Facing Slow Virtual Reality HMD Sales, High Fidelity Lays Off 25% of Staff & Shifts Focus to Building Cross-Platform Virtual Meeting Space

Last month when Philip Rosedale announced he was drastically scaling back High Fidelity-sponsored content due to slow VR headset sales, this latest announcement by Philip on the HiFi blog was probably, sadly, inevitable:

If you had asked me when we started the company in 2014, I’d have said that by now there would be several million people using HMDs daily, and we’d be competing with both big and small companies to provide the best platform—but I was wrong. Daily headset use is only in the tens of thousands, almost all for entertainment and media consumption, with very little in the way of general communication, work, or education.

... [W]e have made the very hard decision today to reduce our team by 25%, meaning that 20 people will be leaving us who have made great contributions to High Fidelity, and whom we will greatly miss. They are brilliant and talented and I hope that this message will reach places where they can quickly find new homes.

"Social VR in HMDs won’t really work until we can do everything in them, including work and messaging," as Philip told me last month. "We can’t multi-task in VR yet, and that’s a real challenge." And yes, he's bearish in the short term despite the Oculus Quest, saying, "The Quest and [Vive] Focus are the future, but it is still going to take a few years, so we have to plan for that."

As Philip also alluded to last month, this doesn't mean he's giving up his dream of building the metaverse -- instead, he's focusing the company on building a cross-platform virtual world with an emphasis on remote meetings:

So, while we wait for HMDs to go mainstream, what do we do instead? ... We have two offices, in SF and Seattle, as well as a number of remote workers. For two weeks, we sent everyone home, with their computers, and created a private tropical island where we could work together all day, mostly wearing headphones but not HMDs—we didn’t prescribe the medium of use... Within the first couple of days it was obvious we were onto something. The 3D audio was always on, perfectly realistic and comfortable. We found ourselves walking around and interacting with each other the same way you would in a physical office. We put up whiteboards and spaces for teams. Everyone felt better connected, remote workers felt less lonely, and people who didn’t sit together IRL got to know each other better.

The company is even now hiring a dev ops engineer to help build this.

As someone who mostly works from home, and finds using Skype/Zoom the least enjoyable part of the workday, especially when live video is used, I think he's on to something here. While Slack has more or less replaced e-mail, the need for a powerful live communication system still exists. Especially if it doesn't require me having to first brush my hair.

Comments

[Ben H]

I would like to hear more about using 3d Audio in an office to make remote workers feel less lonely. That is a really interesting use of spatial sound.

[Jazneo]

Best just come to Neos VR

[Lyeco]

VrChat sends it's regards

[Clara Seller]

Battlestar Galactica was right. "All Of This Has Happened Before And Will Happen Again".

[Better then Ezra]

In light of this unexpected tragedy has anyone started a GoFundMe for Philip?

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Philip said:

For two weeks, we sent everyone home, with their computers, and created a private tropical island where we could work together all day, mostly wearing headphones but not HMDs—we didn’t prescribe the medium of use... Within the first couple of days it was obvious we were onto something. The 3D audio was always on, perfectly realistic and comfortable. We found ourselves walking around and interacting with each other the same way you would in a physical office. We put up whiteboards and spaces for teams.

Can't you already do that (except for interactable whiteboards) in SL? SL voice chat IS positional! Hey philip you just re-invented collaboration in SL!

"All of this has happened before and will happen again."

Also he said:

"Social VR in HMDs won’t really work until we can do everything in them, including work and messaging," as Philip told me last month. "We can’t multi-task in VR yet, and that’s a real challenge."

Haven't I been saying that for YEARS? I'll say it before and I'll say it again. "Will it play in peoria?" and "How does it work for/appeal to people who AREN'T the technorati/valleywags" matter.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

And why do you valleywags use slack? it's proprietary and duplicates functionality that exists in already-existing standards...like e-mail, jabber and IRC. Standards exist for reasons.

[Judas]

None of the vr worlds have anything resembling a financially viable business model apart from secondlife .To be sucsessfull in the next gen its masassively important not to create a secondlife clone .highfidelity has the sense to change course.

[Cold Tongue Salad]

Feeling sorry for all the former lindens who fell for Rose-dale's magic carpet ride. them having left the warm safe lab to be laid off a few years later.

[Clara Seller]

I think it's time for Philip Rosedale to go work FOR someone on the east coast and get a different perspective on what he would actually have to provide to make his latest harebrained idea viable.

I hate to break it to him, but there's a lot of the business world out there that is "serious" and not "playground" driven. This recycle is less valid than the last go around. All of this has to start with being believable, practical, and profitable. Our handlers have no interest in anything else when humans are involved. We are actually living in a world where providing on-site ambulances has been assessed to be more practical than providing functional working conditions.

This has to start with a portable technology that can scan, enhance, and present the animated elite narcissists flawlessly. Image is everything. It's use will trickle-down in business after they have control of it. Philip needs to start there. It's a long way from jerky animated cartoons and California Dreaming.

[Hamsandwich]

Won't somebody please think of the children?

[Better then Ezra]

Going to go further then Clara here suggesting Philip move overseas while employing those whole other cultures to influence a world vision.

It's not about just getting away from west coast socialist but understand the world does not evolve around Americas self hating white liberals but to complete a platform for the globe well allow real input from those around the world to influence that. hiring americanized green card holders don't count.

Maybe Philip opening up an office in Tokyo while seeing the world from a different perspective would help him and the project.

I think he needs to take a magical life changing journey into the mountains with the shaman, he might be surprised what the spiritual kitsune have to share along the way.

[joan]

I guess Phil did not get the memo that lying, scamming and talking politics all day is how to succeed in America.

[joni]

Maybe there should also be a way to give love in this virtual meeting space and network together over coffee. Why not throw everything you got into the stew?