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Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Compares Facebook's Metaverse To a 'Project Car' (businessinsider.com) 52

Posted by BeauHD from the expensive-passion-projects dept.
Palmer Luckey is not a fan of what Mark Zuckerberg has so far produced for the metaverse, although he does think it could eventually succeed. Insider reports: The Oculus founder, speaking Monday during The Wall Street Journal conference Tech Live, said of Horizon Worlds, Facebook's core metaverse product: "I don't think it's a good product." "It's not good, it's not fun," Luckey said of Horizon. "Most people on the team would agree it's not a good product." "Mark Zuckerberg is the number one virtual reality fan in the world," Luckey said. "He's put in more money and time to it than anyone ever in history."

He said the amount of money Zuckerberg is putting behind the project alone means there's a chance Horizon Worlds will get better and the metaverse will be a success. "It is terrible today, but it could be amazing in the future," he said. "Zuckerberg will put the money in to do it. They're in the best position of anyone to win in the long run." It will take time and involve mistakes, he added, comparing it to a "project car," a fancy automobile that the owner spends a lot of money on as a hobby. "You hack at it and maybe no one else sees the value," Luckey said. "Will they stumble? Yeah sure. Will they waste money? Will they add things to their project car that they later hack off? Yes." The report notes that Facebook lost $10 billion last year on its metaverse projects, and is expected by to lose more than $10 billion again this year.
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Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Compares Facebook's Metaverse To a 'Project Car' More

Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Compares Facebook's Metaverse To a 'Project Car'

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  • "project car" way too generous (Score:3, Informative)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @06:23PM (#62997971)

    To me the Metaverse looks a lot more like a soap box racer, compete with really rough lines and materials and the understanding you wouldn't use it for anything serious.

    At least a project car you could potentially drive to the store to get groceries.

    I mean heck, the Metaverse doesn't even seem useful for gaming, the only area VR has gotten any traction at all so far!

    • All the really good VR games are single player.

      • 100% agree!!

        Not saying it's not impossible but I'm pretty sure the way the Metaverse is going is not the right path to any kind of good multiplayer VR gaming experience.

    • The only "social" aspect of VR, i.e. the one that Metastasis is probably interested in, is also already cornered by VR Chat. And as they themselves know, you can't just supplant a social tool with a better one because the perceived quality of a social tool is in its user base. You can't just build a better one and hope that people come over, they won't come. People will go where their friends already are, and getting these friends to come to your place is a near impossible undertaking because they have inve

  • It's really hard to fathom what that amount of money was spent on. Surely it was not on the software development and virtual constructs (maps, models, textures, etc). I have to assume the majority of that has been R&D on hardware development, and perhaps selling units at a loss or something?

    • Mark must have a million code monkeys slaving away, to pay that much in salaries.

    • Re:Money spent on what? (Score:4, Funny)

      by youngone ( 975102 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @06:36PM (#62998005)
      I'm just very disappointed in...

      ...Facebook lost $10 billion last year on its metaverse projects, and is expected by to lose more than $10 billion again this year.

      I was hoping they'd lost $100 billion. With any luck Zuckerberg will tell the shareholders to bugger off when they start complaining about him pissing all the money away.
      My dream is that Facebook winds up having all their servers repossessed because they can't pay their power bill.

      • One can only hope. Although I suspect more likely the shareholders stage an intervention and we end up with some even more mindless drone running the show. Or a hostile takeover once the shareprice is low enough.

        Remember Rupert Murdoch buying MySpace for billions and turning it into a ghost town within a space of a few months. Good times.

        Its mystifying they've spent so much on this. Second life, that cursed technicolor hell is a vastly more advanced and established and I'd wager that thing was built on a fe

        • Remember Rupert Murdoch buying MySpace for billions and turning it into a ghost town within a space of a few months. Good times.

          I had forgotten about that. Oh, how we laughed and laughed.

          According to Wikipedia:

          ...By 2019, the site's monthly visitors had dropped to seven million.

          but I find it hard to believe they have that many in a year.

          I just now had a quick look and it is still up though it seems to be some sort of gossip magazine full of out-of-date gossip. Weird.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      May simply be a case of Hollywood accounting.

    • I think the $10 billion needs a bunch of asterixis. Say you hire 10000 people at 100k a year, that's close to 1 billion. ASSUMING they aren't just moving people around internally and just overcharging the loss of head count. Also they are saying "losses" so how the hell are they calculating that? Advertisements that are paid but not returning? Are they even trying to make money on something that is clearly beta but have to show it on paper?

      VR Chat was built on a much cheaper budget with a much smaller

    • That's what I can't get over, $10 BILLION per year? Here's a link [theglobeandmail.com] from 2005 that says Microsoft spent "more than $12-billion developing its games machines" which I suppose would include the original XBox console and the 360, covering 6 years from 1999 to 2005 roughly. That's $2B per year which is a very healthy budget. And, OK, inflation. But Facebook is spending 6x as much per year on a much less proven concept? And it doesn't look like the equivalent of even one good game? It would be fascinating to

  • tax the billionaires (Score:4, Informative)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @06:34PM (#62997995)
    The amount of money one oligarch has burned on this "not good, not fun" project could have ended homelessness in America.
    https://www.verifythis.com/art... [verifythis.com]
    The highest personal and corporate tax rates before Reagan's failed "trickledown" aka voodoo economics was 90%. As a matter of fact Reagan had to raise taxes on the middle class 11 times in 8 years to pay for the tax break handed to the rich. And did it create jobs? No, look at millions the jobs sent out of the country. Rich hoard, they don't invest. They invest with other people’s money. ZuckPhucs colossal squander, and Bezos space d1ck are case and point as to why tax rates on the rich and corporations needs to be raised. So we can pay to fix crumbling infrastructure, fund schools and education, so graduates aren’t stuck in lifelong debt peonage.

    • The amount of money one oligarch has burned on this "not good, not fun" project could have ended homelessness in America.

      I am not a fan of the trickle down fantasies, but I have to note, the 10 billion were spent on something, probably engineers and their support teams. It was not blown up as a space rocket for a bored billionnaire, or spent in refining luxury materials for a mega yacht. It did sustain the livelihood of thousands of competent engineers (which is a good thing to have). While these people are clearly higher earners, they are not insanely rich, just regular engineers who possible (since USA) have to pay back deb

      • Maybe I misread, original poster sdinfoserv did not say Meta should spend the money themselves, but was arguing to tax the billionaires. I am arguing to tax the billionaire corporations, so we defend similar proposals. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

      • "It was not blown up as a space rocket for a bored billionnaire (sic)"

        If you were a Nerd, you would realise and acknowledge that Spacex's Starship is the single most exciting thing happening on this planet right now.

        If you were not an idiot, you would realise that the billions spent on Starship "were spent on something, probably engineers and their support teams." and "It did sustain the livelihood of thousands of competent engineers (which is a good thing to have)."

        Let alone possible saving intelligent lif

        • He wasn't talking about starship. He was talking about Bezos' Giant Space Cock.

          • Harder to defend due to lack of visible achievement, but I think Bezos still has noble goals for his project ( yes, even beyond that of thrusting massive cocks into the sky ).

      • I don't think that amount will really solve the problem. Most of the homeless are because they're mentally ill, and money doesn't really fix that. You can pay their rent, but if they're in the back yard screaming at the space demons at 2am every night, the neighbors are going to run them off. You can treat them, but a lot of them are untreatable or don't want to be treated. You can force them, but then you're imprisoning people because they're sick.

    • The amount of money one oligarch has burned on this "not good, not fun" project could have ended homelessness in America.

      You're talking about taxing people who are literally spending money rather than hording it. I like your view but man you're way of base as to where you're applying it.

      Also "one oligarch" isn't spending anything. He's directing his company to do it. And $10bn is nothing compared to corporate expenditure. E.g. Intel has sunk more than this into its own R&D every single year for 2 decades. The only difference is Intel has profits to keep that kind of expenditure sustainable.

    • I assume it is part of the modern first year Social Science syllabus to learn that any time anyone, anywhere mentions that someone, somewhere spent a large sum of money, you must mindlessly reply that they should have spent it on solving homelessness.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by DesScorp ( 410532 )

      The amount of money one oligarch has burned on this "not good, not fun" project could have ended homelessness in America.

      https://www.verifythis.com/art... [verifythis.com]

      No amount of money is ever going to "end homelessness", because most of the homeless are not down on their luck families living in a van. A great many are mentally ill, others are outright criminals. And you can't involuntarily just snatch the mental case off the streets to treatment centers anymore. Courts have ruled that it violates their rights. Take them to a shelter? Sure, they'll stay the night. And then wander right back out the doors. And there's nothing you can do to stop them.

      The highest personal and corporate tax rates before Reagan's failed "trickledown" aka voodoo economics was 90%

      Which even Jimmy Cart

  • VR is not a software problem (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @07:04PM (#62998061)

    Facebook is spending most of that money on software, which is a useless toilet to flush money down. VR is a hardware problem. They need to put money into manufacturability of ultra high resolution displays and foveated rendering. With foveated rendering, the GPU doesn't need to render the whole screen in hi-res. The GPU requirement for 8K per eye is actually lower than even need for an HD 1080p display. The thing that is keeping foveated rendering from happening is the slow frame rate and resolution of eye tracking cameras. It's like this if the resolution and frame rate of the eye tracker is low, you need to lean on software to guess/predict where the eye will be. That is hard to do and also CPU intensive. Instead of funding/leaning on vendors to make a better camera .. Zuckerface is sticking to software solutions that don't work. It's the same thing with the display, Zucker doesn't understand the importance of high resolution display to the immersive VR experience. Without a high-res display, you can use a VR headset to substitute a desktop or laptop. You can't enjoy movies in VR because the resolution and screen-door effect is terrible. Zuck should talk to these guys and give them what they need to make it manufacturable: https://www.science.org/doi/10... [science.org]
    Also, reference on foveated rendering. https://www.howtogeek.com/7796... [howtogeek.com]

    • I suggest reading some reviews of the Varjo xr-3.

      It does seem the future has arrived, it just needs to fall in price a little :)

    • VR is a social problem. Or rather, a target group problem. The first and most important problem you should solve before even attempting something like VR is to ponder who your target audience might be. Because without someone wanting your product, you can throw your hardware right after your software.

      And when you get there, you'll notice that the target groups for your product is probably not one that you want as the poster children for your product: Furries and cosplayers. Who else is willing to shell out

      • Virtual tourism, geography education, miscellaneous education, movies, games.

        • Virtual tourism: The technology to do that is not even remotely "there" yet. Resolutions are still way too low and too grainy to give the illusion of actually experiencing it. I've tried a few "museum tour" sims and while at first an ok experience, you quickly notice that it is just fake and you just wish you were really there instead of having an experience that any tourism or museum show on TV could have given you in better resolution and with less eye strain.

          Education: Not with this price tag. At 1500ish

          • What I am saying is that VR as a concept is not flawed. Eventually the problems with resolution will be solved. It may take a decade or two, but it is solvable.

            • It's not flawed as a concept, and yes, I'd love to see it succeed. Hell, I was one of the first to buy a first-gen Vive and I still have and use it.

              But it's a niche product, for people who really, really, really, REALLY want that. Who put up with all the shortcomings, the tedium, the burden, the overhead, the problems, snags and glitches and who are willing and able to solve the problems it presents. It's like playing one of the more "realistic" simulators out there. That's a niche product, too. How many pe

  • Facebook is TOAST (Score:3)

    by OYAHHH ( 322809 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @07:24PM (#62998093)

    Facebook has alienated its' creators. Which has sent people scurrying in all sorts of directions, all of them away from FB.

    Politics has moved off the platform to new venues who do not censor.

    Comedy has moved off Facebook. Censorship again rears its' ugly head. Go woke go broke FB.

    Discussion on independent websites has moved off the Facebook plugin to website's own internal discussion forums. Once again, far less censorship.

    Short form video never even got going on Facebook. TikTok grabbed it before FB even knew it existed.

    Long form video dominated by Youtube.

    Young people have long since abandoned Facebook.

    And now Facebook thinks businesses will use their "Meta" product? Everyone knows the level of intrusive spying Facebook does. As a person in business decision making environment you would have to be an idiot to believe Facebook would NOT listen in to your business meetings. Do you really want your business plans leaked because they were not woke enough?

    And is Facebook so ignorant to think that 40 year old housewives are going to see any value in a 3D universe when these same women are struggling to make sure their little Jill's and Jim's make it to soccer practice.

    Zuckerberg has zero idea how real Americans live, or how people in Egypt live, or those in Mongolia. He lives in his Silicon Valley bubble and has no children. He is clueless.

    Facebook is on a downward spiral with the ultimate result a MySpace type crash and burn. The only real question remaining is the true angle of descent.

    • Facebook never had "creators".
      Policits is still very much at the core of Facebook, despite what a single butthurt thundercunt of a former US president thinks.
      Comedy is alive and well on Facebook including the retained practice of many comedy events being advertised almost exclusively on Facebook. Heck half my event feed (the only thing I use Facebook for) is for comedy nights.
      The rest of what you say is on point until...

      And now Facebook thinks businesses will use their "Meta" product? Everyone knows the level of intrusive spying Facebook does.

      You do realise business and consumers do not get the same products right? Heck thus far

  • Who thinks Zuck took the book too seriously and really wants to be a real life James Halliday? Too bad he'll fail because some science fiction concepts are probably gonna stay sci fi for a while.. long after Zuck is gone.

  • Honestly, what we need more than anything is an open standard similar to DNS that is tied in with property records or something similar. The internet wasn't developed with a motive for profit, and the "metaverse" (whatever that entails? My vision is that AR would be a metaverse of sorts, with information laid over the top of real property) cannot be either. Anyone approaching this subject from a baseline of "we need to do it first so we control it!" is doomed to failure.

    The metaverse has to start from a

    • The Metaverse is not the internet. They are very different things. For one, the internet isn't a stupid concept.

  • Who wants to wear giant goggles? I don't. I need glasses so I use thin titanium rimless frames. Why? because wearing stuff on your face is inconvenient and annoying. What I am definitely not looking for is a bigger, less convenient, massively heavier, much more expensive thing to clamp to my face. A big, heavy visor is a truly stupid proposition for anything except time limited scenarios such as PC gaming or mortal combat (no pun). Zuckerberg got lucky with facebook but the metaverse is complete fuckin

  • Well, at least it will keep the brats off the street.

  • that bar wench?

  • If you want people to come to your universe you need to make it stupid, chaotic and fun. e.g. make it an MMO so people have a reason to hang out and interact with each other, or a battle royale, or something. Later on you throw in stuff like break out areas, lobbies, private zones etc.

    Or you can do what meta did and have some creepy torsos floating around sterile and boring environments with nothing to do.

    • You can also let people know "We won't track you in our universe, we won't fill it with adverts, we won't share your info".

      Or you can do what Facebook are doing.

    • Not true! There a plethora of crappy little games to experience people have made with the visual scripting!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        So basically a joyless pale imitation of Roblox. Metaverse reminds me a little of Playstation Home which was also boring and sterile and "games" in various zones which just broken minigames.

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