Blog Post
I don’t understand why you want to remove Meta Horizon Worlds from VR and what the benefit is. Removing it takes away a core part of the VR experience, even though you could make Meta Horizon Worlds available in the mobile app while still supporting VR, just like Roblox and Recroom, which offer both options, VR and mobile gameplay. Removing from the VR limits accessibility and reduces the immersive experience that makes the platform unique. This desicion needs to be reconsidered.
HebaM98 It was removed because in a 9 month period up to near the end of 2022,, nearly 4 years ago, number of users dropped from 300,000 to 200,000. Now it's probably well under 100,000. It was losing too much money. When you consider that Google dropped their G+ social media app when the user numbers went below 100 million, it's a miracle that the total failure that is Worlds wasn't dumped way back in 2023 when they must have realised it was a total dud. Gaming is the core part of the VR experience. Think about it logically. If Worlds was a core part of the VR experience, it would have had millions of users, not such a small number that it would only fill one football stadium.
Gaming is Steams thing. If Meta doesnt do something DIFFERENT then Steam is going to completely kill them off. Do you really not compute that? Steam VR is about to bury Meta. Permanently. And Meta knows it. So they closed most of their VR game studios and assets. Their options are to do what Sega did and leave the market or do what Nintendo did and stop competing directly, instead investing in exclusives (which they are doing the oposite of by closing their studios) and investing in unique use cases. Their current choices are tailor made to sell more Steam VR headsets, sorry. Business is about competition for install base. Not about year over year sales. Console generations success or failure is determined by sales over a 5 to 10 year period, and generation transitions are the points that most determine success or failure. That would be about two years before launch, because thats how long they have to plan the hardware, third party partnerships, marketing, software, and launch line up, to about the second year mark. The only console in history to make a come back more than a year after a failed launch was the PS3. It happened once in history. When it didnt happen for the Ganecube Nintendo made the Wii. When it didnt happen for the Wii U Nintendo made the Switch. When it didnt happen for Saturn Sega made the Dreamcast. Thats always an expensive gamble, and historically no videogame manufacurer has ever survived it happening twice in a row. Ever. The Quest line has already had three failed product lines in that they all three massively under performed financially. That was BEFORE having meaningful competition. The entry of Steam VR to the marketplace makes both Quest 4 and Steam VR unprofitable, and Meta knows it and is scrambling to figure out how to deal with that fact. Thats why they emailed me asking to take a survey on vr and xr, and why they are changing their entire buisness strategy. Its not because of their earnings, its because of what Steam is about to DO to their already poor earnings.
Context. Everything exists in context. If you dont understand the context its like reading the last paragraph of a book and pretending it makes sense to you. The VR user install base isnt big enough for its existing companies, and Steam threatens to take most of the next generation. And frankly, as it is, the only reasons to own a Meta headset after Steam VR launches are going to be worlds, Deadpool, Batman, and the dozen or so Meta exclusives already on the platform that people actually care about. They need to change that in a way that stops the bleeding while growing install base without over spending, and I dont think they think that is possible. I dont think its possible. This next generation is going to be bad for them and they know it. The only question is if they plan to put forth a long term strategy to capture maximum profitable marketshare over the next two or three generations. Say, 10 to 20 years from now. Thats been their strategy so far, its just taking longer than they had hoped and I think they are realizing that long term investments mean *long* term investments. Amd frankly, long term investments are a gamble. The whole VR business is looking like a mistake to Meta right now. And yeah, its certainly not the best way for them to make money. VR is still too expensive to be mainstream, has too many friction points to be mainstream, and Steam has the killer library that Meta just doesnt and cant. Plus, the things you can mod your Steam VR headset to do if youre tech savy means the tech savy and hard core will want in on its OS.
It all shakes down to the same story that killed Atari, Sega, Neogeo, and almost killed Nintendo. Too small of a market to meet any one companies sales needs, and a deadly new competitor which is going to do to Meta what NES did to Atari and what Playstation 1 did to Sega and Nintendo. The question is, will Meta handle it like Sega, or like Nintendo. Compete directly and lose, or compete indirectly and win.
It is a core experience if its made available to all regions, yet they have limited it to specific regions and specific quest devices. For example quests 2 users are not allowed to access it at all as well as Middle East and Africa regions. That is exactly why they are losing their users. They sell their devices in the middle east and on the other hand they dont give any acess to this type of feature for example even an arabic keyboard we dont have! Of course they are going to lose users.
HebaM98 With all due respect, Worlds is not a core experience. Gaming is the core experience.. Of an estimated 20 million Quest headset users, 100k estimated users of Worlds represents 0.5% of all users. That isn't core, it's just a sideline. In fact it's not even that. It's totally immaterial and I'm surprised it's still even available. A core experience implies that the vast majority of users are involved in that experience. The Worlds user base would just fill one large football stadium. It was Worlds that was losing customers as gamers were sick of looking at it and were moving to gaming focused headsets. The question is, what customers do you want to keep? The 99.5% of users who want a gaming headset.........or the 0.5% who want a social app? I know what I would choose, and it's obviously what Meta choose. As for an Arabic keyboard,it will only happen when an Arabic speaking country becomes an officially supported country. None of them are. I'm based in Türkiye, this is not an officially supported country and there is no Turkish language keyboard either. It is understandable that they will only support the languages of countries that are part of the 24 or 25 officially supported countries. Only those countries have warranty protection and all headsets bought in other countries are not officially supported devices. If 0.5% who stop using the headset because Worlds is gone, Meta won't notice and the 99.5% will be happier not to have the unnecessary bloatware on their headsets. Remember, numbers don't lie, and the numbers support the termination of Worlds in due course.
Thats your opinion but it doesn’t represents everyone. Just look at how many people are against this decision, not to mention the users who didn’t even know about the update or don’t know how to share their opinion. At the end of the day people use VR differently some for gaming, others for social interaction and some for both.
Meta made it seem like Horizon Worlds was going to be a big step forward for their virtual reality headset and their company as a whole. But apparently they didn’t developed the way it should (I haven’t use it but i’m following what you said) and thats the real problem it had A LOT OF POTENTIAL and could have been a strong way to promote their headsets if they actually committed to combining VR with both gaming and social experiences.
Regarding the Arabic keyboard, actually arabic is one of the most spoken languages globally! And most companies like sony, apple, samsung..etc already support it! Meta promotes diversity and social interaction then at least put Arabic keyboard. Its not a small audience so not supporting it isn’t because they can’t, its because they chose not to.
I just want to clarify one point you made incorrectly. Meta do not sell their devices in the Middle East, or in Türkiye where I am or in any unsupported regions . Third party unofficial sellers are buying these devices in supported countries, mostly Europe, and selling them in unsupported countries. I have a business residence in Germany. I bought my headset there and took it to Istanbul. If I wanted warranty replacement I would have to bring my headset back to Stuttgart and apply from there.
I live in the Middle East specifically in Sausi Arabia, and I bought my oculus quest from a store here, what do you mean they dont sell it? They actually do..
Thats rough buddy. Im sorry for your loss and hope something goes your way soon. They shouldnt sell you something and not support it equally to other regions.
