I keep learning more about how Meta, one of the most powerful and profitable companies in human history, has been unable to grow its metaverse platform Horizon Worlds. Part of that story is told in my book (plug!), while another part of the story I wrote about here, in which Meta leadership decided to develop Horizon Worlds with a VR version of Meta's React code of mobile apps, called "ReactVR" -- leading to a team of 2D app developers driven by engagement metrics and retention numbers, but little experience in virtual worlds or VR.
Another piece of the puzzle was just offered by Meta senior veteran Jim Purbrick, who knows quite a lot about virtual worlds and VR -- read his blog links below for much more -- but was sidelined from leading Horizon Worlds design. (Sometimes with disastrous consequences for the company.)
Commenting on my post, Jim recently tweeted:
There was, briefly, an acknowledgement that "The Metaverse" would require learning. Horizons started out as an experiment alongside Rooms and Venues then grew and sucked all of the oxygen out of the room when it was decided that Meta needed a platform to compete with VR Chat.
Yes: VRChat, the social VR virtual world first created by a tiny startup, grew organically with little marketing, but still far outpaced Horizon Worlds in terms of active users, even (and especially!) on Meta's own VR platform. So Meta pivoted to catch up.
More from Jim:
"Facebook and Oculus initially acknowledged that the Metaverse was new territory and so were looking to learn about and explore the possibilities of social VR by building experiences including Spaces, Rooms, Venues and Horizon with a number of small teams," he tells me.
"Then there was concern that third parties like VRChat were building social platforms while Facebook was experimenting and learning with experiences and possibilities, so Horizon pivoted towards being a platform. This rapid pivot and mission creep from experiment to platform resulted in a lot of the growing pains that you've already covered."
By Jim's recollection, this change happened around 2019, issued amid various "executive changes around then, as Oculus became Reality Labs". (Notably, that's before the pandemic or even Facebook's 2021 name change to Meta.) It was, he says, "a strategic shift to being a platform which embedded experiences (there was discussion about Oculus Venues becoming an experience within Horizon Worlds) instead of linking experiences using social APIs like Coordinated App Launch which we helped build with Oculus Rooms."
Trouble is (as I see it) people aren't attracted to platforms per se, but virtual communities. Neither one or the other, Horizon Worlds was unable to grow beyond a reported 200,000 active users -- not even a literal Super Bowl ad in 2022 helped.
VRChat is still rolling out platform features, and doesn't even have all the promised monetization hooks in place. Nonetheless, it still has (I'm told by reliable insiders), around 10 million active users.
In any case, do read Purbrick's three part series on building the Metaverse that Meta apparently ignored:
Pic courtesy Babbage, Jim's avatar testing out Facebook Spaces in 2017
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