Four years have passed since Facebook renamed the goal to celebrate, or wrong enthusiasm for the metal revolution.
Except that the revolution did not materialize. It turns out that, although people were intrigued by the growing number of virtual reality headphones, consumers were not excited to live within them, and even a goal now seems to admit that the first experiences were not great.
“Virtual reality is evolving in new ways … it is difficult to navigate, and in the finish line we have a lot to learn,” said Samantha Ryan, Meta VP and Metaverse Content Chief, Thursday during the key note of the Meta Connect developers.
Meta Cto Andrew Bosworth, who opened the session, echoed those comments, saying: “There have been quite priesting years,” then added with a smile, “but the AI will help level us.”
In addition to all the new artificial intelligence intelligent glasses (such as the impressive goal screen Ray-Ban that also obtains a great elevator of the AI), the last two days have been surprising because of their renewed approach in the worlds of Metaverse and Horizon, the vast target environment and its partners have been building in the virtual space.
First, there are important updates that reach the programming platforms that developers use to build Metverse environments: Meta Horizon Engine and Meta Horizon Studio. Horizon Engine is remarkable because it replaces the unity engine widely used to represent these worlds.
These tools are allowing much more complex and realistic environments that support people’s concert numbers as virtual participants. An example that is shown more than once in the last two days was a virtual concert by Sabrina Carpenter. She appears live on a video screen, and the audience is composed of thousands of VR avatars.
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Even so, no advance made me prick my ears more than the new notice driven Build with AI World programming interface. It will allow developers to start with basic and fundamental worlds and then, through indications, add and adjust elements. Obviously, this is drastically simpler than writing code. It is the type of AI tool that could accelerate not only the creation of new worlds, but also the ability to adjust them in a positive way based on user feedback.
AI does not solve all the evils of Metorverse. Metaverse remains a proprietary environment in which it can only enter through a VR headset such as Quest 3S. It is mostly boring unless it is committed to a directed activity.
In fact, games are still the main activity based on virtual reality. A 2023 study found that 72% of VR headphones users are in it for an immersive game. Out of metaverso, I tried Deadpool VR in Quest 3s. It is a fantastic demonstration of game possibilities inherent to a virtual and interactive space. The game, by the way, is as chaotic, bloody and fun as the franchise.
Within the metallic, the best experiences are still games, especially those that are for vertical communities.
Goal highlighted Golf+, who was born from a simplistic VR experience called Pro Putt. When the developers discovered that 50% of their players were true golfers, they decided to rely on it with “realistic golf and full blow.”
Golf+ Now attends that golf community with real golf field replicas. “More rounds are played in Golf+ in a single day than an average golf course sees in a single year,” said Golf+ CEO Ryan Engle.
Engle suggested that the keys to success in virtual reality for developers are triple:
- Find your niche
- Think in the long term
- Know your client
But that perspective almost disagree with the original objectives of Metverse, of being a virtual home and a work space for all.
However, the introduction of AI tools can allow future Metverse developers to align to the Engle strategy and easily build personalized worlds that attract the niche sets of virtual reality users.
Perhaps that is why Discord now comes as a native application of the search (and possibly, by extension, the metal). After all, Discord is a great discussion platform that meets the needs of very niche discussion groups. Imagine a metaverso where discord users have a place not only for text chat, but also to interact and participate practically in their most vertical interests.
It may not be CEO of Metavers, Mark Zuckerberg, originally imagined, but it is clearly the one that is most promising.
