Meta has revealed a little information about its metaverse aims. Besides the name-change and significant investment in a technology years from existing in any tangible format, the former Facebook has launched a rebadged virtual reality experience called Horizon.
This metaverse stand-in has seen a substantial amount of growth since Horizon Worlds launched last year. Starting from a pool of about 30,000 users, it has jumped to more than 300,000 in rather short order. But it’s still not enough to begin a critical mass for the metaverse.
Event: Horizon
Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox, speaking to company staff, gave out Horizon user figures. This was later confirmed by company spokesperson Joe Osborne, speaking to The Verge. Osborne added a little extra info — these stats cover Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues. Workrooms, the business-focused version that could just be a bloody Zoom meeting, isn’t included in the total number of users.
Climbing from 30k to 300k users in just a few months is a fair achievement but it’s still small potatoes for Meta. At this point, it’s questionable whether the number of users justifies the $10 billion spent on the company’s metaverse aims so far. The social network is no stranger to growing user numbers but, if reports on the number of Quest headsets sold to date are accurate, the number of users willing to traipse around in a Facebook-powered virtual world is still negligible.
According to the likes of Qualcomm, there are at least 10 million Oculus Quest 2 headsets out there somewhere. At the current numbers, just 3% of Meta’s VR hardware users are playing in its virtual ecosystem. It’s entirely possible that this user growth curve will continue apace, or it might run into a brick wall at an unexpected point.
Meta is taking a fair risk with its metaverse idea. They’re likely to, with this experiment, be the first to find out if it’s sustainable or not. But there’s a plan afoot to bring user numbers up — an app version of the experience, so Meta can report higher (but meaningless) amounts of engagement with their virtual environment. We’ve already got something like that — it’s called Second Life or Roblox.
Source: The Verge
