3 ms·

> a metaverse that no one wanted That's the thing though, there is interest in "metaverse" style programs. VRChat, the biggest one, got 80k concurrent users la

> a metaverse that no one wanted That's the thing though, there is interest in "metaverse" style programs. VRChat, the biggest one, got 80k concurrent users last month (all time peak) according to SteamDB. Seems low, but hardware is a limiting factor for them. What happened is Facebook's version of this was a corporatized, simplified, G-rated fraction of what its competition is. Despite being in a medium where the defining factor is the ability to look out the eyes of anything vaguely humanoid, you could only be a generic human who only exists from the waist up, devoid of almost any self expression beyond maybe accessories or retexturing. As a result, there was no audience: the people who already use VR aren't going to go to an inferior product. And the people who would buy a VR headset aren't going to waste their time on a ghost town.

georgefrowny 7mo ago
Indeed, the people who would like to spend hours and hours hanging out in the digital world like something out of Snow Crash are not generally the kind of people to want to hang out in a simulated corporate lobby under the watchful gaze of someone like Zuckerberg. I'm absolutely sure there is a massive market (or at least user base) for a metaverse but until spending more time in VR than reality is mainstream, the audience is the underground clubbers and kids behind the bike sheds of the digital world.
- Duralias 7mo ago
  Until we reach the point where outside becomes ruined and hostile I do not think a metaverse has much attraction to your average person, I see that as the main reason as for why VR became MR and then just AR. Also you missed furries from your audience group, there is overlap but it is a pretty distinctive group that is actively drawn towards VR for creative expression.
  - kakacik 7mo ago
    Indeed, physical world, nature, mountains, beaches, human look-in-the-eyes interaction, breeze of fresh air on a hill you climbed and so on is something extremely important to humans. Some feel it more, some less but ie everybody recharges in nature, just not everybody is so connected with their own bodies to actually recognize it. I like a bit of gaming and VR seems like almost-there, but its just a gimmick in one's life, and for life quality purposes never should become more than fringe relax activity. And for corporate-privacy-destroying virtual spaces - they would have to pay me massive amounts to spend, unwillingly, any time there. Those are the last people who should be in charge of such place
    - mark_l_watson 7mo ago
      Indeed! Your comment is probably the most important in this thread. The Korean/German philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes a lot about losing humanity because of tech advances. I am retired so this is easier for me to do: For every hour each day I spend on tech (personal AI research, writing) I spend 90 minutes hiking with friends, playing games like Bridge, enjoying meals with my wife and friends, reading good literature and philosophy, etc. I worked for 50 years before retiring, but even working, I tried to balance human time vs. tech and work - often leaving 'money on the table' but it was worth it. Pardon an old man ranting, but I think so many people seem caught up in the wrong things.
Duralias 7mo ago
The SteamDB player number for VRChat is kind of underselling its size since half the player base is on other platforms, primarily running it standalone on Meta Quest. A few days ago it reached 156k across all platforms because of some event that is outside my sphere of interest. And VRChat is generally above 100k per day peak nowadays. https://metrics.vrchat.community/?orgId=1&refresh=30s&from=now-1y&to=now https://metrics.vrchat.community/?orgId=1&refresh=30s&from=n... But it is definitely limited by hardware and while it is constantly growing, its growth is dependent on there being a supply of relatively cheap hardware.
michaelt 7mo ago
The thing is, Facebook/Meta wasn't trying to make a product with 80k concurrent users, or even with 800k concurrent users. Facebook has 3 billion MAU, and they literally renamed the entire company to Meta - they were expecting it to be big, hundreds of millions of users. They hoped it would be a platform for fitness classes, business meetings, college classrooms, shopping, attending concerts [1] and so on. If the primary appeal of your VR universe is that your avatar can be an anthropomorphic banana, an anime girl, a furry, a giant penis with legs - that's never going to become a 300-million-user platform. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvufun6xer8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvufun6xer8
- KaiserPro 7mo ago
  Some part of facebook wanted to make Robolox, another wanted to make a virtual monitor room, another still wanted to make second life. They were all smooshed together with ~2000 non-game dev engineers and told to learn on the job.
  - abustamam 7mo ago
    I think what Meta didn't realize (or maybe they did and ignored it) was that they were not pioneering the metaverse. They already existed on the platforms you just mentioned. I've never played Roblox or Second Life but I know kids and teens who live on Roblox and adults who live on Second Life. Those worlds _were_ their metaverses, and there was no reason to jump ship to another platform when they already had a digital life established. And meta just ended up making a shitty version of the metaverse anyway for the reason you mentioned. It's not that the metaverse never took off — the popularity of Roblox and Second life (and other online social spaces) is proof that the metaverse was in demand. It's that Meta never gave people a reason to join their metaverse. Note that I'm loosely defining the "metaverse" as any online world where the community is the point and people spend real money to "get ahead" in those worlds. Many MMOs can be metaverses in this sense. I've logged onto Final Fantasy XIV and saw people who logged on just to hang out at their friend's in-game house, not to play the game at all.
    - 7mo ago
m4rtink 7mo ago
Yeah, they totally did not get it & burned a lot of money. They could basically just dumped a much less money into VRChat (or even 1:1 cloning it) and getting almost assured success.
ben_w 7mo ago
> That's the thing though, there is interest in "metaverse" style programs. VRChat, the biggest one, got 80k concurrent users last month (all time peak) according to SteamDB. Seems low, but hardware is a limiting factor for them. The problem here is that "the metaverse" has a specific meaning, and that meaning was a Potemkin-elevator-pitch. People were envisioning the ability to take a rocket launcher from Halo and use it directly in all your other games. Which is a fun sketch*, but nobody thought past the sketch into any concept of why any game developer would support that, well, meta. To the extent that VRChat gets around this, it's because it's being a playground rather than a meta-game. So, again, the "meta" part isn't there, at least not to the extent envisioned by people who saw Ready Player One and thought "Yes! Also, I like what Nolan Sorrento is saying, how many more ads can we put into our stuff?" * e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MqK90Aq8bE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MqK90Aq8bE
dgellow 7mo ago
There is a niche interest. Meta bet was on the next iPhone. They were either way too early or completely off. Though I’m personally happy to see massive corporations spend their money on pushing the state of the art in niche fields instead of using it for more evil stuff. I’m not sure why people care that they burn their own money on risky bets, that’s great for my point of view. We need more of that
tim333 7mo ago
I'm not sure how you define metaverse but some games where you get together with friends in virtual worlds like Fortnite have been pretty successful - $9bn+ revenue on that one. I've never been a big believer that it's important to strap the computer screen on your face rather than looking at it in the normal way.

georgefrowny 7mo ago

Indeed, the people who would like to spend hours and hours hanging out in the digital world like something out of Snow Crash are not generally the kind of people to want to hang out in a simulated corporate lobby under the watchful gaze of someone like Zuckerberg. I'm absolutely sure there is a massive market (or at least user base) for a metaverse but until spending more time in VR than reality is mainstream, the audience is the underground clubbers and kids behind the bike sheds of the digital world.

Duralias 7mo ago
Until we reach the point where outside becomes ruined and hostile I do not think a metaverse has much attraction to your average person, I see that as the main reason as for why VR became MR and then just AR. Also you missed furries from your audience group, there is overlap but it is a pretty distinctive group that is actively drawn towards VR for creative expression.
- kakacik 7mo ago
  Indeed, physical world, nature, mountains, beaches, human look-in-the-eyes interaction, breeze of fresh air on a hill you climbed and so on is something extremely important to humans. Some feel it more, some less but ie everybody recharges in nature, just not everybody is so connected with their own bodies to actually recognize it. I like a bit of gaming and VR seems like almost-there, but its just a gimmick in one's life, and for life quality purposes never should become more than fringe relax activity. And for corporate-privacy-destroying virtual spaces - they would have to pay me massive amounts to spend, unwillingly, any time there. Those are the last people who should be in charge of such place
  - mark_l_watson 7mo ago
    Indeed! Your comment is probably the most important in this thread. The Korean/German philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes a lot about losing humanity because of tech advances. I am retired so this is easier for me to do: For every hour each day I spend on tech (personal AI research, writing) I spend 90 minutes hiking with friends, playing games like Bridge, enjoying meals with my wife and friends, reading good literature and philosophy, etc. I worked for 50 years before retiring, but even working, I tried to balance human time vs. tech and work - often leaving 'money on the table' but it was worth it. Pardon an old man ranting, but I think so many people seem caught up in the wrong things.

Duralias 7mo ago

The SteamDB player number for VRChat is kind of underselling its size since half the player base is on other platforms, primarily running it standalone on Meta Quest. A few days ago it reached 156k across all platforms because of some event that is outside my sphere of interest. And VRChat is generally above 100k per day peak nowadays. https://metrics.vrchat.community/?orgId=1&refresh=30s&from=now-1y&to=now https://metrics.vrchat.community/?orgId=1&refresh=30s&from=n... But it is definitely limited by hardware and while it is constantly growing, its growth is dependent on there being a supply of relatively cheap hardware.

michaelt 7mo ago

The thing is, Facebook/Meta wasn't trying to make a product with 80k concurrent users, or even with 800k concurrent users. Facebook has 3 billion MAU, and they literally renamed the entire company to Meta - they were expecting it to be big, hundreds of millions of users. They hoped it would be a platform for fitness classes, business meetings, college classrooms, shopping, attending concerts [1] and so on. If the primary appeal of your VR universe is that your avatar can be an anthropomorphic banana, an anime girl, a furry, a giant penis with legs - that's never going to become a 300-million-user platform. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvufun6xer8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvufun6xer8

KaiserPro 7mo ago
Some part of facebook wanted to make Robolox, another wanted to make a virtual monitor room, another still wanted to make second life. They were all smooshed together with ~2000 non-game dev engineers and told to learn on the job.
- abustamam 7mo ago
  I think what Meta didn't realize (or maybe they did and ignored it) was that they were not pioneering the metaverse. They already existed on the platforms you just mentioned. I've never played Roblox or Second Life but I know kids and teens who live on Roblox and adults who live on Second Life. Those worlds _were_ their metaverses, and there was no reason to jump ship to another platform when they already had a digital life established. And meta just ended up making a shitty version of the metaverse anyway for the reason you mentioned. It's not that the metaverse never took off — the popularity of Roblox and Second life (and other online social spaces) is proof that the metaverse was in demand. It's that Meta never gave people a reason to join their metaverse. Note that I'm loosely defining the "metaverse" as any online world where the community is the point and people spend real money to "get ahead" in those worlds. Many MMOs can be metaverses in this sense. I've logged onto Final Fantasy XIV and saw people who logged on just to hang out at their friend's in-game house, not to play the game at all.
  - 7mo ago

m4rtink 7mo ago

Yeah, they totally did not get it & burned a lot of money. They could basically just dumped a much less money into VRChat (or even 1:1 cloning it) and getting almost assured success.

ben_w 7mo ago

> That's the thing though, there is interest in "metaverse" style programs. VRChat, the biggest one, got 80k concurrent users last month (all time peak) according to SteamDB. Seems low, but hardware is a limiting factor for them. The problem here is that "the metaverse" has a specific meaning, and that meaning was a Potemkin-elevator-pitch. People were envisioning the ability to take a rocket launcher from Halo and use it directly in all your other games. Which is a fun sketch*, but nobody thought past the sketch into any concept of why any game developer would support that, well, meta. To the extent that VRChat gets around this, it's because it's being a playground rather than a meta-game. So, again, the "meta" part isn't there, at least not to the extent envisioned by people who saw Ready Player One and thought "Yes! Also, I like what Nolan Sorrento is saying, how many more ads can we put into our stuff?" * e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MqK90Aq8bE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MqK90Aq8bE

dgellow 7mo ago

There is a niche interest. Meta bet was on the next iPhone. They were either way too early or completely off. Though I’m personally happy to see massive corporations spend their money on pushing the state of the art in niche fields instead of using it for more evil stuff. I’m not sure why people care that they burn their own money on risky bets, that’s great for my point of view. We need more of that

tim333 7mo ago

I'm not sure how you define metaverse but some games where you get together with friends in virtual worlds like Fortnite have been pretty successful - $9bn+ revenue on that one. I've never been a big believer that it's important to strap the computer screen on your face rather than looking at it in the normal way.