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Today was the first day of Rec Room’s annual conference, Rec Con. The company unveiled the latest features for Rec Room users and future plans. It will also continue until the 25th with various events, panels and special rooms.
Rec Room CCO and co-founder Cameron Brown announced Rec Room Studio in his opening remarks. This new Unity-based feature provides creators with new tools.
The company also announced other things like Rec Room’s standalone PC client. It is also working on a new Rec Room Original, a 4v1 monster escape scenario with four people versus a player controlled monster. It’s also launching a virtual haunted house to celebrate Halloween, the first of its kind apparently recognized by the Haunt Society.
Recreation Room Studio
The company’s biggest announcement, Rec Room Studio, brings new creation tools and the Unity Editor to room makers. According to Rec Room, creators can access features such as asset import, Unity Terrain Editor, Unity ProBuilder, custom sound, and more.
In an interview with GamesBeat, Brown said: “Adding Rec Room Studio to the mix does several things. It gives our creators access to a whole host of professional game development tools — not just the Unity editor itself, but the constellation of apps from which it can import – Blender, Photoshop, etc. We think it gives our creators a path to gain experience with an industry standard tool. We know that many of our creators pursue careers in development, so spending time with these tools is for them an investment in that goal, and of course it immediately improves the reliability and complexity of Rec Room rooms, benefiting all of our players.”
Future of Rec Room
Rec Room also revealed some of the milestones it has reached in its lifespan: for example, it has accumulated more than 82 million monthly active users in six years. It also paid out $1 million to creators in the first half of 2022.
When asked about the near future of Rec Room, Brown said: “It’s very important to us that creators feel rewarded for their efforts, which we believe come in three flavors. First of all, it has to be fun to create in Rec Room!We will continue to invest in the creation tools and systems and try to make them as enjoyable as possible.Secondly, every creator wants an audience for their creations – you want people to see your work and you want to get feedback.That’s why we watch our various recommendation and discovery systems to ensure that all of our creators have a chance at an audience, and we’re also overdue improving our tools that allow creators to connect with their subscribers.
“Finally, we’re very happy with our payout program, where our creators can cash out the tokens they earn. We’ve seen a huge increase in that program over the past year and it’s something we want to continue to grow.”
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