Why Facebook’s/Meta’s “Metaverse” failed?

Although marketing and advertising campaigns for Facebook’s Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality video game marketed as the “metaverse,” has brought the concept to fame, it lost traction after its release and has failed to grasp a player base.

The most widely accepted definition of a metaverse is a network of connected digital worlds. The biggest example of this is the video game Roblox, which has an active daily player base of 30 million. Millions of worlds are created by developers that are played by even more players all connected in a hub where players get to choose which experiences to interact with. Horizon had a peak player base of 300,000 in February of 2022. This is incomparable to the 230 million total players on Roblox. Meta’s Horizon Worlds has failed to achieve a solid player base required for the desired scale of marketing and advertising due to many vital flaws.

Accessibility is Horizon Worlds’ greatest flaw. The only device capable of running Horizon directly is the Oculus Quest, a $300 virtual reality headset. Only 10 million units of Oculus Quest 2 have been shipped, limiting the potential player base by a great margin. Other metaverses like Roblox are available on all the popular devices and operating systems.

Another major flaw is that Horizon Worlds simply isn’t interesting. VR Chat, another metaverse released in 2017, is in direct competition with Horizon Worlds. Both games are extremely similar with a similar avatar and world system implemented in virtual reality. They both have small minigames for many players to socialize and hang out in; however, VR Chat is on many different platforms and is much more accessible compared to Horizon Worlds. The lack of players in Horizon Worlds makes socializing difficult.

The marketing and advertising Meta put forth was bold; however, it immediately had a strong negative reaction from most people. The term “corporatized” was thrown around constantly in the comment section of the demonstration videos. Many viewers of these demonstration videos felt that the game was detached and aloof from the visions of most people. Many believed Horizon Worlds to be the vision of ignorant businessmen who only followed trends without understanding the nuance of why games like Roblox are popular.

Although Horizon Worlds failed in achieving popularity and stability, it popularized the term “metaverse”. Many of these metaverses have existed before and they are thriving even more because of Meta’s campaign.

VR technology isn’t developed or accessible enough for a mainstream and popular metaverse to be built in; however, the push towards the concept of a VR metaverse with many worlds and a strong player base won’t be forgotten. When VR technology grows and becomes more accessible in the next few years, the vision of Meta will be fulfilled.