Meta’s flagship Metaverse app Horizon Worlds has been struggling to gain new users, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The publication, which reviewed internal documents, reveal Meta had initially targeted 500,000 monthly active users by year’s end, later it revised the goal to 280,000. The current figure is less than 200,000 now, according to the report. Horizon Worlds is a free virtual reality app created by Meta.
Horizon World’s user base has steadily declined since spring. In fact, most users don’t return after the first month. Meta wanted users to build their own worlds but that number is less than 1 per cent. Only 9 per cent of worlds are visited by at least 50 people, and most are never visited at all, claims the WSJ report.“ An empty world is a sad world,” noted one internal document. What is also making Meta worry is that retention rates for the Quest VR headset have dropped in each of the past three years. Shockingly, over half of the headsets aren’t in use after six months.
The company has reportedly put Horizons on a “quality lockdown”, meaning the app won’t receive any new features. Meta will only focus on bugs and complaints, for now.
The report comes at a time when Meta’s stock has taken a nosedive. Meta shares are down over 60 per cent over the past year. The Silicon Valley major has lost $700 billion in market value since September 2021.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a year ago that he was betting on the metaverse. In fact, the company changed its name to Meta to show what direction the social media giant is taking in the future. So far it seems that the company’s investment in creating the metaverse, which is essentially a virtual world where users will play and work together, is a bad idea.
Meta is popularly known for creating the social media we know today. The tech behemoth is behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp serve, the most popular mobile apps serving billions of users on a monthly basis. But over the past few years, Meta is not only facing intense competition from TikTok but also facing scrutiny from regulators.
Last week, Meta announced a $1500 Quest Pro headset for business. It’s the most advanced mixed-reality headset Meta has made.