Toast Interactive has closed its office and laid off the majority of its staff.
Developers of Richie's Plank Experience and Max Mustard, the Australia-based VR veterans confirmed the news via social media. Calling this a “heartbreaking decision,” Toast advised the majority of the team have been made redundant and it's offering assistance to the affected staff where it can. Here's the full statement.
Toast will continue working on both titles despite these layoffs, though in what capacity is currently unknown. When asked if Richie’s Plank Experience is still coming to PlayStation VR2, Toast replied that it's “99% sure it'll happen.” Much like the Quest version, the team recently advised it “will look into the possibility” of adding controller-free hand tracking support on Sony's headset too, following on from Waltz of the Wizard.
Elaborating further on Reddit, Toast advised that Max Mustard was designed “for the OG Mario generation first and foremost.” While the studio believes it should have made the VR platformer “look less like a kids game,” this approach was taken to deliver a happier vibe.
More notably, Toast then highlights its issues with the Quest Store that it says affected sales. Stating the team was “forced to launch at a low month” in March 2024 with no store presence, the studio infers that Max Mustard faced discoverability issues. Because the store's top-rated category has now been removed, the studio's given up trying to get discoverability. However, the studio later said it's still grateful to Meta for "creating such an amazing headset at such a great price" while praising its efforts across the VR industry.
We assumed that if it scored a high user rating that it would appear in the important top-rated category on the store, completing its discovery loop. With it's 4.9 (for first few months) and hundreds of reviews, it should have been at the 1# spot of the top rated. But never appeared. Apparently, it's "the algorithm". Wasn't in any other category. Hidden gems? No. Made in Australia? No. Nothing. It was heart breaking.
The impact of this led to Max Mustard's famous cross promotion discount with Richie’s Plank Experience, where a now-expired 90% off code (spotted by u/SlowShoes) hidden in the latter saw them “brute force” a short stint through as sales increased. Toast advised full price sales have increased since that discount, calling this proof that store presence is “critical” for developers.
While Quest sales were evidently a major concern, no mention was made of Max Mustard's performance on PlayStation VR2. Following its launch in October with visual upgrades, the VR platformer sold better during the first two weeks on PS VR2 than it did on Quest, likely benefitting from Astro Bot not supporting Sony's headset. Additional ports later arrived on Steam and Pico, too.
Toast Interactive's words only reinforce our findings in our recent Quest Store report, where nearly two dozen developers shared their concerns about Meta's storefront with UploadVR. With many also citing low sales last year and discoverability issues - among other problems like Meta's increased focus on Horizon Worlds, moderation policy concerns and unhappiness over how the App Lab merge was handled - Toast is not alone in its criticisms.
Henry Stockdale
Update Notice
This article was updated shortly after publication with additional comments from Toast Interactive.
