30 Oct 2025
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Mike Boland
AWE Talks: The Quest for Product/Market Fit
AWE USA 2025
Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that revisits the best AWE conference sessions. With AWE USA 2025 concluded, we have a fresh batch of session footage to sink our teeth into for weeks to come.
We continue the action this week with a tactical look at finding product market fit in VR. How can creators tap into grass-roots communities to grow their addressable market? David Neubelt shares hard-fought lessons.
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library of conference sessions on AWE’s YouTube Channel.
Speakers
David Neubelt, Another Axiom
Key Takeaways & Analysis
– For VR developers, the medium is equal parts awe, joy and challenge.
– For example, the addressable market is small and other headwinds persist.
– Other challenges include the broader game-industry downturn that VR inherits.
– Given these challenges, developers have to push extra hard to find traction.
– For example, though VR's market is relatively small, its users are passionate.
– Communities surrount Walkabout Mini Golf, Eleven Table Tennis and others.
– That presents an opportunity to build communities to create traction and buzz.
– It's all about finding product/market fit and bringing a given game to its fans.
– Those audiences are fragmented and scattered, so community-building is key.
– And communitiy building in VR is best done through grass-roots efforts.
– For example, starting a discord is one way to spark passion around a game.
– This was done for Gorilla Tag, which sprung up from the EchoVR community.
– Tapping into that same community ethos, it's important to be radically transparent.
– Engage with the community, show them early prototypes and seek feedback.
– This not only makes the community feel invested but unlocks good feedback.
– Devs can avoid burning fuel down the wrong paths with early community advice.
– This was an early practice of, again, Gorilla Tag, which now has a million+ users.
– It's also important to hold meetings with community leaders to truly stay tapped in.
– Beyond developer led discords, encourage social groups to germinate on their own.
– Other tactics include rewarding community members to keep their passions high.
– Rewards can include early access, badges, and users' names placed in-game.
– The bottom line is that community is key in VR, as shown by most successful titles.
– Developers should follow those lessons and make community a central element.
For more color and depth, see the full session below...
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