COMPANY INDUSTRY

Ready At Dawn Studios Gaming

ECHO VR CASE STUDY

HOW READY AT
DAWN USED OCULUS
PLATFORM FEATURES
TO RAISE ITS GAME
By integrating multiplayer features, the developers of Echo VR on Oculus
have attracted more weekly users who play with their friends and come
back more often.
 2% 10%
+ ~
HIGHER WEEKLY ACTIVE MORE USER SESSIONS WITH
USERS THAN CONTROL A FRIEND THAN CONTROL
At Facebook Reality Labs, our data shows nearly half of Oculus Quest users
(48%) play apps primarily used for multiplayer gaming; the reason why is
presence. When users are in VR with one another they feel physically together,
which makes the experience both immersive and exciting.
We want to get more players into your apps so they can be entertained by
your experiences. In the past, user access was limited solely to those who
jumped into an app, which constrained the multiplayer population to an app’s
concurrency. We’ve created new multiplayer features that enable your users to
invite one another across VR and mobile to play seamlessly.
Echo VR was one of the first apps to
integrate multiplayer features like
destinations and group presence,
roster, invite to app, and invite link.
In the months post-integration, the
game has seen an incremental 2% lift
of weekly active users, ~10% higher
user sessions with a friend, and a 3.5%
increase in the number of users who
come back to play compared to control.
ECHO VR CASE STUDY
USERS CAME BACK TO THE APP
3.5% MORE OFTEN
THAN CONTROL
EVOLVING ECHO VR’S
SOCIAL EXPERIENCE
Echo VR lets users play as robots and
compete in high energy, zero-g combat and
sports games. The app was initially built on
an in-house multiplatform engine with its
own networking stack, service, and server
infrastructure. This evolved the game beyond
competitive multiplayer and into a social VR
experience — users could land in the game’s lobby and socialize. However, in-
house infrastructure limited users’ social controls and caused user churn.
“We built our own social features because we wanted to tailor the experience, but
we were missing out on opportunities to attract new players,” says David Neubelt,
Project Lead for Echo VR.
To this end, the Echo VR team integrated Oculus Platform multiplayer features like
destinations and group presence, roster, invite link, and invite to app — all to drive
user engagement and adoption.
“The biggest benefit we’ve seen is that the features help new players quickly
understand how to group up and play together,” says Neubelt. “Previously, they
would have had to learn our unique party system, which created friction and
sometimes lost players.”
 GET STARTED WITH
MULTIPLAYER FEATURES
Ready to integrate Oculus Platform multiplayer
features into your VR apps? David Neubelt
suggests prioritizing as follows:
“I’d highly recommend getting destinations and
group presence into your app first. They’re easy
to integrate, enable a host of surfacing on the
The biggest benefit we’ve Oculus Platform, and immediately benefit your
seen is that the features app,” he says.
help new players quickly
understand how to group Destinations lay the groundwork for multiplayer
up and play together. by describing places (not instances) in
Previously, they would your game; metaphorically, they’re fully
have had to learn our qualified addresses. Ready at Dawn identified
unique party system, destinations depending on whether the
which created friction and player is in a tutorial, an arena or combat
sometimes lost players. match, the social lobby, or a private version
of any of those places, which makes it easy
David Neubelt, for users to understand where they are. The
Project Lead for Echo VR group presence feature updates the Oculus
Platform to show user status details like the
app they’re using, what they’re doing, whether
friends can join them, and match info. That way, friends and fellow players are
encouraged to join the fun
After integrating destinations and group presence, Neubelt recommends
adding roster, invite to app, and invite link to the mix. “That way your users can
coordinate with one another more quickly to jump into games faster,” he says.
Rosters are part of group presence
integration, and let users see who’s
present with them in your app so they
can communicate, coordinate, and
contextually friend one another.
Invite to app lets users invite friends, people they’ve
recently played with, and other in-app connections
to join them — directly from the Quest menu.
Invite link points to VR destinations that users
can share with friends via text, third-party
communication services, forums, and more. This
enables use cases like tournaments and streaming
play-with-me sessions as well as community events,
where links can be added to social media posts for
meetup groups.
ECHO VR CASE STUDY
 REJOIN

Finally, Neubelt recommends

integrating features like rejoin,
invokable error dialogs, and webhooks,
INVOKABLE ERROR DIALOGS
to improve multiplayer reliability
and make it easier for users to
troubleshoot.

WEBHOOKS

OCULUS SERVER OCULUS ON HEADSET APP ON HEADSET APP SERVER

START DEEPLINKING

OCULUS KNOWS USER ACCEPTS

APP LOADS
USER IS JOINING INVITE

SERVER KNOWS USER

WEBHOOK TELLS
IS JOINING - RESERVES
THE SERVER
A SLOT FOR THE USER

APP FINISHES AND SERVER CONNECTS

REQUEST USER JOINS THE USER

For more details on how Echo VR integrated Oculus Platform multiplayer

features and ways you can integrate them into your own apps, check out this
deep-dive presentation from Connect 2021 and then explore some test cases
to meet users’ multiplayer expectations.

ECHO VR CASE STUDY