According to an internal memo from Meta obtained by the technology media website the Verge, Meta's flagship "Meta Universe" application, the VR social network "Horizon Worlds", has too many quality problems, and even its construction team is unwilling to use it.
In a memorandum sent to employees on September 15, Vishal Shah, vice president of Meta's Meta-Cosmic business, said the company's development team needed to "focus on quality" for the rest of the year to ensure quality gaps and performance issues are addressed before opening Horizon Worlds to more users.
Horizon Worlds lets people create interactive virtual avatars in the virtual world, which is a bit like the combination of Roblox and Minecraft online games. This is a key move after CEO Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook to Meta. The company spends billions of dollars a year to build what Zuckerberg described as a meta-universe vision.
, a multi-person interactive platform, was launched at the Meta Quest headset launch conference in December last year. By earlier this year, its registered users reached 300,000 and is expected to be logged on to mobile phones and desktop devices soon, but Shah hinted in the memo that the date of the web version's publication may be postponed.
Shah wrote in the memo: “Since its launch late last year, we’ve seen the core philosophy of Horizon Worlds – a synchronized social network where creators can create fascinating virtual worlds and are powerful. But currently, based on feedback from our creators, users, game testers, and many people on the team, picture problems, stability issues and numerous vulnerabilities make it difficult for our community to experience the magic of Horizon Worlds. Simply put, to make this experience fun and lasting, it must be ease of use and well-crafted.”
Although Meta has said its metaverse is more realistic, the image quality of Horizon Worlds is pale in comparison to non-VR competitors like Fortnite. To celebrate the release of Horizon Worlds to French and Spanish users, Zuckerberg recently posted a Horizon Worlds avatar on social media Facebook, but its avatar has been ridiculed by a lot of me; he has since released a more advanced avatar and claimed that he will share a major update to Horizon Worlds and avatar at Meta's annual Connect conference on October 11.
According to Shah's internal memo, a key issue facing Horizon Worlds development so far is that the members of the Meta company that built it do not seem to be used frequently.
html On September 15, he wrote in an email to employees: "For many of us, we don't spend much time on Horizon Worlds, and the internal testing dashboard shows this clearly. Why is this happening? Why do we keep using it but don't like the product we create? The simple fact is: How can we expect users to like it if we don't like it?"
Shah pointed out in a follow-up memo released on September 30 that the company's employees are still not fully using Horizon. He said a plan is being developed to put managers in charge of having their team use Horizon Worlds at least once a week. He said, “Everyone on our team should take it as his responsibility to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. This cannot be done without using it. It is necessary to join in and spend some time with colleagues or friends, whether built internally or in public, so that we can better interact with our community.”
He went on to point out some specific issues with Horizon Worlds, “Our login experience has made users confused and frustrated, and our team needs to introduce new users to this top-notch meta-universe world to ensure their first visit is successful.”
Shah also stressed that the team developing Horizon Worlds needs to work together better and expect more changes. “Today, we do not have enough flexibility in our operations.What I want to clarify is that we are developing a product that has not yet found a suitable market. If you work on the Horizon Worlds team, I need you to fully embrace this ambiguity and change. "Meta Company has been making quality improvements and taking action based on feedback from the creator community," said Ashley Zandy, spokesman for Meta Company in a statement shared with The Verge. This is a journey over the years and we will continue to improve and strive for perfection. ”
