Grading My Ten Metaverse/VR Predictions for 2021 from Last Year

Image credit: Klaus Reinherz, "Socially Distanced New Year 2020/21"

Time to take a look at the predictions I made late last December:

• There will be a departure in Linden Lab's C-suite, i.e. CEO/COO/CFO/CTO.

This prediction, sad to say, turned out to be correct in the most tragic way possible.

• Both VRChat and Rec Room will finally surpass Second Life in peak concurrency numbers.

Also correct if we're referring to current peak concurrency numbers: VRChat started doing that around April (42,000+), and Rec Room, back in January (45,000+).  Second Life's all-time peak concurrency is closer to 80,000, but that was back in the boom times.

• Related to the above, either VRChat or Rec Room will be acquired by a major platform/company.

Wrong. However, both startups did attract heavy investments in 2021 -- VRChat getting $80 million last June, and Rec Room getting $145 million just this week.

• Second Life's long-awaited "mobile app companion" will launch but see a disappointing reception, failing to earn over 100,000 downloads on Google Play.

Another strike -- but SL's mobile app was definitely disappointing in the sense that it was put on pause months after it was approved by the App Store last July.

Six more after the break:

• Sales of Oculus Quest 2 in 2020 will under-perform expectations: Despite a major marketing push, under 2 million. Slow sales will continue through 2021, with an install base under 3 million.

Also wrong: The install base is now likely to be about 6 million. I'd still say that 6 million counts as relatively slow sales, but no point trying to wriggle out of my wrongness.

• Unreal and/or Unity will announce an official metaverse platform.

Not exactly, though Unreal did announce in April a $1 billion funding round to create the Metaverse.

• Bowing to public and government pressure, Facebook will discontinue mandatory Facebook log-in for its Oculus headsets.

Correct: That was announced in October. Though I sorta suspect that would not have happened without the cascade of PR crises the company was hit with this year.

• Roblox will announce $1 billion in revenue for 2021.

Also correct: ROBLOX has already reported $1.350 billion in revenue from just the first 3 quarters of 2021.

• Core will announce a major platform partner or be acquired outright, with Epic the likeliest suitor.

I'd call this correct in the sense that Core is currently available and heavily promoted on/integrated with the Epic Store.

• Apple will not announce its long-rumored AR headset in 2021.

Also correct.

So that looks like 7 out of 10 predictions that were correct or largely correct. (Or 6 of 10 if you're feeling less generous.)

How about predictions for 2022? So much has happened this year, all I can safely predict now is a wild ride.

Comments

[Lex4art]

Your magic ball seems to be quite good ), and 2022 definitely will be harder to probe...