Meta Opens Up Access To Its VR Social Platform Horizon Worlds

More than two years and a company rebrand later, Meta is finally opening up access to its VR social platform Horizon Worlds. Starting Thursday, people in the US and Canada who are 18 and up will be able to access the free Quest app without an invite. From a report: Horizon Worlds is Meta's first attempt at releasing something that resembles CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision of the metaverse. It's an expansive, multiplayer platform that meshes Roblox and the OASIS VR world from Ready Player One. Originally just called Horizon, it requires a Facebook account and lets you hang out with up to 20 people at a time in a virtual space. First announced in September 2019 as a private beta, Horizon Worlds has evolved from primarily being a Minecraft-like environment for building games to more of a social platform. Its thousands of beta testers have held regular comedy shows, movie nights, and meditation sessions. They've also built elaborate objects like a replica of the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. "Now we can open up and say we have interesting things that people can do," Vivek Sharma, Meta's VP of Horizon, tells me.

yeah

[anonieuweling]

VR 'social', so even more real to put people onto the right narrative, to coerce them into obeyance...
Because that is 'social' as we know it from fakebook.

Re:

[splutty]

Did you mean "Obedience" or "Abeyance", because both would kinda fit.

Trademark Issues?

[SuperKendall]

The term "Horizon Worlds" would seem to come awfully close to the game franchise "Horizon"... I guess the term is generic enough but the domain seems to be really adjacent.

Re:

[OrangeTide]

I hope all these tech leaders sue each other over their uncreative names for the horseshit they try to sell.

Too soon for the walled garden

[pefisher]

I have spent some time converting planetarium full dome videos into a format that could be viewed on the Occulus Go. It appears to me that VR has potential, but it's too early to enclose it in the walled garden. It's not a complete product yet. It needs to traverse a creative amateur phase. Trying to control it all from the begining, and demand that it follow a development path that leads only to Zuck's domination won't work. There are too many aspects of VR still not invented.

Re:

[Junta]

As a technology, it would be best to not be a walled garden, but this is always the case.

However, as a business, the tech companies have learned that they need to do whatever it takes to make their walled garden, or else go the way of AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, et al. If the technology suffers for it, they don't care.

Re:

[VeryFluffyBunny]

You can't block me. What's your style? I'll make my walled garden and you can't stop me. - Zuck

for suckers

[cjonslashdot]

Where we (Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg ) can completely control and surveil your entire life for our benefit, well we fly our private jets in the REAL world, laughing all the way to the bank.

only 20 people?

[drinkypoo]

Even fucking quakeworld permitted 32 players.

20 people is pathetic, especially given the garbage cartoon avatars.

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

Indeed. Battlefield 1942, shipped in 2002, supported 64 players.

Horizons Worlds? More like Dizens World. /s

Re:

[Opportunist]

Nah, it's properly named. A horizon is an imaginary line at the edge of your vision that moves away if you try to approach it.

Re:

[spiritgreywolf]

Many more than 20 people and it will require more $$$ for the time-slices by the AI they've tasked to monitor and monetize your interactions and conversations. /s. kinda..

"Open"

[LiquidAvatar]

For some definitions of "open".

Facebook Just Invented

[Your Anus]

VRChat

Re:

[Opportunist]

Only without blackjack and hookers.

Avatars from South Park

[raftpeople]

This vid at about 27 seconds to 30 seconds looks exactly like South Park characters running around with their arms up https://www.theverge.com/2020/... [theverge.com]

Can't Make a Male Avatar

[LionKimbro]

I got my Black Friday purchased Quest 2 last week, and played with the built-in avatar builder, which I believe is the same one intended for Horizon. I was horrified after playing with it for half an hour -- it sseems that unless you have an absolutely square jaw, you can't make a male-looking avatar.

I'm fine with "we don't force you to pick a gender." Fine, whatever. But that you cannot construct a male avatar? Now that's just weird.

I was searching the Internet to see if anybody else was having difficu

We get to watch VR fail again...

[Nocturrne]

How many times do we have to watch VR get hyped up and then fail dramatically, as everyone realizes how terrible it is to wear a thing on your face for hours?

Only from the waist up?

[presearch]

So avatars don't have anything below the belt line. So that solves the sex/genitals problem,
and the walk vs. fly problem, but this sure doesn't solve the this totally sucks problem.

I suppose that Zuck approved this. His mental development must have stopped at 14.

I Wouldn't

[OYAHHH]

Fucking piss on anything Meta if it was on fire. Fucking bunch of assholes.