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WSJ - Meta's Internal Documents Show Metaverse Falling Short - Declining Users, Most Worlds Never Visited
- Thread starter CommodoreKong
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This is the main issue. "Completely shutting yourself off from your surroundings" is at the same time:
* integral to the experience and concept of VR
* yet, at the same time it's something that the majority of people simply have no interest of doing in their spare time. Mostly those of us who share a place with other people (roommates, family, partner, kids ... even pets)
The fact that Zuck believes people wouldn't just enter that state for individual gaming sessions, but instead would opt to work or socialize in that kind of setting is ludicrous.
Hell, there are times where i think my wife and i should cut down on wearing our AirPods at home. Because of the awkward *take one earbud out* "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" moments all the time.
Facebook trying to make this happen is so weird to me. It isn't going to happen and no amount of throwing money at it will change that fact. Of course they've sunk untold amounts into it and they want some return, but that's reaching sunk cost fallacy levels if they think they can keep pushing and make back the money eventually.
What I think would be a far better use is for them to get some good will/good PR and hell maybe even some funding/tax breaks due to charitable stuff and use the tech, the whole idea of building virtual worlds or recreations of the real world in VR and then pushing it as an actual thing that could allow those who are sick, disabled and such and aren't able to travel and see the world, or experience things like swimming with sea life or whatever a way they can experience some of those things and bring more joy to them. I've always thought one of the best promises of VR is its ability to help those who can't experience certain things of the world to be able to experience it. To be able to visit museums of the world, to visit sights of history, experience feats they could never actually do. It's why I got my disabled sister a VR headset and she loved it but there's just so much more that could be done that's worthy of investment than building shitty VR worlds no one is bothering to visit anyway.
What I think would be a far better use is for them to get some good will/good PR and hell maybe even some funding/tax breaks due to charitable stuff and use the tech, the whole idea of building virtual worlds or recreations of the real world in VR and then pushing it as an actual thing that could allow those who are sick, disabled and such and aren't able to travel and see the world, or experience things like swimming with sea life or whatever a way they can experience some of those things and bring more joy to them. I've always thought one of the best promises of VR is its ability to help those who can't experience certain things of the world to be able to experience it. To be able to visit museums of the world, to visit sights of history, experience feats they could never actually do. It's why I got my disabled sister a VR headset and she loved it but there's just so much more that could be done that's worthy of investment than building shitty VR worlds no one is bothering to visit anyway.
I hope they got some serious money to say they thought that was immersive lol.
The idea of a virtual world where you can interact with other people has been a science fiction dream for decades. However, the technology is just not advanced enough yet to make it appealing, so of course people aren't using it. Especially not for long durations.
Come get me when we have holodeck type shit.
Come get me when we have holodeck type shit.
Also Habbo Hotel, IMVU and Second Life have been a thing for like... 20 years already? Adding a clunky and isolating VR headset on top is not going to make them suddenly better or more mainstream-friendly.
Edit: also the last two I mentioned have been sustained by adult content and sw for the longest part of their existence. Good luck figthting for that userbase with Meta's usual anti sex and anti sw rules.
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I think (cloud) streaming will really help VR take off eventually, because less need for local hardware power would mean a lot less bulk.
Speaking of holodeck type shit, it feels like these sterile VR aspirations of corporations are gravely underestimating the pull of fantasy worlds/wish fulfilment. For whatever reasons they are not even trying to sell escapism, just your everyday mundane life but in VR.
Users could spawn thousand of things in virtual worlds, grinding performance to a halt. Users could also find it challenging trying to scroll through lists of hundreds/thousands of spawnable objects, when logically they know the bar 20 feet away will have the objects they want. Also, it's people playing make-believe. If they want to have fun that way, so be it. It doesn't say anything about Meta's design philosophy, other than you're free to make worlds and place objects for guests, who are then free to play how they want.
I highly doubt this is feasible, VR needs ultra low latency to work without being extremely jarring, so streaming is pretty much a non-starter.
They're focused on marketing business usecases right this second for a $1500 device. It doesn't mean their overarching vision of the metaverse is sterile and boring.
Based on all the critiques in here, it doesn't need to be holodeck level for most people, it just needs to not be a terribad salad of primitives like it is now. Model imports from various 3D apps/platforms, including full on native support for Substance 3D directly on Quest Pro, are coming to raise the bar.
Nah, it's just a matter of fidelity and social network traction. VRChat and Rec Room prove there's a much bigger market for this type of experience if there's content to pull users in.
Trolling over the lack of legs was in the foreground on social media for weeks in August. So it's really just people celebrating the mug of STFU being served.
All of that will be possible with support for importing models from external 3D creation tools as well as more powerful scripting tools. You say "no amount of money will make it happen" but that is precisely what they're throwing at the problem to improve things.
The money thrown at the issue wasn't the problems it can solve with Vr etc but the fact that they are chasing the premise that everyone wants to browse the web or interact in a VR environment or something which isn't something that most of the planet wants to do now or imo anytime soon. It's completely isolated from the real word. My point was more they should be aiming for stuff like I suggested which is more realistic than some "meta universe" world where everyone wants to spend their time every day etc
This is my reaction when seeing this
Actually it makes for a nice joke,
my real reaction was more "LMAO Nope"
Legs in other stuff like VRChat are inverse kinematics or using trackers, but this seems to be without trackers? Which would actually be a pretty big thing. Full body you usually need trackers. Unless Quest is getting trackers, not sure how legs are getting tracked with the body mostly blocking them. It didn't seem to just be an animation.
Of course it this is like the bare hand tracking and it only works when you're looking at them, then never mind.
As much as they've spent and will spend on evolving the foundations, they really want this to be a collaborative effort, so they don't HAVE to bear the additional burden of building all these experiences alone. They build, creators come, consumers come. And the more companies like Sony, Pico and Apple compete in the space, the better it'll be for everyone.
They won't replace real life 24/7, but VR absolutely is a more convenient alternative to going out 7 nights a week with friends, or commuting 5 days a week in rush hour traffic just so you can be within earshot of your colleagues.
Waiting for Steam's standalone solution. The Pico 4 is supposed to be pretty great, but I have no idea how their storefront is. I'll just continue to wait as things continue to improve and hopefully eventually fall in price. But I'm not buying any Meta hardware again (have the original Quest)
Do they really not have any professional game devs working on this??? I can make better environments on Dreams for PS4 and I'm not even a game dev or artist lol.
Again no issues with that if that's what works but the problem is that the base assumption that enough of the world wants to jack into a VR universe to browse the web and interact with friend is extremely flawed at the base. It isn't a situation the majority of the world wants, hell I'd be surprised if a majority of one nation even wanted it. Them chasing that idea is the problem. all I've ever seen publicly on interviews and shit of Zuckerberg and this shit is him acting like this is the future of the internet, if he believes it then he's wasting money going for the wrong goal no matter how much he wants it to be a thing.
This is perfect. That video had me busting up and can't believe Jordan was being authentic there with his reactions. That side by side comparison was a joke too, only made this look even more laughable. If the graphics aren't cutting edge/photo realistic, then you shouldn't be doing a side by side comparison.This is my reaction when seeing this
Actually it makes for a nice joke,
my real reaction was more "LMAO Nope"
I mean to be fair, Dreams had game devs make sure that the environment creation parts were compelling to use.
Looks like no one actually involved in game EVER touched anything close to everything on display here.
The only reason for the environments to be THIS BAD for a commercial product is that the tools are shit, the artists are shit or the decision makers are shit.
I refuse to believe anyone with a functioning set of eyes looked at this at any time and thought it looked compelling.
It looks like shit in the same way something like this always did
but something like this doesn't
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Wait metaverse is an actual product? I thought it was just some dumb view of the future where he thought everyone and their grandma would walk around with a headset on. What a weird and bizarre thing.
The only way anybody could think this "looks cool" is because they haven't touched a videogame in any shape or form since before the Playstation.
Edit: neither they have seen what the non-VR competition is doing. I was making 3D furniture and clothes for IMVU on 3D Studio MAX with extremely rudimentary knowledge of the tool 15 years ago. Being stuck to crude in-game creating tools in the year of our lord 2022 is a colossal shit show.
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OP
OP
They faked the legs in the demo:
Facebook's Legs Video Was A Lie
A subsequent statement from Meta says 'the segment featured animations created from motion capture'
kotaku.com
I doubt the real implementation of the legs will be anywhere near as good.
I mean they actually NEVER touched a videogame AT ALL.
You could have only played Pong and still think this is so shit.
Like virtual worlds are a staple of science fiction, Hollywood had sold us on a specific vision of it for DECADES.
This falls so short it's like when you have to go somewhere but you try to get out of bed, fall and lose consciousness right there.
But it's not more convenient than a normal-ass Zoom call, FaceTime, or a few rounds of CoD with a headset.
They faked the legs in the demo:
Facebook's Legs Video Was A Lie
A subsequent statement from Meta says 'the segment featured animations created from motion capture'
I doubt the real implementation of the legs will be anywhere near as good.
Holy misleading reporters!
Fire Emblem Awakening had legs!
It didn't have feets.
Like Amazon and Google trying to make their own games, Facebook has the very same problem any tech company has that suddenly has to shift from being a content aggregator to a content creator:
creating compelling content that draws in people takes time, money, skill, is hard to predict and even if it's good, sometimes it fails to connect. On Facebook, the users can easily do this for them by perusing the endless internet and their personal lives - but in the metaverse, Zuckerberg has to lure people in with actually interesting stuff.
The true metaverse will not come from a technical demo filled with brands, like a dead mall. It will come from actual communities that grow beyond their technical limitations, like Fortnite, Minecraft, Final Fantasy, GTA online or somewhere else.
creating compelling content that draws in people takes time, money, skill, is hard to predict and even if it's good, sometimes it fails to connect. On Facebook, the users can easily do this for them by perusing the endless internet and their personal lives - but in the metaverse, Zuckerberg has to lure people in with actually interesting stuff.
The true metaverse will not come from a technical demo filled with brands, like a dead mall. It will come from actual communities that grow beyond their technical limitations, like Fortnite, Minecraft, Final Fantasy, GTA online or somewhere else.
It feels like they went too big right away and didn't have a concrete goal. If there's anything I've learned in my 20 years of developing consumer software it's that you need a defined user you're addressing, and a problem you're looking to solve. It seems like their user is "everyone" and the problem is "the world". It feels like they should have picked one place where they could add value - maybe keynotes at industry events, and make an experience for that. Instead you've got this soup of an experience that does nothing right for anyone.
And for anyone who says I'd want to do this for work meetings you're out of your mind. I'm not going to be able to have a meaningful conversation with my coworkers while looking at their avatar
And for anyone who says I'd want to do this for work meetings you're out of your mind. I'm not going to be able to have a meaningful conversation with my coworkers while looking at their avatar
but something like this doesn't
Nah let's be real - Wii Sports has always been incredibly hideous and bad looking. It's effectively prototype placeholder art that never got updated. It's all subjective, though. I just find it dumb that Nintendo, a massive company, got a free pass for the art/presentation in Wii Sports! A bit of rose tinted glasses here IMO.
Beyond that, though: screw Mark Zuck and Meta.
Nah, it's a style you don't like but it's clean and do its job with providing appealing characters and environments.
It's minimalist but it worked well, especially at the time.
The whole package is coherent and even the menus show care in its design.
It's actually vastly more appealing than whatever the hell they tried to do in 2022 with Switch Sports.
Same way you can disagree with Current contemporary art but it's still vastly better than some hack putting some shit together in minutes that Zuck's company is going for.
Like the minions, you can hate everything it about doesn't change that the designs are appealing.
It's all subjective, so it's barely worth discussing heh. But I find it almost comical to describe those Wii Sports characters as "appealing". Like, the torso and neck on those things, along with the hilarious sphere hands, are just terrible in my eyes. There's a lot of things you could say about Wii Sports, but aesthetics are not even close to a strong suit IMO.
Anyway, whatever, we're discussing art. What I think looks hideous could be perceived as incredible by another.
I mean have you seen the other avatars of that gen?
the MSFT soulless brand wearer and the uncanny PS Home shit?
Mii also integrated rather well with everything not going for a realistic look.
It's actually why they're so stylised.
Take this shit in the metaverse, it can't be super stylised because of what Meta wants to do with the avatars but it can't be ultrarealistic so it's in the shitty middle ground where it's still uncanny to look unsettling but not stylised enough to be appealing.
The lack of entire lower portion of the characters make it look like a super funny joke though.
Like I would want a live reaction to everyone seeing this shit and THEN learning how much money was spent.
The one thing Apple has going for it is that the company itself is popular and people like using their products. It's a brand that people actively want to be associated with since it invokes a sense of status.
To beat Facebook all they need to do is release a cool looking headset, integrate iWorld or whatever they call it with iMessage, then get celebrities to start using it. They also get a lot of easy cross promotion since they can integrate the headset with MacOS for productivity. Everything will "just work" and it will probably work well.
The Facebook Metaverse will be like the old person Walmart version of VR compared to whatever Apple comes up with. Facebook NEEDS this to take over people's lives since their social media empire is dying, whereas Apple will just treat it as another fun gadget they can sell for a high margin.
I mean have you seen the other avatars of that gen?
the MSFT soulless brand wearer and the uncanny PS Home shit?
Mii also integrated rather well with everything not going for a realistic look.
It's actually why they're so stylised.
Take this shit in the metaverse, it can't be super stylised because of what Meta wants to do with the avatars but it can't be ultrarealistic so it's in the shitty middle ground where it's still uncanny to look unsettling but not stylised enough to be appealing.
The lack of entire lower portion of the characters make it look like a super funny joke though.
Like I would want a live reaction to everyone seeing this shit and THEN learning how much money was spent.
Absolutely nothing about this game looks appealing to me:
And maybe easy to forget, but there were characters without arms or legs in that game, too. But nothing about the environment, lighting, etc. looks appealing in Wii Sports IMO.
I absolutely hate Meta. I deleted all my meta related accounts and am first to say fuck Zuck and this company, but it just kinda grates on me that we straw man their positions when there are plenty of actual good ways to dunk on this company and its direction. They didn't spend billions on just horizon - they are prepping the actual ~8 year goal of infrastructure and technology for a "real" metaverse. Horizon is a small incubator. It is the small tech on the way to a much bigger platform (in their eyes). In short: they are effectively saying "what we're aiming for in 8 years is going to be amazing" and in year one we're saying "yo, this sucks". Uh, yeah. It's year 1 of a 8+ year plan with a ton of background engineering going on for the bigger project. I just think if we're going to dunk, let's actually call out the stuff that's really an issue and criticize something more substantive.
Why the heck am I wasting energy talking about Meta. Screw this company!
Zoom is convenient, but looking good on Zoom is not:
Looking presentable in VR is effortless. You could have just gotten out of bed, and nobody would know:
