Meta’s Horizon Worlds Metaverse platform needs more work, according to company executive

The last time the Horizon World app was in the spotlight was when the metaverse platform was under fire after Mark Zuckerberg posted an unflattering snapshot of the project. Now, even the staff admit that Meta’s ambitious metaverse project is currently plagued with issues.

Vishal Shah, Meta’s VP of metaverse, acknowledged these issues in a report to employees and announced that the app and the team would go into a 'quality lockdown phase' where they tackle quality and performance issues before the app can be opened to more users.

In the report, written in mid-September, Shah complained that the team developing Horizon Worlds isn’t using it enough. 'Why is that? Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time? The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?' he queried.

In another internal letter from Shah dated September 30, he identified some problems with the app, such as how the onboarding experience is not user-friendly enough. He suggested that the team 'introduce new users to top-notch worlds that will ensure their first visit is a success.'

To further encourage the use of the platform among team members, he detailed a plan to hold managers accountable for making their team use Horizon Worlds at least once weekly. 'Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it,' Shah wrote.

Horizon Worlds is a social/gaming virtual environment where users can play, interact and build their virtual experiences using avatars. Although the app was first unveiled in 2019, it is an integral part of Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse ambitions. 

Zuckerberg and his firm are indeed making a massive bet on the metaverse, seeing as the company famously rebranded to 'Meta' from Facebook to reflect its priorities and has already invested hundreds of billions of dollars on its metaverse strategies.

Meta’s Horizon Worlds and other Metaverse offerings have been faced with criticisms from the internet community. Still, the company is convinced that the metaverse is the next big thing in computing and has promised to keep improving its projects.

Photo: Benzinga