Toast Interactive’s two biggest VR games – Max Mustard and Richie’s Plank Experience – have been suddenly pulled from the Meta Quest Store, with a new notice indicating both are “out of compliance with Meta’s Platform Abuse Policy.” It means neither game is available for purchase on this platform, and it appears that will remain the case.
The move was highlighted by Toast Interactive over on Reddit (via UploadVR), in a statement confirming it was a “unilateral” decision by Meta, and while there was a firm reason provided, it’s unable to comment on why at this stage.
“Unfortunately, Meta has unilaterally chosen to remove Toast and its two games, Max Mustard and Richie’s Plank Experience from their store. We feel betrayed and powerless on many levels,” the team wrote.
“We are sorry to all customers who missed out on buying Richie’s Plank and Max Mustard on Meta Quest. We invite you to continue buying our games on Steam, Pico and Playstation VR in the future. That’s all we can say at this time, but look forward to sharing our story with you all in the near future. Thank you for your support.”
Read: Aussie VR studio Toast Interactive shuts office, majority of staff made redundant
At the time of posting, the team encouraged disappointed buyers to “express their grievances” to Meta, but later retracted this push as they acknowledged “this wasn’t fair since we haven’t shared more details.”
Questions surround the games’ removal from the Meta Quest Store, and the flagging of the Meta Platform Abuse Policy. Typically, this refers to games that may contain malicious code or vulnerabilities, software that allows asset or content extraction, confusing, deceiving, or misleading content, or games that engage with fraud, scam, or illegal activity. It’s a requirement that Meta warns developers of any violations of this policy, and that it allows for an appeal to resolve a violation.
In response to a comment on X, the Toast Interactive account said it “can assure” it “hadn’t done something shady” but it simply can’t talk about what happened yet.
Notably, the removal does follow comments made by Toast Interactive about discoverability on the Meta Quest store, following the decision to shut its offices and make the majority of its staff redundant. Much of the onus of this move was put down to the launch of Max Mustard, which allegedly received “zero store presence” and was “forced to launch at a low month” on the Meta Store.
“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 … 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 Toast Interactive team said at the time.
At this stage, it’s unclear whether these comments, or the studio’s decision to shrink, contributed to the removal of Max Mustard and Richie’s Plank Experience on the Meta Store. As noted by Toast Interactive, those wishing to purchase the games will need to visit other storefronts.
