Is the Metaverse Still a Viable Future for Gaming?
Almost exactly 12 months ago, Mark Zuckerberg made headlines right around the world when he announced that his company, Facebook, would be changing its name to Meta. This rebrand would signal to the world that his entire business would be switching focus to developing a metaverse platform that its existing and new products would integrate into.
The announcement sparked a lot of excitement and confusion as most people, up to this point, had heard very little, or nothing at all, about the metaverse and what it would mean for them.
This led to huge increases in search volume for terms that included the word “metaverse”, growing exponentially in just a matter of days. The hype was quickly jumped on by just about everyone, and people filled the internet with speculation and discussions about the many possibilities of this new digital realm.
One of the most talked-about examples of this was gaming. In fact, in his original interview, Zuckerberg spent quite some time discussing gaming and the possibilities it offered to players. He even revealed that Meta was working on a VR version of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, though gave almost no details about it at the time (or since).
No Wind in the Sails
But, after plateauing in the few months that followed, excitement around the metaverse has waned. By the start of the New Year, Google Trends was recording a steady decline in interest from the general public.
In fact, Meta’s own metaverse offering, Horizon Worlds, appears to be struggling to gain momentum. Information that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal in October showed that the company was hoping to attract 500,000 monthly active users by the end of 2022. Given that it currently has fewer than 200,000 users logging in each month, down from the 300,000 seen in February, expectations have since been lowered to just 280,000 ,
Rival platforms have fared even worse, with some getting daily active users in the hundreds.
Does this mean that the metaverse is no longer the future that the gaming industry is heading towards, or will things just take a little longer than some people originally expected.
Virtual Reality Still Going Strong
The biggest element of the metaverse is the virtual reality aspect and that is, for the most part, still enjoying growth. This is especially true for gaming, with Sony and Meta both releasing new and upgraded headsets in the coming months.
We can see a very diverse range of VR games hitting the market, including immersive adaptations of existing genres, such as the VR portion of the racing game DiRT Rally and VR first-person shooters like Medal of Honor Sniper Elite.
These games offer many similarities to the versions available on PC and consoles, but use different controls and take advantage of the head-tracking feature to offer a more realistic experience.
Even iGaming companies are investing in VR offerings. For example, PokerStars already has desktop and mobile options that allow players to enjoy a wide range of game types on any device. But it has recently created a virtual reality version of its platform, providing an immersive environment to play variants like Texas hold’em and five-card draw.
There are also entirely new categories of games in virtual reality, such as VR sports titles like Echo Arena, Light Boxer, and Walkabout Mini Golf VR.
If anything, demand for these VR games is growing, in contrast to interest in the metaverse as a whole.
The Augmented Elements
While playing games in VR is growing in popularity, interest in other elements of the metaverse has floundered.
When Ubisoft launched its Quartz NFT project in late 2021, it was hoping to have hit on a new cash cow. But players almost unanimously ignored the prospect of being able to buy and sell in-game items on the blockchain.
Other similar projects, including many of the play-to-earn (P2E) titles that enjoyed popularity in 2021, have seen declines in users as the bottom fell out of the NFT market.
It seems, therefore, that players prefer to spend their time actually playing rather than on novelties and gimmicks, and that companies serious about building the metaverse will need to rethink their offering to attract this large demographic to their platforms.
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