Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, is in a… difficult situation.
Almost a year after the much-banned rebranding, the company’s stock has plummeted 57 percent. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has lost about $70 billion of his net worth, making him only the 20th richest person in the world (with the excuse of being the world’s smallest violin). Financial stress also forced the company to cut its workforce budget and freeze new hires—even the accepted ones.
Much of Meta’s woes could point to a dire financial outlook across the entire tech industry and the world at large. However, it is also an obstacle of their self-created At a shareholders meeting in May, Zuckerberg made the surprising announcement that – despite investing billions of dollars in the supermarket – the platform “won’t really become a meaningful contributor to the business until at least especially by the end of the decade.” He added that profits are not expected to really grow until the 2030s at the earliest.
Waiting a decade to make a meaningful return is not likely to put investors to sleep at night. That also doesn’t bode well for their mass brand, which has been hit hard over the past year. It didn’t help, after being bullied online because his avatar on Horizon Worlds, Meta’s de facto metaverse platform, looked like the amputated character from the PS1 game, he decided hit the red carpet and hyped the announcement that the avatar now actually had legs—which led to him getting roasting is even harder on the internet. (And even that declaration is running into the response.)
It’s easy to get amused by the vision of one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world taking L after L — especially when they’re trying to create something that looks like a wishful thinking and a complete waste of time, at worst, money and resources.
However, the truth is that the metaverse is inevitable. Not only that, in many ways, it’s been here — and has been here for decades.
Even Neal Stephenson, who first coined the term metaverse in his 1992 book Snow to describe a fictional virtual reality world, alluded to this. In a tweet from June, he said that when he first coined the term, he didn’t conceive of the fact that the metaverse might not be through VR — but then came up with a video game. named death Death.
Stephenson mentioned a key component of any successful metaverse that many in web3 (a term used to describe the next evolution of the world wide web) and metaverse spaces tend to miss: video games– even just gaming in general.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the metaverse is the future of games. The future of the metaverse is games,” Jon Radoff, writer of the Build Metaverse blog and founder of the metaverse consulting firm Beamable, told The Daily Beast. “The game will become what the metaverse is all about.”
In fact, Radoff believes the origins of the metaverse go even further, from creating games like Dungeons & Dragons, stating that the popular board game was actually one of the first meta games. . “It’s a space for social experiences, storytelling, sharing of imagination, and everything that’s happened since then is technology that breaks the barriers of space and time to get into it,” he said. .
“By co-opting terminology, Meta could inadvertently do more harm than good. The company has backed itself into a niche where the only way to reach their version of the metaverse is to buy an expensive and bulky device.“
Today’s most successful metavers like Roblox, Second Life, and Fortnite are all based on video games. By co-opting terminology with their brand, Meta could inadvertently do more harm than good. Instead of accepting the fact that there are already plenty of metaverse platforms thriving like Roblox and building on those existing technologies, the company has instead backed itself into a corner where the only way to access their metaverse version is to buy an expensive and bulky piece of equipment.
Currently, the Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset retails at $400, while the recently announced Meta Quest Pro costs a staggering $1,500. This is not the exact price someone with no experience or knowledge of the VR platform might want to buy, especially when they can spend that money on something like a PS5 or a phone. new. But it is those products that are the foundation for Meta’s future if it hopes to be. Company demand people buy into them.
“The ergonomics of the technology are terrible,” says Radoff. He added that this is a problem with much of the recent wave of web3 trends from blockchain and crypto platforms that are complex, difficult to use and learn for most new users. “The hardware itself, like the VR headset, is still quite heavy. We’re not at a point where people would wear it all day to do anything. They are happy to play a game or show up to experience a bit. But we’re not at a point where all of this will blend in and integrate into our daily lives in the way of a phone. “
“Meta gets a lot of credit for solving some super-difficult problems.“
– Jon Radoff
However, Radoff says that one of the things that Meta is doing right is that it recognizes and accommodates most people in terms of their comfort level with new technologies. For example, Horizon Worlds is getting a mobile app. It can be a good way to introduce the company’s metaverse concept to a wider audience.
“Before these things get big on VR headsets, there is an opportunity to bring it to the masses with the mobile phone you already use,” explains Radoff. “Those things may not be sexy enough to talk about, but I think it’s important in terms of executing the strategy to get these experiences in front of people across the globe regardless of their ability to buy a device. 1,500 dollars.”
For now, however, they can and should take a page out of the playbook for current successful metavers like Roblox or Fortnite. These are the platforms that have nurtured communities filled with people whose personalities and digital identities are just as important — if not more so—to users as their actual personal identity. Only by creating a fun and engaging environment can they thrive, thrive, and ultimately succeed.
Meta, on the other hand, seems to be taking a top-down approach, trying to put unwanted and unnecessary technology into the hands of the masses based on their deep pockets.
Whatever the approach, Zuckerberg and Meta are ready for a Herculean mission. They are trying to create a mobile-like product in much less time than it would take to put cell phones in our pockets.
Radoff truly believes there is something noble in these goals – especially when it comes to how Meta is willing to take great risks to develop potentially disruptive technology.
“Meta gets a lot of credit for solving some super tough problems,” says Radoff. After all, hardware like the sunglasses-style AR/VR has the same battery life as a cell phone. “These are very complex jobs,” he said. “I really think they deserve a bit of credit for taking a fair amount of technology risk. It just takes a lot of courage to do that.”
In the end, time will tell the story of whether that courage really bears fruit. For now, the fact remains that the metaverse has been around for a while — and it will continue to evolve and evolve into new and different ways for people to interact and collaborate. It just might not be what Zuck had in mind.
