Rec Room is soon removing access to its limited ‘Junior Accounts’ on Quest, effectively blocking kids 12 and under from playing the social VR game on any of Meta’s headsets.

Rec Room says in a statement that Meta is requiring the social VR platform—and all apps on the platform—to block access to children 12 and under or be removed from the Quest Store, which is slated to go into effect November 14th.

Rec Room’s Junior accounts provide limited access, stopping kids 12 and under from doing things like transmitting or hearing voice audio, sending or receiving in game text messages, damaging teammates in quests, or even playing charades since juniors can’t see or share drawings or maker pen creations.

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This isn’t a Rec Room-wide blanket ban on Junior accounts though, as kids will still be able to play on other supported platforms, including smartphones, consoles, and other VR headsets not controlled by Meta.

Technically Meta doesn’t allow kids under 13 years from creating accounts for its Quest headsets, saying in its safety guidelines that Meta Quest devices “are not toys” and that younger children have “greater risks of injury and adverse effects than older users.”

Still, it’s clear kids get ahold of Meta headsets and the requisite ’13 and older’ accounts somehow, so it seems Meta is making a wider push to limit liability.

The move to ban younger kids from accessing Rec Room on Meta headsets likely doesn’t represent that large of blow to the social platform’s overall userbase. Back in April, the studio revealed it had reached 3 million monthly active VR users, a majority of which were using Meta Quest 2. The studio said however active VR players represented a “pretty low percentage” of the overall platerbase, which access the game through platforms like iOS, Android, PlayStation, and Xbox.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    excellent news for PCVR!
    #1 PCVR game will get even more PCVR users.

    • Wes Osborne

      For once your prob right. But on flip side I am looking at pico more now,. I have been in support of oculus because it brought vr to the masses but now it seems it’s killing one of the most popular apps it has on the q2. Or at least trying
      Yes there are clearly kids that don’t need to be on there but there are a lot that are superstar future devs and have solid values.

      • ViRGiN

        killing rec room? that’s crazy. they are just trying to protect the kids and image. when kids grow older, they will be able to play it again.
        on pc there are no restrictions, steam does not care even about rampant racism in their own games. TF2 was filled with sex bots, n words and all sort of crazy stuff, for like months if not years. maybe it’s still going on, i’m not up to date. pavlov pc is filled with infants, running around with guns in half naked avatar, sieghailing all day long.

  • Zachary Scott Dickerson

    cool, can’t wait to tell my two kids that they soon wont be able to use their 2 quest 2 to play rec room… the only game they use it for.

    • Wes Osborne

      Rec room is an amazing game and community play with my kids all the time this is a move by meta to attempt to squash it in favor of its pathetic horizons

      • ViRGiN

        you have read and accepted terms of service, right?
        you purposfully broke them, and when meta starts enforcing what you agreed to, now they are the bad guys?

        • Frank Burt

          Okay, grandpa

  • Eh-jhey

    I get that this sucks for the kids that aren’t troublemakers in VR. But at the same time, the policy has always been 13+. It just hasn’t been enforced before now. Companies unfortunately have to do this for legal reasons. What happens if they get a lawsuit regarding underage use? Suddenly Meta would find itself having to defend why and how an underage user got into their platform to begin with.

    It’s a tough call to make, but ultimately I agree with it. fI would like to hear some valid arguments from the other perspective of ignoring the age policy.