Meta (earlier known as Facebook) has been reportedly struggling to gain users on its social virtual reality (VR) platform named 'Horizon Worlds' - its biggest bet to fulfil its $10 billion metaverse dream. ALSO READ: Google Meet to automatically zoom in on your face for more visibility
As per the report in the Wall Street Journal, around a year after Mark Zuckerberg (Founder and CEO of Meta) announced his metaverse project, internal documents reveal that the company is struggling and fighting with the "glitchy technology, uninterested users and a lack of clarity about what it will take to succeed." ALSO READ: Samsung set to upgrade SmartThings to support Matter in October- Know more
Horizon Worlds have stated that they have less than 200,000 monthly active users, down from the 300,000-user mark milestone Meta which was confirmed by the company in February 2022.
Meta initially set a goal of reaching 500,000 monthly active users for Horizon Worlds by the end of this year.
The company has now revised its goal to reach around 280,000 monthly active Horizon Worlds users by 2022 end.
While Meta said that it had around 10,000 separate virtual worlds (as of February), the report claimed only about nine per cent of these virtual worlds are visited by more than 50 users, and most users don't even return after one month of using the platform.
While Zuckerberg said that the transition to a more immersive online experience will take years, "the company's flagship metaverse offering for consumers, Horizon Worlds, is falling short of internal performance expectations".
Meta's other products, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, together attract more than 3.5 billion average monthly users.
Earlier this month, Vishal Shah, Meta's VP of Metaverse, reportedly admitted that Horizon Worlds is inundated with several quality issues and even those building the VR social network at the company are barely using it.
"Simply put, for an experience to become delightful and retentive, it must first be usable and well crafted," he told employees in an internal memo seen by The Verge.
Horizon Worlds is a social VR experience where you can discover new places with friends, build unique worlds of your own, and form teams to compete in action-packed games.
Mark Zuckerberg last week unveiled a new VR headset Meta Quest Pro that is packed with features like full-colour mixed reality and is priced at $1,500.
Inputs from IANS
