[TatersGonnaT8]

As with all of these articles that follow this same script, the author conflates "the metaverse" and all of the monetary investment being made in Reality Labs with just Horizon Worlds. Makes it hard to take anything said in this article seriously.

As others have already commented, most of that money has gone towards longer-term bets on hardware and other investments. A small percentage of that $36 billion mentioned by the author was directed towards Horizon Worlds.

[JeremyNT]

> As with all of these articles that follow this same script, the author conflates "the metaverse" and all of the monetary investment being made in Reality Labs with just Horizon Worlds. Makes it hard to take anything said in this article seriously.

The author wrote about his experience using the system as designed and promoted towards end users. This isn't some deep business analysis or some investigation into the lesser-known corners of VR development, it's a normal user wanting to try out "the metaverse" as promoted by the global megacorporation "Meta."

It's reasonable to want other kinds of reporting as well, but there's a lot to learn from a user recounting their own personal experiences in the space. You don't get a second chance to make a first impression, and if this is what users on the happy path will see, their disappointment is completely understandable.

[GenerocUsername]

If Horizon worlds is not the entire meta verse, can you name any other metaverses?

Can a regular person?

And don't say things like RecRoom, because those exist independent of the billions Facebook spent on meta

[T-A]

> can you name any other metaverses? [...] don't say things like RecRoom, because those exist independent of the billions Facebook spent on meta

You seem to believe that only things financed by Facebook qualify as "metaverse", a concept which existed long before Facebook:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse

[GenerocUsername]

You are conflating the industry term 'metaverse' with Facebooks billions of investments and huge PR push on their 'Metaverse' which has so far been solely Horizon Worlds.

Similarly, despite the obscure industry term predating Facebooks push, it is not a common term, and even techies do not think of Minecraft and other digital worlds as being 'Facebooks Metaverse'.

A company cannot just start using a term and then retroactivly justify their expense based on other external examples.

[T-A]

> You are conflating the industry term 'metaverse' with Facebooks billions of investments and huge PR push on their 'Metaverse'

No, you are.

> it is not a common term, and even techies do not think of Minecraft and other digital worlds as being 'Facebooks Metaverse'

Here's a well-publicized example of techies persistently doing just that:

October 2021: https://medium.com/@ow/the-metaverse-is-already-here-its-cal...

August 2022: https://tech.hindustantimes.com/gaming/news/fortnite-gamemak...

September 2022: https://mashable.com/article/fortnite-is-the-real-metaverse

September 2022: https://nordic.ign.com/fortnite/60374/opinion/how-fortnite-i...

December 2022: https://mixed-news.com/en/fortnite-studio-epic-games-develop...

December 2022: https://coingape.com/education/explained-fortnite-game-and-w...

[zamadatix]

Note that link would have returned a page saying the article didn't exist prior to Facebook's announcements.

While the term certainly existed prior to Facebook what made it anywhere close to common was Facebook's investment and media coverage which not only resulted in the above article but general use of the term for the first time, see the first small bump and the second overwhelming bump: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

Sometimes a big corporation coming along and taking over a term that was barely ever used happens. When people talk of it having happened you can still take them seriously even if you don't like that the word was co-opted.

[madeofpalk]

Minecraft?

Why must the metaverse be the result of billions Facebook invested? Maybe Facebook spent billions on attempting to clone Minecraft, and failed?

[chankstein38]

Agreed. I felt like I needed a "Meta's Metaverse Bingo Card" throughout the whole article too. When it started off whining about legs I almost stopped reading bc come on we've had various styles and kinds of avatars in games the entire time they've existed and not having legs in VR games is very common and really NOT that jarring. Then the author continued on to talk about it being empty and do the Facebook...er Meta thing and while I really dislike Facebook/Meta all those things just meant the tone for this article was going to feel like some cringey magazine author trying to seem relatable and going in with a bias.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending any of the metaverse branding crap but your point about this just being the same stupid scripted article about Horizon Worlds is accurate and I'm not sure how this reached the front page.