Concerns about the metaverse app’s excessive number of quality and performance issues, as well as the fact that even workers don’t appear very interested with it, are raised in internal letters from Meta’s VP of Metaverse to team members working on the project.
The memos were discovered by Alex Heath of The Verge, and they were authored by Vishal Shah, VP of Metaverse. He informs the staff that they will be on “quality lockdown” for the remainder of the year in order to correct the problems before more people get access to the app.
A key element of Zuckerberg’s significant wager on the metaverse is painted in a troubling light by the documents. As the CEO struggles with a significant company pivot to the metaverse, a change that is occurring as Facebook experiences a slowdown in its core advertising business and the departure of his top lieutenant, Sheryl Sandberg, the emphasis is being placed on improving the existing product rather than introducing new features.
The Horizon Worlds app, which was first made available on Meta’s Quest headset in December, is shortly to have a mobile and desktop browser version. The programme enables users to create avatars and communicate with one another in a virtual reality environment. The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, informed shareholders in May that the company’s metaverse project is anticipated to lose “substantial” sums of money during the ensuing three to five years.
A product-market fit has not been found by Horizon Worlds.
According to Shah in one memo, problems with Horizon World include a “confusing and difficult” onboarding procedure, according to The Verge. Additionally, he warned staff members that they needed to improve their collaboration and flexibility.
Shah’s statement that the app “has not established product market fit” is perhaps the most revealing.
In a statement to Insider, a Meta representative said, “We’re certain that the metaverse is the future of computers and that it should be developed around people.” “Of course, we constantly seek to improve our product’s quality and respond to authors’ suggestions. We’re on a multiyear journey, and we’ll keep improving the things we create.”
Shah also questioned why the team developing the app wasn’t devoting a lot of time to it in his messages to the staff.
Why, Shah asked, “don’t we love the thing we’ve produced so much that we use it constantly”? “The plain fact is, how can we expect our users to enjoy it if we don’t?”
Shah wrote in another document that Meta planned to make sure managers required their workers to utilise the app at least once each week.
Shah stated in the follow-up memo that “everyone in this organisation should make it their duty to fall in love with Horizon Worlds.” “You need to use it to do that.”
The graphics and general quality of Horizon Worlds have received criticism in the past.
After sharing his Horizon Worlds avatar with users in France and Spain in August, Zuckerberg received online jeers for the quality of the avatar, which was compared to visuals from 1990s video games. Later in the week, he posted again with a fresh avatar to show off upcoming graphical updates.
After the criticism, Zuckerberg stated, “The graphics in Horizon are capable of lot more — even on headsets — and Horizon is improving very quickly. He noted that additional app upgrades and avatar artwork would be revealed on October 11 at Meta’s annual Connect conference.
