Has the Metaverse died? Meta game explodes with only hundreds of players daily, children exposed to adult content.

Beincrypto reported that American YouTuber Jarvis Johnson uploaded a gameplay review of the recent Metaverse game "Horizon Worlds," which has been live for a year and a half. He claimed that the actual daily active players are less than a thousand and the game is even filled with underage children, which clearly violates US regulations.

Has the Metaverse Game Died?

It all started with a headline-grabbing tweet where Jarvis Johnson personally delved into "Horizon Worlds," a VR-based immersive game launched by Meta in December 2021, and found many unexpected discoveries.

User Numbers Far Below Official Data

Johnson explored the game for a week and found it nearly deserted. He also tallied the number of players in the top 20 most popular spaces in the game, discovering only 903 players, far below Meta's claim of 200,000 players per month.

Adult Content Found in the Game

Reportedly, the game is rated suitable for teens and above by US authorities, but some parts seem unsuitable for them, including an adult content-filled "comedy club," among others.

Meta had previously stated the game was for ages 18 and up, then adjusted it to 13. However, the game is filled with high-pitched children's voices, with Johnson noting that most players appear to be under 13, meaning they are mostly underage users.

Earlier, two US senators had warned Meta to halt the game, citing serious impacts and risks to adolescent development.

Is Meta's Metaverse Dream Still Alive?

Looking at Meta's financial reports for the first and second quarters this year, it successfully achieved an 11% revenue growth compared to the same period last year, leveraging massive layoffs and the Reels trend.

However, Meta's biggest money-burning division, Reality Labs, still totaled a $7.731 billion loss. Reflecting on the division's staggering $13.7 billion annual loss in 2022, it's a significant catch-up. This news even briefly made Meta one of the worst performers in the US S&P 500 index last year.

Meta: Shifting Focus to Artificial Intelligence

Regarding the dream's status, Meta had previously indicated in its financial report this year:

We are currently focusing on AI, but the metaverse is still on Meta's roadmap, and the two overlap and complement each other.

It also added that it expects to invest over $30 billion this year in the creation of generative AI and related technology development.

Web3 Metaverse Platforms Could Benefit

Furthermore, according to Beincrypto analysis, the slowdown or even pause of large platforms like Meta in advancing the metaverse could be beneficial for smaller decentralized metaverse platforms, as they gradually lose strong user base competitors.

Platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox, despite facing the loss of metaverse focus in the crypto market, are still striving to build a part of the future in the digital world.