Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s attempt to advertise Horizon Worlds fails in a recent post of his lifeless avatar selfie as it became a topic of mockery on the internet.
Compared to Zuckerberg’s claim and the marketing teasers shown last year, Horizon Worlds on Meta Oculus Quest seems to be a bad impression of what the metaverse should look like.
Zuckerberg had this vision to build a virtual world of the future, and immediately put this plan into action by replacing Facebook’s name with Meta. He announced Meta would be leading the metaverse industry by building a perfect “VR social experience” for users.
It began its endeavors by spending billions of dollars to launch Horizon Worlds on Oculus Quest and Microsoft Windows for players to try out. The idea was simple; like Facebook, Horizon Worlds would be a place to socialize and build in a metaverse.
What is Horizon Worlds?
Horizon Worlds is a social VR application built by Meta platforms that enable users to interact, play, and explore virtual worlds for content consumption and creation.
It is a free game where players can socialize, explore their creativity, or even start a business in VR. The platform also provides tools such as code blocks, sounds, and animation effects for content creators and developers to build something of their own and sell it online.
It was first launched as a “Facebook Worlds” beta platform in 2020 where only the invited users could use the pre-built custom tools to create something and a multiplayer gaming VR experience in the virtual space.
After that, Meta changed its name to its current one, Horizon Worlds.
Horizon Worlds: Meta’s financial burden
Horizon Worlds was supposed to boost Meta’s revenue with its launch, but it ended up costing a loss to the billion-dollar tech company. As a manager of the world’s biggest social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Whatsapp, Meta failed to meet its financial goal when the quarterly report came out.
According to CNBC, Meta’s quarterly report showed a decline in sales and shares losing half their value since the beginning of the year. Investors and employees seem to be stressed about the direction Meta is taking under the leadership of Zuckerberg.
Many employees believe Zuckerberg’s persistence in building a metaverse is costing a loss for Meta in the market. In fact, the company is slowly losing the confidence of its investors as well.
Horizon Worlds might not only be the reason because previously Instagram changed its layout to compete with TikTok which angered many users. Still, Meta insists on sticking to the new TikTok-like layout.
Similarly, many other decisions pushed down Meta’s shares and investor support throughout the year. Although this might not lead to bankruptcy, it also shows that Zuckerberg is making failed attempts, especially with Horizon Worlds metaverse.
Zuckerberg’s avatar selfie ridiculed
If you look at Horizon World’s marketing teasers released last year, you might’ve hoped to see the same thing in real life as well. However, Meta didn’t meet the expectations it initially built through its marketing.
When Horizon Worlds first came out, it wasn’t what was shown in the trailer but it really looked like a low-budgeted basic virtual space, something a small company would build. If you showed Horizon Worlds to someone who doesn’t know it’s by Meta, they would definitely not recognize it.
The criticism wasn’t enough until Mark Zuckerberg posted his avatar’s selfie from Horizon Worlds with a basic structure of the Eiffel Tower and another famous building from Spain in the background announcing that Horizon Worlds is now available in France and Spain.
This brought fits of laughter and mockery on the internet. The lifeless avatar, lack of details, and the confidence of the CEO became a center of discussion.
YouTuber YongYea commented that the picture itself was unappealing, especially the character. He shared examples of many MMO games that have better avatars than what Horizon Worlds have built like Fortnite.
Meta has been making attempts to bring creators and developers to Horizon Worlds to attract an audience but seeing the hideous graphics no one would be willing to spend money on basic faces driving the creators away.
YongYea gave examples of VR experiences and games that have put a lot more time, effort, and love with a distinct art style and good creative vision to offer investment opportunities by adding NFTs and crypto in them as well.
Zuckerberg’s screenshot of his avatar from Horizon Worlds brought many memes and mockery in the Web3 community.
Someone compared VRchat’s Eiffel tower, which looked much more appealing than that basic structure.
Meta has clearly failed to realize its reality: 999 vs. 2022
Clearly, Meta and Zuckerberg didn’t plan this through or didn’t realize the dire consequences of launching a bare minimum space despite being a billion-dollar company.
Will Horizon Worlds ever be successful?
When looking at the recent developments of Horizon Worlds, many people question who is this target to appeal to.
Seeing the lack of effort put into the graphics and making of the virtual world, YongYea says Zuckerberg seems to have tone-deaf knowledge about what the public really wants.
Horizon Worlds needs to make an effort into improving its so-called “social VR experience,” especially since other metaverse platforms are already winning the race. The Sandbox has its Alpha Season 3 coming, which has brought a huge amount of interest in people.
Similarly, Roblox or Decentraland, which Meta considers a rival of Horizon Worlds, have increased their standard and are much more appealing to the public.
For Horizon Worlds to have a future, Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg need to figure out a good creative vision and improve their overall graphic quality to impress the audience, or else Zuckerberg can kiss his metaverse dream goodbye.
Will Meta ever improve Horizon Worlds? That’s the question every person needs an answer to.
