Meta’s virtual reality network Horizon Worlds, currently the centerpiece of its metaverse endeavor, is suffering from bugs and not being used very much by the very employees who are building it – new internal documents reveal.
In a September 15 memo to employees obtained by The Verge, Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, said the team would remain in ‘quality lockdown’ for the remainder of 2022 in order to ‘ensure that we fix our quality gaps and performance issues before we open up Horizon to more users.’
Horizon Worlds is a free virtual reality online video game that allows users to interact with legless avatars that they can create. It was first released in the U.S. and Canada to people over age 18 on December 9, 2021.
Meta’s virtual reality network Horizon Worlds, currently the centerpiece of its metaverse endeavor, is suffering from bugs and not being used very much by the very employees who are building it – new internal documents reveal
In a September 15 memo to employees obtained by The Verge , Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, said the team would remain in ‘quality lockdown’ for the remainder of 2022
The virtual network has since been rolled out for Quest users in multiple other countries, including France, Spain, Ireland and the U.K., and it hit 300,000 users.
The network is also coming to mobile and desktops via a web version sometime soon.
It’s a big part of Meta’s effort to essentially build the next version of social media, on that Mark Zuckerberg’s company has already spent more than $10 billion on.
‘Since launching late last year, we have seen that the core thesis of Horizon Worlds — a synchronous social network where creators can build engaging worlds — is strong,’ Shah wrote in the memo.
‘But currently feedback from our creators, users, playtesters, and many of us on the team is that the aggregate weight of papercuts, stability issues, and bugs is making it too hard for our community to experience the magic of Horizon.
‘Simply put, for an experience to become delightful and retentive, it must first be usable and well crafted.’
In a follow-up memo dated September 30th, according to The Verge, Shah said employees still weren’t using Horizon enough, writing that a plan was being made to ‘hold managers accountable’ for having their teams use Horizon at least once a week.
‘Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. Get in there. Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends, in both internal builds but also the public build so you can interact with our community.’
Shah also reportedly called out specific issues with Horizon, writing that ‘our onboarding experience is confusing and frustrating for users’ and that the team needed to ‘introduce new users to top-notch worlds that will ensure their first visit is a success.’
It seems like the teams working on Horizon Worlds have their work cut out for them, at least according to Shah’s memo.
‘Today, we are not operating with enough flexibility,’ his memo reads. ‘I want to be clear on this point. We are working on a product that has not found product market fit. If you are on Horizon, I need you to fully embrace ambiguity and change.’
The internal documents come at a time when several tech executives are publicly backing away from the metaverse.
Apple CEO Tim Cook believes that most consumers can’t even define what the metaverse is and was dismissive of the notion that they’d spend their entire lives inside a virtual world.
‘I always think it’s important that people understand what something is,’ Cook told the Dutch publication Bright, according to a Google translation. ‘And I’m not really sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.’
Cook also expressed skepticism that people will want to spend extended periods of time in VR in the future. ‘[VR is] something you can really immerse yourself in. And that can be used in a good way.’
Zuckerberg found himself the subject of ridicule in August when he unveiled his own Horizon Worlds avatar that was blasted for being amateurish and strange-looking.
Shortly after, the mogul posted a more polished looking avatar and said he’d share ‘major updates to Horizon and avatar graphics’ at the company’s annual conference on Oct. 11.
Horizon Worlds is a free virtual reality online video game that allows users to interact with legless avatars that they can create. It was first released in the U.S. and Canada to people over age 18 on December 9, 2021
‘Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. Get in there. Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends, in both internal builds but also the public build so you can interact with our community’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk