Unity Cube It's an objectively terrible game, made to test the limits of Quest content for the App Lab program, which was not curated by Meta. The experiment continues to prove its worth; after Meta dissolved App Lab, Unity Cube has been moved to the main Quest store, showing that Meta doesn't really interfere when it comes to the scope or quality of what can be listed on the VR game store.
For a long time, the only official way to distribute an app on Quest was to submit it to Meta for manual review. However, Meta only accepted apps that met vague quality criteria, such as how much content the app offered and whether it was properly polished. This made it harder for developers to get smaller or experimental apps in front of the Quest audience, and led to significant developer pushback for a more open process.
This led to the creation of the 'App Lab', an alternative distribution approach for Quest that allowed developers to submit apps for distribution without any judgment on quality or scope. However, it came with the caveat that App Lab apps would not be shown on the main Quest store, leaving developers to direct their audience to the app's page.
To test whether Meta really interferes with the quality of App Lab apps, developer Tony “SkarredGhost” Vitillo Unity Cube.
As the name suggests, the app is an empty Unity environment with a grey cube that you can't even interact with. freeThis app would never make it into the main Quest store. But could it make it into the App Lab?
Indeed, Meta allowed Unity Cube By entering the App Lab, it proved that just about anything is allowed into the program as long as the technical requirements are met and content guidelines are followed (i.e. no adult or illegal content).
It was good news that developers could submit any app to the App Lab for distribution on Quest without worrying that Meta would block an app for being incomplete or insufficiently polished. But the feeling persisted that this 'unlisted' Quest store made it unnecessarily difficult for developers to find customers.
After several years of App Lab, developer pressure eventually forced Meta to terminate the program, eventually merging the App Lab store with the main Quest store. This meant that anyone could submit an app of any quality to the main Quest store, where customers could browse and search for it.
Last week Unity Cube completed its journey and was listed in the main Quest store along with other App Lab apps, proving once again that Meta doesn't really interfere with curation.
And while it's still possible for developers to mark their Quest apps as “Early Access” (to tell customers to expect something experimental or unfinished),Unity Cube “It's not even in Early Access because it's perfect as is!” joked its creator.