Summary
- The Meta Horizon Store was flooded with shovelware when the App Lab was folded into the main store, and submission guidelines were relaxed.
- Native gaming is what makes the Meta Quest 3 an appealing prospect, so it has a lot to lose by not cleaning up its store.
- Identify Meta Quest 3 shovelware by avoiding monkey-themed games, checking website credibility, and using Quest Store DB filters.
Curation has been a challenge for many digital gaming storefronts, but the Meta Horizon Store for Meta Quest headsets is a uniquely pernicious case as its junkification has been borderline intentional. Here’s why this happened and how you can still find the best new releases.
Why There’s Shovelware Everywhere
In 2024, the Meta Quest Store became the Meta Horizon Store as part of an OS overhaul. This wasn’t just a confusing name change but rather a philosophical shift regarding what the storefront should be.
Prior, Meta was sort of running two stores: its curated collection on the Meta Quest Store, and an underbelly called App Lab. This allowed developers to get their experimental or in-development (“early access”) games to reach Meta Quest owners without the barrier of sideloading. These games weren’t promoted by Meta but could be found on the Meta Quest Store by searching for their exact names or clicking URLs.
Of course, creating a hidden Wild West also paved the way for shovelware dealers with a penchant for copying popular Quest Store titles. The key was that, because they weren’t visible beyond using third-party databases, few people complained. This changed last year when the Meta Horizon Store indiscriminately merged the App Lab with the curated collection, flooding it with a deluge of junk.
The crux of the new direction—as said by Meta—is that “all titles will still need to meet basic technical, content, and privacy requirements to publish to the [Meta Horizon] Store.” Put otherwise, quality is no longer a concern as long as the game contains no malware, doesn’t override OS functions, and fits within content guidelines. Shovelware saw this green light and stepped on the gas, becoming the majority—if not the entirety—of content added to the store on any given day.
It doesn’t help that the most-played VR game, Gorilla Tag, has many of the visual traits of shovelware. Because its developers offer the game’s source code for free, trash peddlers have been enabled to slap its movement system on Unity assets, throw together a basic environment and submit. While I find it admirable that Gorilla Tag’s developers are so community-minded, this is one instance where going open source backfired.
All of this is to say nothing of the inclusion of worlds for Meta Horizon Worlds being presented on the store alongside stand-alone games. It’s yet another factor that obscures games from real developers who deserve a fair chance at success.
Shovelware is nothing new to gaming platforms. Steam and the Nintendo Switch’s eShop are also brimming with it. As industry leaders, those platforms should really do a better job with curation. However, as industry leaders, they’re also afforded the luxury of having massive user bases and a steadier stream of real games that nullify the impact of fake games.
It goes without saying that the Meta Horizon Store is not competing on that level. There are simply fewer great VR games being made, and those that do are sold to a smaller install base. This should mean extreme curation that incentivizes developers to develop for the comparatively niche platform, yet shovelware does the opposite by making it tougher to stand out. It’s no coincidence that VR studios are shutting down or shifting focus toward more commonplace gaming platforms.
PC VR and sideloading will always be options, but that assumes the user has a powerful gaming rig or is comfortable injecting unauthorized software onto their expensive headset. Part of the Meta Quest’s appeal is its ability to natively run games at a high quality, so it’s crucial that Meta provides a store experience that complements this. So far, it’s done the exact opposite.
How to Spot Fake Games
If all this has you wondering how to spot shovelware on the Meta Horizon Store, here’s what to look for.
The first rule is pretty specific to this store: if the listing has anything to do with a monkey or gorilla, look away. These are almost guaranteed to be clones of Gorilla Tag using that game’s open-source code, or cheap attempts to cash in on the virality of its legless primates. Most of these games are completely identical uploads that quickly become easy to spot. It’s worth noting that other popular kid-friendly games like I Am Cat see a similar treatment, which itself exposes the predatory underpinnings of all this.
Next, if the store image or screenshots seem suspect, check the website listed under the “additional information” section. A popular choice for fake games is using Google Sites, though since this may also be the best option available to real developers on a budget, it’s worth double-checking. However, if the store page links to a Google Doc, that’s code red.
You can also check reviews, though this becomes tricky business as they’re easily faked. Games with no or extremely low ratings are often shovelware, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, no real game is going to maintain a perfect five-star ranking; you only get that through fake reviews. There’s a lot of gray area ripe for misinterpretation here though, so I’d consider it one of the last places to sleuth.
One surefire way to get more info on a game is if it’s available on Steam. This alone is a good sign that it’s not shovelware, and a Steam page offers you a larger pool of reviews and community discussions to garner information from. Keep in mind when doing this that the performance, fidelity, and even contents of native Meta Quest 3 games may not match its PC VR equivalent. If one includes issues that the other doesn’t, this could be why.
Use Quest Store DB to Filter Out Trash
Quest Store DB is essentially an alternative browser for the Meta Horizon Store. It’s most commonly used as a way to track ongoing sales, but it also has powerful filters that allow you to sort the store by virtually any possible criterion.
For the purposes of filtering out fake games, sort games in descending order using the birthday cake icon. Then, click the filter drop-down menu and slide the price up to $0.01, removing the typically fake free listings. You may also want to set the release status to “released” to remove pages of upcoming releases appearing before existing ones. One last criterion to consider filtering for is rating, but remember that shovelware can still circumvent this with fake reviews (or even negative real reviews).
It’s not a perfect solution for browsing the store without shovelware, especially as real free-to-play games get the boot using my method. However, it shockingly slices the number of listings on the store by well over half, going to show just how much sludge is out there.
Meta does have a “new releases” page, but I’ve found this inconsistent. It regularly passes over real games while including the most obvious of shovelware. It’s too bad the company can’t even get this right given its erstwhile penchant for curating.
There Are Still Great Games Released Regularly
What makes all of this shovelware particularly unfortunate is that many great games still get released without any fanfare. Early access games also don’t get listed as new releases upon launch, which can make them near-impossible to spot if you aren’t already keeping tabs. Even Quest Store DB can’t help you here.
Meta needs to do a better job not only of culling the shovelware that has overrun its store but also spotlighting new releases that stand a chance of keeping its user base engaged. While I don’t believe that VR is anywhere near dead, it can only continue to trend in that direction without providing discoverability for its best and brightest. Meta’s current strategy does everything but that.
If Meta doesn’t want to play curator, I’ll try my hand at it instead. In my forthcoming Meta Questing series, look for weekly features on How-To Geek highlighting the Meta Quest 3’s best new releases.
