Because of persistent bugs that have plagued Horizon Worlds, Meta’s virtual reality platform for the metaverse, the company has put Horizon Worlds in a “quality lockdown” until the end of the year. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Horizon Worlds, revealed a first glimpse of Horizon Worlds’ multi-billion-dollar virtual reality metaverse wager.
The internet ridiculed the platform’s graphics to the point that Zuckerberg soon issued a painful apology , declaring Horizon was “capable” of “much more” and “improving rapidly.”
It seems that even Meta employees who are working to improve the platform don’t regard it in the most favorable of terms.
According to internal memos from the company, Meta’s Horizon Worlds group was repeatedly criticised by department leaders for not using the platform as directed. Further memos show that the Horizon Worlds team was instructed to stay in a “quality lockdown”, for the remainder of the year, to fix enduring problems with the platform’s functionality and appearance.
Many of us don’t spend as much time in Horizon, and our dogfooding dashboards clearly show this,” Meta’s Vice President of Metaverse Vishal Shah told employees on September 15. Why is this? “Why don’t you love the product that we have built so much that you use it every day?” It’s simple: if we don’t love it, then how can we expect users to love it?
Horizon Worlds leadership discovered that its team members’ engagement on the platform was still unsatisfactory two weeks later.
Shah wrote in a September 30 memo that a plan was being developed to “hold managers accountable for enforcing Horizon sessions for Meta employees to use it and encouraging them to share the platform with non-work colleagues.”
“I think everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. Shah said that you can’t do this without it.” “Get involved.” Organise times with colleagues and friends to do it together in both the internal build and the public build, so that you can interact with our communities.
Shah admitted that the platform’s onboarding process was “confusing and frustrating” and that there were too many papercuts, stability problems, bugs, and other obstacles for the community to enjoy Horizon.
Shah instructed the Horizon Worlds team on September 15th to stay in a “quality lockdown”, to ensure that they “fix our quality gaps” and “performance issues” before allowing Horizon to be opened to more users.
The spokesperson stated that “This is a multi-year journey and we’re going keep making what we built better.”
Horizon Worlds’ woes stand out in light of the extraordinary amount of money Zuckerberg has spent on the division. As a result, the CEO has repeatedly called the future of his company. Meta’s metaverse division suffered a staggering \$2.8 billion loss in July. This brings the total year-to-date losses to the group to $5.77 billion. The division lost $10.2 million in 2021.
Zuckerberg repeatedly spoke out in support of his metaverse division, Facebook Reality Labs, during Meta’s Q2 earnings conference in July.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that it would be a costly undertaking over the next few years. “But as the metaverse becomes increasingly relevant in every aspect of how we live […], I’m confident we’ll be happy we played an integral role in building this.”
Since changing its name to Facebook last autumn, Meta has been determined to dominate the metaverse. This is an immersive, futuristic version of the internet that can be navigated by digital avatars. However, while Zuckerberg has been spending a lot in the metaverse and seeing results, it is still not happening.
Web3 leaders expressed doubt about the company’s metaverse campaign. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, stated in July that “the metaverse will happen” but that he doubted that any corporate efforts to create it are heading anywhere.
Buterin stated at the time, “It’s too early to know people’s actual wants.” “So everything Facebook creates right now will fail.”
