# Space Pirate Trainer Sold 1 Million Copies & Bundled In VR's Arena-Scale Pinnacle

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/good-vr-podcast-7726864/space-pirate-trainer-sold-1-million-copies-bundled-in-vr-s-arena-scale-pinnacle
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/good-vr-podcast-7726864/space-pirate-trainer-sold-1-million-copies-bundled-in-vr-s-arena-scale-pinnacle.md
Podcast: [Good VR Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/good-vr-podcast-7726864)
Published: 2026-07-31T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.goodvirtualreality.com/p/space-pirate-trainer-sold-1-million
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/209124826/c65dbee5db7b713b23b201f0c47d9bdf.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/good-vr-podcast-7726864/episodes/space-pirate-trainer-sold-1-million-copies-bundled-in-vr-s-arena-scale-pinnacle
Duration seconds: 2092

## Resource

Space Pirate Trainer stands the test of time as one of the best projects ever developed for the medium. In 2016 it whetted player appetites for what VR could do by immediately transporting people to a platform overlooking a sci-fi cityscape with fantastic music and a small arsenal unlocked for fighting off wave after wave of drones. When Space Pirate Trainer debuted alongside The Brookhaven Experiment near the launch of the Vive, the titles immediately became showpieces for VR parties. Neither wave shooter would make any players sick as you stood in place and fought off enemies with your guns. The Brookhaven Experiment, meanwhile, might see players so stricken with fear they run into a wall or tear off the headset. Months passed and VR players looked for more content with copycats producing wave shooter after wave shooter. Players quickly began to critique the genre while Beat Saber took the note about not artificially moving the player to become the highest selling VR game in history. Meta scooped up Beat Games as developers explored every type of artificial locomotion possible to give players what they sought while balancing comfort as best they could manage. This is how Gorilla Tag was born, as it turned out moving like a monkey in a game where you play as a monkey is both relatively comfortable and added to the immersion. Then COVID-19 locked people indoors and Meta set out on the path to focus on its Horizon Worlds strategy. “When they started pushing Horizon on the front page and that was kind of the most important thing of that platform instead of the devs, I think a whole bunch of devs felt that,” Van Welden said. “I felt it even in my sales. I think sales were halved or like thirty percent of my usual sales from that time.” Van Welden and his colleagues at I-I…

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