4 ms·

You are absolutely right. Looking back at the days of Mafia Wars and Farmville. For these games social was a core aspect of their success. Now Roblox, Minecraft

You are absolutely right. Looking back at the days of Mafia Wars and Farmville. For these games social was a core aspect of their success. Now Roblox, Minecraft, and Fifa have incorporated similar features already. In 2022 it's not that hard anymore. So, what would FB's moat be? How large is the overlap between FB's current customers and new Metaverse customers?

potatolicious 5y ago
Agreed - if anything FB has a harder fight than folks like Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft. FB is really noncommittal about what a metaverse product would even be, which can be interpreted either as secrecy... or they just don't know themselves. From the little we've seen (notable that it's 100% CGI concept reels and 0% anything concrete) it really does seem like just social spaces. One thing the game studios have figured out is that simple chat is insufficient - Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite have all developed genuine social spaces that center around some activity. FB's metaverse concept seems to have no unifying purpose and lacks some compelling purpose that the games do. To the extent these necessary unifying activities are discussed it's usually hand-waved away as something users themselves will concoct. More generally, it seems that FB wants to be the substrate of a new social network - but it's not clear to me that that's what anyone wants? What's the role of FB as a platform when "VR socialization" can just be apps on a device - in which case FB's role is solely that of a device/OS vendor, which clearly is insufficient for their ambitions? What does FB bring to the table that Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc, would care about? If socializing in VR is going to be a thing (big if, but let's assume for a second), why would I go to FB? Why would I not directly go to any number of apps and vendors who have created focused products? I don't need a single unifying platform when I can just... install a number of different ones?
- jsemrau 5y ago
  >What does FB bring to the table that Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc, would care about? 1. Identity management 2. Network management But then realistically, are these really pain points?

potatolicious 5y ago

Agreed - if anything FB has a harder fight than folks like Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft. FB is really noncommittal about what a metaverse product would even be, which can be interpreted either as secrecy... or they just don't know themselves. From the little we've seen (notable that it's 100% CGI concept reels and 0% anything concrete) it really does seem like just social spaces. One thing the game studios have figured out is that simple chat is insufficient - Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite have all developed genuine social spaces that center around some activity. FB's metaverse concept seems to have no unifying purpose and lacks some compelling purpose that the games do. To the extent these necessary unifying activities are discussed it's usually hand-waved away as something users themselves will concoct. More generally, it seems that FB wants to be the substrate of a new social network - but it's not clear to me that that's what anyone wants? What's the role of FB as a platform when "VR socialization" can just be apps on a device - in which case FB's role is solely that of a device/OS vendor, which clearly is insufficient for their ambitions? What does FB bring to the table that Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc, would care about? If socializing in VR is going to be a thing (big if, but let's assume for a second), why would I go to FB? Why would I not directly go to any number of apps and vendors who have created focused products? I don't need a single unifying platform when I can just... install a number of different ones?

jsemrau 5y ago
>What does FB bring to the table that Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc, would care about? 1. Identity management 2. Network management But then realistically, are these really pain points?