Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘sad’ universe: No one cares, users try VR glasses and then throw them away

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), published reports show that nearly a year after CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed the company’s name to Meta, the company is still having problems with technology development while users lack interest. with the virtual universe, thereby raising the suspicion of success.

Specifically, although the Facebook founder has said that the transition to the virtual universe will take years, its pioneering application for this segment, Horizon Worlds, is performing quite poorly.

Meta aims to reach 500,000 active users per month by the end of the year for Horizon Worlds, but in recent weeks that number has fallen to just 280,000 and now it’s less than 200,000.

The internal investigation report shows that the majority of Horizon users do not return after the first month of testing, and the number of users of the platform has started to gradually decrease since the fall of this year.

In contrast, other Meta products such as Facebook or Instagram, WhatsApp attract an average of more than 3.5 billion active users per month, equivalent to half of the earth’s population.

The Horizon platform is built so that users can interact in the virtual universe, including working, shopping or even partying based on avatars. But in Horizon’s “Hot Girl Summer Rooftop Pool Party”, there are very few female characters when the number of users is very small. In the “Murder Village” section, there were not many people participating to interact.

Even the most promoted parts of Horizon like the game Quest, which was heavily advertised by Meta on the Super Bowl, did not have many players.

Statistical analyzes show that only 9% of the parts built in Horizon’s virtual universe have ever had 50 or more participants. Most of the rest are left unattended.

“A virtual universe with no participants is nothing more than a boring world,” the WSJ quoted the report as saying.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Meta’s virtual universe division said that their team is still improving and building, and the company remains confident in the future of this segment despite criticism.

Discarded stuff?

Users who want to access the virtual universe on Horizon will have to purchase Meta’s Quest virtual reality (VR) headset to participate in the activities, which include interactive glasses and handheld kits.

However, according to the WSJ, the percentage of users who regularly use this set of devices has decreased continuously after each upward trend in the past 3 years. With the cheapest at $400 for a Quest set and the most expensive at $1,500 for the latest version, more than half of users haven’t touched them again within six months of their purchase.

According to a survey by Horizon, most users say they do not feel a virtual universe that they imagine or deserve to be attracted to, not to mention not finding many people to participate in activities that also make the world go crazy. that Mark Zuckerberg drew becomes boring.

In addition, complaints such as avatars having no legs or looking unreal were also raised by users.

This has led Meta to temporarily close Horizon in September 2022 to fix bugs and improve the user experience.

Bad start

According to the WSJ, the shirt universe should have become a new beginning in the face of the pressures of slowing advertising growth and Facebook’s reputation scandals. However, Meta’s efforts do not seem to bring about worthy results.

WSJ’s investigative report shows that Meta has collaborated with a number of big names, such as hiring Hucksters to broker virtual real estate on Horizon, Balenciaga and Prada to promote virtual clothing while Absolut Vodka designed the world. bar and alcoholic beverages.

However, investors are quite skeptical about the scenario that Mark Zuckerberg paints. Its stock price has lost more than 60% of its value in the past year. Meta’s total market cap has evaporated more than $700 billion from its September 2021 peak.

Even the person responsible for product development for Horizon and Meta’s virtual universe, Mr. Dare Obasanjo, has to admit that they are not sure where to focus their investment resources.

Currently, Meta has canceled many projects related to the virtual universe and internally the company is debating whether it should focus on attractive areas such as video games or towards virtual social networks like Mark Zuckerberg’s liking.

Recently, the Verge ran an internal announcement when Vishal Shah, Meta’s vice president of virtual universes, complained that the company’s own employees didn’t use the related products much.

“The truth is, if we don’t love our products, how can we convince people to use them?” Mr. Shah lamented.

On the other hand, the WSJ reports that there are twice as many male users as women in Horizon, making issues related to personal information security or sexual harassment more urgent.

In addition, many errors also appeared in Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual universe, such as the avatar fell into the pool but did not know how to get up because there was no one to help.

Contrary to the above difficulties, some still believe that Meta is trying to develop a technology that is beyond the times.

“We’re trying to develop a technology that’s beyond the times, but people are complaining about minor bugs,” complained VRdirect CEO Rolf Illenberger.

*Source: WSJ