Calling on Meta to Fulfill Its Promise for VR Beyond Gaming
Since 2016, NewPath has led the way in exploring VR's potential beyond gaming, focusing on transformative education and therapy. The attached image shows back when we were taping Oculus Rift cords to tables. We've reached deep into underserved communities, taught hundreds of clinicians about VR in practice, held dozens of community events, and innovated with the very first accredited courses about VR and Psychology through the American Psychological Association. Our partnerships span from Kaiser Permanente to San Francisco Libraries, proving digital therapeutic's power in non-gaming contexts. We also created a large directory of family-friendly, non violent VR apps.
Despite our efforts and Meta's declared commitment to "non-gaming XR titles and use cases," our pleas for support have been met with silence. We've reached out more than ten times, proposing collaborations to extend VR's benefits through education and therapeutic applications, yet never even received a response. Our dedication is mirrored in our use of Meta/Oculus hardware for 8 years, highlighting our continued engagement with the platform.
Currently, we're limited to teaching courses to 25+ participants with just three Quest headsets. Our history with Meta hardware, our proven curriculum, and strong partnerships underscore our capacity for broader impact—if only supported as promised.
Meta, we urge you to match your words with action. It's time to embrace the full spectrum of VR's possibilities, beyond gaming, and support initiatives like ours that aim to harness VR for growth, healing, and education. The future of VR is vast; let's explore it together.
