How Gorilla Tag made it big in Quest’s not-store

Over the past year, a free game called Gorilla Tag has become one of the most popular titles on the Meta Quest 2 headset. Yet it only recently launched on the Quest store. Prior to that, Gorilla Tag was available on Quest’s App Lab, a distribution platform separate from the main store where developers can get their apps directly to their consumers.

For those who haven’t tried it yet, Gorilla Tag is a multiplayer title where the player’s locomotion is completely linked to the use of his hands. They move, jump, and climb using hand movements only, rather than moving their bodies or using the controller’s joysticks. Player avatars are cartoonish facsimiles of gorillas – hence the name. There are currently four game modes, three of which feature tag or tag-like gameplay (the fourth is a casual socializing mode).

The game launched on Steam Early Access and Sidequest in February 2021 and debuted in Quest’s App Lab in March. At the time of writing, it has generated $26 million in revenue from in-app purchases on App Lab. The highest number of active users per month is 2.3 million, while more than 760,000 users played the game on Christmas Day.

According to developer Another Axiom, the game achieved this level of engagement with almost no direct marketing. Gorilla Tag users have used word of mouth – or rather social media – to talk about the game, with TikTok being a particularly big factor. The game also currently has over 52,000 ratings on the Quest Store and is listed as the most popular.

Planet of the Apes

Gorilla Tag creator Kerestell Smith said he came up with the locomotion first, and later with the game’s primate concept. “When I first prototyped that move, I showed it to some friends. One of them suggested, ‘Hey, it kind of looks like a gorilla walking around.’ I didn’t want it to revolve around gorillas at first – it’s not like gorilla is my favorite animal or anything But it’s so evocative of the way you move People really understand what it means to move like a gorilla, and you don’t have to explain it so much.”

Smith told GamesBeat that he started working on the game in part because of his fondness for Echo Arena and his desire to play tag in that game. “When Quest 2 first came out, we thought how cool it would be if you could play tag in a big, open space. After working with this locomotion, I was again thinking, “What if we added a tag?” Once you could talk to someone, see them, chase them, tag them, it was great… I never expected the game to be a success, but from the very beginning I knew it was great.”

He says the game spread quickly through word of mouth and that the game offers a social element. “People are so enamored with it that they just want other people to share it with them and show it to their friends. That’s my assumption about why it’s grown so much. He added that Gorilla Tag’s VR platform helps with the immersion. “I think it’s almost crazy that VR hasn’t taken over the world yet…. This isn’t just a video game you load up and play – I think that’s why people seem to love Gorilla Tag so much.”

David Yee, COO of Another Axiom, told GamesBeat, “Contrary to a lot of public discussion, VR is in a really good place right now and getting better. As Kerestell often points out, the hardware is already great at what it can do. That Gorilla Tag can be a success means that VR is successful. A message we want to share for the VR industry is that it is possible for developers to have a meaningful hit in VR and the audience wants content.”

Gorilla Tag is currently available on the Meta Quest store and Steam, and it’s free to play on both stores. It also offers in-app purchases.