If you’ve been busy dancing on the grave of Meta’s failed metaverse, I’m going to have to ask you to pause for a moment. In fact, you may just want to sit down and rest your non-virtual legs, because I have some things to tell you and they involve (sigh)… more metaverses.
As Google and Epic come to a resolution on how the new app store policies will work (bye-bye 30% fee), they also appear to be interested in doing business—business that pertains to creating even more virtual worlds for people to not give a single sh*t about. As noted by The Verge, a revised term sheet makes reference to something called “metaverse browsers,” which sounds suspiciously similar to Meta’s recently gutted efforts with Horizon Worlds—a VR-centric meeting place where you could mingle with the four other people actually using it at any given time.
As The Verge also notes, the section on metaverse browsers is heavily redacted, but it does hint towards a few things, including the fact that they “have the primary purpose of allowing the navigation and exploration of metaverse worlds” and “support virtual items and identity that are portable across different worlds in the metaverse browser.”
Again, it’s really impossible to infer too much from the language in the term sheet because of the heavy redactions, but if there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that we’re not done hearing about metaverses quite yet, despite the fact that Meta has failed so miserably on that front. What’s even more surprising is the fact that we’re hearing about metaverses from Epic Games, which arguably owns one of the only big-time, functioning metaverses out there, outside of Roblox—I’m talking about Fortnite.
On the surface, Fortnite may seem like a perfect reason for Epic Games to actively pursue more metaverse-like ideas. The game is a hit, so why not open up the metaverse factory and start churning out more verses? The thing is, Fortnite is about the only successful example of something like a metaverse working at scale. Epic didn’t set out to create a metaverse necessarily; they made a video game. That video game, by the way, is fun (to lots of folks, at least), and while it serves as a vehicle for selling people like me dumb Simpsons skins, it isn’t just a shopping mall. It’s a shopping mall where you can pew-pew with your friends.
Maybe that’s what Epic has in mind, but based on this language, that’s not the vibe I’m getting. There are lots of reasons why Horizon Worlds was a humongous faceplant—the fact that it was owned by Meta, the fact that it was VR-first, the fact that avatars looked as if the people who developed Nintendo’s Mii had a sudden cardiac event and never finished their life’s work. But one major reason, in my humble opinion, is that Meta sought to create a metaverse, not a source of entertainment.
Virtual meeting places aren’t just something that one can conjure up and then expect the masses to hop on board. You need a reason for people to care. Fortnite’s reason was the battle royale action with some building involved, and the wacky skins and blockbuster IP tie-ins followed suit. Second Life, maybe one of the first examples of a functioning virtual metaverse, was close to being that apropos of nothing type of virtual world that Meta and Epic seem to be chasing, but that was in 2003, when the concept was novel and options for virtual escapism were thinner. You don’t get to enjoy being the only show in town anymore.
The fact is, the metaverse, while bright and shiny new just a few years ago, somehow feels tired and well-trodden, and if you’re pitching one, you’re probably better off not mentioning the word “metaverse” at all—lest you compare yourself to Horizon Worlds. So, as a counterproposal to Epic and Google’s metaverse browsers, I’m offering up my own idea. Are you ready? Just let the metaverse go. I promise business, and the people actually populating platforms that businesses build, will be better off for it.
