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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

#161

Post by Telaneo »

spcebar wrote: post #112
jdashg wrote: post #87

As a VRChat regular, Meta's VR world efforts have been hilarious every step of the way. So long and thanks for all the headsets! :) Maybe not everything has to be the next big thing for everyone. Maybe it's valuable for smaller companies or sovereign divisions to find niche markets, and simply build products and services for modest profits for strong customer bases that will never hit hypergrowth. (And are therefore…

What do you feel, as someone who likes VR, were Meta's big pitfalls, and what do you like about VRChat that you feel like Meta missed?

VRChat came out more than 5 years before Horizon Worlds did, and already had an established player base by the time Horizon Worlds even came out. It was in early access for ages, but that didn't matter to the VR audience, who's used to there being jank. Not to mention that Horizon Worlds was probably never more of a finished product than VRChat to any significant degree.

If you've already got a VR social space, why switch to a different one?

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

#162

Post by edmundsauto »

panick21_ wrote: post #54
anonymousab wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuck never seemed to actually articulate how this was any different or newer than a sterile corporate vr version of second life. Then VRChat got big and seemed to be better than Horizon Worlds for... everything. I feel like the main possible benefits that these digital spaces bring, for consumers, are kinda the opposite of things that any Big Corporate Entity would ever want to be involved in.

Zuck just goes 'all in' on every hype and blows billions, because he doesnt want to miss out on anything. What is a few 10s of billions here and there for a company with a money printer.

Seems like maybe that mindset is where he won the hands of cards that turned into the money printer… so he just understands portfolio theory?

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

#163

Post by edmundsauto »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #150

The problem is that this cool technology got taken over and advanced by companies, Meta and Apple, that are not games companies and do not understand nor are interested in games. So what occurred was an exercise in trying to force a square peg into a round hole, while the actual obviously interesting use of the technology (games!) was sidelined and ignored. It's a real shame I picked up a PSVR and really enjoyed play…

Otoh, someone with a massive checkbook had to fund the hardware and optical research to enable the devices. Small gaming studios weren’t going to be able to do that. A lot of the smaller VR device companies weren’t able to build on top of core research or hire people that learned on Zuck’s dime.

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

#164

Post by edmundsauto »

poisonborz wrote: post #83
georgeburdell wrote: post #73

As an engineer I love that Zuck likes to throw his money around. He has been one of the big reasons for SWE salary inflation over the past 15 years. We should be thankful that not every company is relentlessly cost cutting

You mean throw those billions, tens of thousands of man hours, shareholder attenton, industry power and mindshare to a mostly useless concept, just because he had the money? Why are those resources not better spent on 100+ startups and 100+ unique ideas that are immediately tested by the market?

If you look around at the startup scene the past 5-10 years, has it really been any better?

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

#165

Post by m3kw9 »

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…

The hardware tech wasn't ready, but they thought they could overcome it quickly. Turns out is expensive as f even for a fairly bad device.

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

#167

Post by magic_hamster »

Macha wrote: post #74
mistersquid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Everything Meta did to make it a "platform" just contributed to making it worse than VRchat, a product by a company many many times smaller. It felt very designed with a "look at what we can do for Meta" and not "why would consumers use this over alternatives?" which always felt doomed from the start.

Meta (Facebook) always had a problem in execution even when their vision was solid which is sadly a rare occasion. This is why meta just buys products instead of developing its own (Instagram, Whatsapp, etc). It had a moment with the ray bans but that didn't last, the second iteration was meta'd all over.

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

#168

Post by hattmall »

randycupertino wrote: post #59
elcapitan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Remember when they added legs and they were soooo proud of how it now had legs? But then turned out the legs weren't actually available, it was some minions wearing a motion capture suit specifically for the demo? https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/10/14/mark-zucke... > During the most talked-about segment of the show, Zuckerberg proudly announced that legs were coming the metaverse, which sounds bizarre out…

I just want my glasses to tell me how to make a.... hmmm... let's see... how about a Korean inspired steak sauce.

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

#169

Post by bobro »

edmundsauto wrote: post #163
Tiktaalik wrote: post #150

The problem is that this cool technology got taken over and advanced by companies, Meta and Apple, that are not games companies and do not understand nor are interested in games. So what occurred was an exercise in trying to force a square peg into a round hole, while the actual obviously interesting use of the technology (games!) was sidelined and ignored. It's a real shame I picked up a PSVR and really enjoyed play…

Otoh, someone with a massive checkbook had to fund the hardware and optical research to enable the devices. Small gaming studios weren’t going to be able to do that. A lot of the smaller VR device companies weren’t able to build on top of core research or hire people that learned on Zuck’s dime.

So surely after Meta bought oculus, they made major advancements in the field right?

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

#170

Post by bentt »

It would appear that the Metaverse (as envisioned by Meta) was nothing more than a way to "grow" when there was no other reasonable path. It was a solution to this problem and this problem alone. Nobody wanted it.

Then AI comes along and offers real growth opportunity. But of course, Meta fumbled that one out of the gate because they are more interested in winning than in actually offering anything of value. So they figured they could sabotage the whole thing by open sourcing Llama. Then they got steamrolled by everyone actually creating value for people instead of following their tried and true parasite model.

No tech company in this era has been more destructive to society than Meta. Their utter lack of principles has led them down this path. Ironically the most value they have generated is to their investors and especially their employees who are all wealthy now, funded with advertising dollars from across the economy.

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