Developer access and the shifting metaverse landscape

Accessing SpatialOS tools

Improbable provides developers with world-building technology through the SpatialOS Game Innovation Program. This joint initiative with Google provides credits to cover hosting, development, testing, and deployment on the Google Cloud Platform. Developers can sign up for the Game Developer Open Alpha to use these tools now. Automoton already used an open source integration with SpatialOS for its 1000-player battle royale title, Mavericks: Proving Grounds. Crytek also works with Improbable to create a fully-featured SpatialOS Game Development Kit for CryEngine. This partnership aims to help developers realize ideas that technical limitations previously stifled. The program helps developers manage the high development costs of immersive media by providing credits for the Google Cloud Platform. The criteria to determine qualification for this program remain non-public.

Meta’s mobile direction

Meta moves Horizon Worlds toward a mobile-exclusive experience. The company removes individual destinations from the in-VR store on Quest and separates worlds from the mobile app store. This change results in more impressions for other apps in the store. Quest users now boot to a grid of installed apps using the Navigator UI. This change follows a year of data collection and experiments. Third-party apps account for 86% of the effective time people spend in VR headsets. Meta invested nearly $150 million in VR developer programs in 2025. Will the removal of the Horizon Feed from the headset improve the user experience? You know that Meta changes its VR strategy frequently. Samantha Ryan, the VP of Content at Meta Reality Labs, says total payment volume on the platform remained similar year-over-year in 2025. Quest headset sales remain ahead of all competitors. Meta remains the single biggest investor in the VR industry.

The 2026 creator toolkit

The 2026 content creator toolkit contains various specialized tools for different production stages. Storyflow helps with planning and ideation for $7.99 a month during early access. A free plan for Storyflow arrives before the end of 2026. DaVinci Resolve provides a free professional version for video editing. For users needing the Adobe ecosystem, Premiere Pro costs $23 a month. CapCut provides pro features for $8 a month, and Canva provides pro tools for $13 a month. Claude and ChatGPT provide general AI writing support. The 2026 Creators’ Toolkit Report from Adobe found that 75% of social-first creators describe creative AI as essential to their work, even though 53% of those same creators say content volume makes it difficult to stand out. 87% of those creators said using AI accelerated their business growth. 63% of those polled said creative AI made them feel more confident as a creator. 40% of respondents say AI-assisted content consistently performs better. 34% of respondents say AI gives users more freedom to experiment. However, 53% of creators say that content volume makes it difficult to stand out. 42% of respondents blame AI-generated content for making it harder for unique voices to stand out. 60% of respondents report that AI outputs need moderate to extensive editing before they are ready to share. 90% of these creators want to obtain copyright protection for anything they make with creative AI. For those working in audio, Descript provides transcript-based editing for $12 a month for the Creator tier. For users requiring a visual workspace for all projects, Notion provides a free tier for personal use and a Plus tier for $10 a month. The toolkit also contains Frame.io for video review and feedback workflows. This study included creators from the US, UK, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, India, and Australia.