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Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

engadget.com

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Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#21

Post by elcapitan »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

I'm kind of sad they're now officially dumping it, it was always so much fun to see completely fake sponsored discussions on the Metaverse and Metaverse ads in podcasts, and book publications about it. There's something satisfying about watching that whole universe of cognitive dissonance and pretense. Like a sandbox demonstration of the fake hype this industry often indulges in.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#23

Post by jfoster »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

Meta essentially made a sequel to Second Life.

I've always been blown away by the fact that they didn't more fully pursue VR gaming. I think they could have found a more enthusiastic audience.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#24

Post by everyone »

I was surprised by how may VR games I played and how many hours I put into it once I got a headset.

That being said I still think VR will always be a niche thing. We had VR headsets decades ago, aimed at the kind of person who builds a full cockpit setup at home for playing extremely nerdy flight sims. Now things are amazing if you're one of those people but I dont see VR ever being truly popular.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#25

Post by general_reveal »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

Decoy division to hide AI buildout, but I doubt it fooled anyone in the know.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#26

Post by ceejayoz »

mistersquid wrote: post #10
stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

> not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. > And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many others all crashed into the same wall. This is revisionary. Mark Zuckerberg's Meta was the only company to go all-in on the "metaverse". Microsoft has barely even dabbled in an adjacent area with the Hololens. Apple h…

This; I mean, they even renamed the company.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#27

Post by brcmthrowaway »

general_reveal wrote: post #25
stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

Decoy division to hide AI buildout, but I doubt it fooled anyone in the know.

Is this speculation?

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#28

Post by g947o »

darkwater wrote: post #9
stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

Speaking of Apple, and honesty asking: how are their VR devices going? Looks like they released a spec'ed up version with the M5 processor end of 2025 but, what's their future? There was some (artificial?) hype in the beginning, are people actually using it? What's the SV landscape?

Nobody knows what's going to happen. The device and the ecosystem absolutely did not live up to the hype, but Apple is still investing in it, including software updates. Rumors are that they are developing a second gen headset targeting $2000 price point, but they are also leaning into smart glass products.

Otherwise, look up WSJ reporting on the subject and reddit.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#29

Post by wvenable »

geophph wrote: post #11

Genuine question - was it the product or the implementation that led this to not pan out? Maybe both?

Maybe the metaverse is a viable concept or maybe it isn't. But Meta doesn't care about the metaverse or the potential users of it -- they simply want their own platform similar to how Google has Android, and Apple has iOS, and Microsoft has Windows. Apple, in particular, is a thorn in their side.

Not caring about what the user's want is the first problem. The second is that they wanted this done yesterday. So rather than evolving the technology and seeing where the market was going, they tried to build the whole thing at once immediately.

They didn't know what they were building, how to build it, and they threw it together as quickly as possible. The result was, unsurprisingly, pretty lame.

Then to justify the expenditure, they then forced it into every aspect of their Quest devices trying to force adoption. Unsurprisingly again, this failed and also pissed off all their Quest customers and damaged the viability of that platform.

Meta thought they could simply spend their billions and that would be enough to succeed.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#30

Post by ToucanLoucan »

geophph wrote: post #11

Genuine question - was it the product or the implementation that led this to not pan out? Maybe both?

If you're interested, Folding Ideas did a video essay covering the metaverse and why it never really took off, that's really well done. However the main bullet points:

* Text is the bedrock of basically any content online and text is uniquely difficult to convey in a VR setting without being annoying. It either ends up just floating in space or you have to attach it to objects or you anchor it to a HUD, and a HUD has its own cavalcade of issues in VR around motion sickness. The most successful VR applications, paradoxically, involve the least text they can manage.

* In order to make things accessible to a wide market the applications have to be incredibly simple, to run well on bad hardware, which is uniquely difficult with a 3D space you have to render twice while maintaining high enough FPS to not give people motion sickness

* Most often any CTA in the environment would simply load a web browser, because you couldn't actually... like, buy a product in VR. You were redirected to an amazon listing or shopify website.

* And that's before you get to maintenance. Any intern can update a website. A VR space requires either a dedicated dev budget or accepting whatever janky building tools the platform ships with, which have never once been good enough to build anything actually worth visiting.

* Putting all that aside, there seems to be a substantial slice of humanity who just are not compatible with the tech. I myself enjoy it regularly, I had some issues with motion sickness early on, but toughing it out for awhile got me my "VR legs" as it were and it hasn't been an issue, but I've heard all kinds of things where people's physiology just rejects the headsets.

Overall I think it's just far better as a niche gaming thing and the only reason Facebook and others went so hard into the metaverse was to hopefully recreate the birth of the Internet, and to become landlords of a new digital frontier. And for that, fuck em.

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