It was recently included in Meta’s Super Bowl ad, and on the company’s most recent earnings call, Zuckerberg described it as “essential to our metaverse goal,” The Verge reported.
According to an employee who overheard the statement, since Horizon Worlds was given out to all Quest users in the US and Canada in early December, its monthly user base has expanded by a factor of ten to 300,000 people.
Facebook has rebranded as Meta and is investing billions of dollars a year in hardware and software that goes beyond typical social media. But, so far, the corporation has kept the public in the dark about how well its early bets are going.
Horizon Worlds, a social VR platform for the Quest headset, is Meta’s most visible bet right now.
The Verge said that Meta spokesperson Joe Osborne verified that it encompassed users of Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, a distinct program for attending live events in virtual reality.
Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, a distinct program for attending live events in VR that uses the same avatars and fundamental concepts, were included in the statistics, according to Meta spokesperson Joe Osborne.
Horizon Workrooms, a VR conferencing experience that relies on an invite system, is not included in the total. Horizon Worlds was in a private beta for creators to test its world-building tools before its December launch.
Horizon Worlds, like Roblox and Microsoft’s Minecraft, allows users to create bespoke habitats in which to hang out and play games as legless avatars.
Horizon Worlds has surpassed 10,000 unique worlds constructed to date, according to Meta, and its private Facebook community for creators now has over 20,000 members.
Though Horizon Worlds has only been widely available for a few months, it is rather early to say whether the platform’s quick growth will continue or whether it will be able to maintain members over time.
The Quest headset’s sales spiked throughout the holiday season, piqued people’s curiosity in experiencing Horizon.
Horizon’s success is difficult to measure in relation to the underlying hardware platform because Meta has not revealed how many Quest headsets it has sold to date. However, numerous third-party estimates put the Quest’s sales at around 10 million.
Meta will release a version of Horizon for mobile phones later this year, according to Zuckerberg, in order to deliver “early metaverse experiences” to more surfaces outside the VR space.
Despite the fact that Horizon Worlds has yet to generate revenue for Meta, the pressure is on for it to succeed, especially considering how the company’s stock has plummeted as investors question the company’s costly metaverse drive.
Meta must make Horizon reliable enough for millions to utilize, in addition to resolving issues with content moderation and underage users in VR.
Horizon, on the other hand, has a chance to be large if its early user growth is any indication.
