VRChat Mobile Launch: Build $12K Touch Worlds for Brands

The Inflection

On October 24, 2025, something unusual happened in social VR. VRChat—the platform where 66,000 people ring in New Year's Eve dressed as anime catgirls—exited beta on iOS and Android. No fanfare. No hype cycle. Just a straightforward launch that fundamentally changed the addressable market for virtual experiences.

Here's the math that matters: VRChat regularly peaks at 40,000-50,000 concurrent users on Steam during typical periods, with event peaks pushing past 66,000 (New Year's Eve 2025 hit 66,284). That's the headset and desktop crowd. Mobile just added billions of potential touchpoints. The App Store and Google Play Store now distribute VRChat to anyone with 6GB+ RAM and recent OS versions (iOS 17+ / Android 10+). That means iPhone 12 Pro and up, or flagship Android devices from the last 2-3 years.

The platform spent two years testing this—Android alpha launched for VRChat Plus subscribers in August 2023, iOS closed beta arrived in May 2024, and an Android open beta followed in August 2025. Now it's public, stable, and live on both platforms.

But here's the part most builders are missing: mobile VRChat isn't "VR on a phone." It's a completely different design surface. Touch controls. Screen-space UI. Strict performance budgets. One-thumb interactions. And because of that, there's a three-month window before PC-first studios retrain their teams and flood the zone.

The play isn't porting existing worlds. The play is designing for thumbs from day one—and selling that expertise to brands that just watched McDonald's Japan, Disney, and Gucci enter VRChat while they sat on the sidelines.

Why Brands Actually Buy (This Time)

VRChat just solved three problems that killed metaverse marketing in 2023:

1. Distribution existed, but it was niche.
Headsets cap your audience at hobbyists. Mobile puts VRChat on devices people already own. The 6GB RAM floor is real—it gates access to ~40-50% of mid-range phones—but anyone upgrading in the last two cycles is in. That's still a market measured in hundreds of millions.

2. Monetization rails were a mess.
Brands wanted to "activate" but had no clear path from world to revenue. VRChat's Creator Economy and Avatar Marketplace (launched in 2025) changed that. Now creators can sell roles, cosmetics, and world features directly. The platform takes a percentage, but creators keep the majority.

Early adopters report significant revenue increases compared to external platforms like Patreon—in some cases 4-5x—because VRChat's integrated checkout removes friction and taps into existing user spending behavior.

Over 1,000 creators applied for Avatar Marketplace access in the first wave. That's not a "maybe someday" feature. That's real money changing hands, right now, inside the app.

3. Commercial use was legally ambiguous.
VRChat's Terms of Service restrict commercial use by default. Agencies avoided it. But the company introduced a Commercial Use Restriction Waiver that lets brands operate legitimately—they just need written approval. McDonald's Japan secured approval for an official world tied to its Tirori Mix music campaign. Major brands in Japan have followed suit.

That gap is the moat.

The Market Proof You Need

Two adjacent platforms prove this playbook prints money:

ZEPETO (South Korea's avatar platform) has sold over 2.5 billion virtual items since 2020. It runs 20 million monthly active users—95% outside Korea—and has hosted major brand activations including Versace limited drops, Coach campaigns blending physical and digital goods, and fashion collaborations with Gucci, Dior, Nike, and Ralph Lauren.

The platform's predominantly Gen Z female audience updates avatars 11 times per week. Brands treat it as a standard media buy, not experimental budget. That's recurring spend with proven ROI.

Fortnite UEFN paid $320 million to creators in its first year (ending March 2024), then increased that to $352 million in 2024—an 11% jump. Fifty-eight creators earned over $1 million in 2024. Seven cleared $10 million. The creator count tripled from 24,000 to 70,000 in a single year.

Epic gives creators 40% of Fortnite's net Item Shop revenue, distributed based on engagement metrics. Players spent 5.23 billion hours in creator-made experiences in 2024—36.5% of all Fortnite playtime. That's not a side mode. That's half the product.

The pattern is consistent: platforms that combine user-generated content, avatar economies, and brand-safe monetization rails get real budgets. VRChat Mobile just joined that tier—but most brand teams don't know it yet.