I will surely miss this game from the deepest parts of my heart.”
“its an experience that i dont think could ever be recreated, whether thatd be because of the charm of the style and theming rec room had from the beginning or rather just the cost and difficulty of running something of this scale.”
“I grew as a person on this game from 2017 to 2025 lol… Earned money on it learned to code learned to model learned alot.”
“My 17 y/o son who had been playing almost 6 years came in to tell me it was shutting down and even asked if he could come home early from school that day so he doesn’t miss the shut down…he is BUMMED!!! He was in a few bands that play regular “concerts” and he been part of habit live streams, room tours, costume builds and even whole band costumes. I HOPE something can be done to keep it!!!!!”
“Rec Room was a game where it was clear the devs really ‘got’ vr (at least, pre-2021, many newer updates felt more catered towards screenmode). Small things like weapons locking in your hands and being able to pick stuff up from a distance is done so well in rec room and i still havent found another vr game that genuinely feels like it understands how to make a vr game comfortable to play.”
“This is such a sad day for all of us… This is such sad news about the fact that Rec Room will shut down on June 1st, i’ve been an avid dedicated player of this game for the last 4 nearly 5 years. I have Autism, it is difficult for me to get out of the house and this has been a safe environment to play with my friends who are also autistic. To lose this will be like losing a friend, but definitely losing the connection that has been so important to me over the years.”
“my friend group literally only played rec and we bonded so much over the stuff we can do in this game. theres no other game like rec room and its really a shame its shutting down cuz i doubt there will be another game like it.”
“This all feels so bizarre. I heard the news last night, went “oh well they did this to themselves” and went to sleep. I woke up this morning super happy (since I actually managed to go to bed at a decent time), then I remembered the news and this day just doesn’t feel real. This shutdown probably hurts me the most as it was a VR game and I felt like time slowed down when I could put on a headset and be heavily immersed in a whole new atmosphere that I could never experience in real life.”
“I started playing at a low in my life played for six years. I’ll never forget recroom I met my best friend on there who I will forever keep in contact with I learned how to build got good at it too.”
“i dont think anything will ever replace recroom the people who played vr for recroom will probably stop playing vr in general when recrrom dies there was nothing to me that felt as fun as recroom.”
“I think we should all just try and have fun with the game still being up right now and we should all just be happy that recroom was a fun experience yet it unfortunately has to go.”
“its good to move on. its upsetting and sad but like we have the memories they were good.”
Related:
- Rec Room shutting down: Once valued at $3.5B, social gaming platform finds profits elusive
- Snap acquires assets from Rec Room as social gaming platform announces shutdown
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