Only People Not Already Using Metaverse Platforms Have "Lost Interest" -- And Most People In Them Don't Care About the Metaverse Per Se

I missed this Yahoo! News article from last week but I can't let this claim pass:

“People have kind of lost interest in the metaverse, because characters look like cartoons with no legs,” Marc Petit, Epic Games’ VP and general manager of Unreal Engine, told Yahoo Finance. “I mean, who wants to be that? This is not attractive.”

Petit’s critique is a not-so-thinly veiled reference to Meta’s “Horizon Worlds” platform. The company’s primary metaverse experience, “Horizon Worlds” features avatars without legs and graphics that are far from those found in modern big-budget video games.

It's true there's little public interest in Horizon Worlds, but then again, Rec Room's avatars are also leg-free and the company just reported 3 million monthly active users on VR headsets alone (mostly on Meta Quest, ironically enough), so this criticism doesn't generally apply.

The "people" who have lost interest in the Metaverse, broadly speaking, are not metaverse platform users themselves. But then again, well over 500 million other people are already active in one or more of them.

Which brings me to my other point: Most people in metaverse platforms aren't interested in -- or even aware of -- "the Metaverse" per se, but in the fun, creativity, and community they have in the specific platforms they play in, or that their friends are playing. VRChat is also thriving, and does not even call itself a metaverse platform. Any mass market product that depends on Gen Z consumers knowing what venture capitalists say about a concept from a 1992 novel is going to have a bad time.

Speaking of which, another burr from the article:

The concept of the metaverse was first popularized by Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel “Snow Crash.” Technology companies have chased the idea of 3-D virtual worlds could visit for even longer, though.

No. Not "popularized".

The Metaverse.

Was first coined.

And described in great painstaking detail.

In Snow Crash.

Which was.

And is.

A key reference.

Used by early and current metaverse platforms that exist today.

Maybe when that is broadly understood, we can discuss what "people" actually think about it?

Image credit: me and my friends played rec room to celebrate my birthday :).

Comments

[Luther Weymann]

I can remember back with my first Second Life avatar in January 2004. Many of the avatars running around SL had Snow Crash like swords strapped to their back, and many of the first names were Hiro. They had all read Snow Crash, Phil read Snow Crash, and I read Snow Crash. Many of us imagined we were in the Snow Crash Metaverse in the early beginning of SL.

[Martin K.]

Doesn't it drive you crazy when people talk in all seriousness about what Neal Stephenson got wrong about the Metaverse, e.g.: https://youtu.be/11cEqGDjvcU?t=2347 ? :D

I still think that most people use the word "Metaverse" to more or less mean "hip virtual world."

Also, I think it is very well possible that Marc Petit is fully aware that most VR users don't care about legs and arms and that somewhat more realistic avatars are likely to have a negative effect thanks to the uncanny valley, but he claims otherwise anyway because: what do VRChat, Rec Room and Horizon Worlds have in common? None of them is using Unreal Engine.