Last week, the CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg posted a screenshot of Horizon Worldsthe social network in the metaverse, which have generated a plethora of meme online. The level of detail of the images was definitely below expectations. But the CEO has responded to memes by posting new screenshots, where the quality seems to have definitely improved. And he tried to give some justification for the criticisms he received.
Mark Zuckerberg responds to memes about the metaverse image
Last week Horizon Worlds, the social network created by Meta to be used with the VR headsets Meta Quest (ex-Oculus), arrived in France and Spain. To celebrate the event, Zuckerberg decided to post a picture of his avatar next to the Sagrada Familia and the Eiffel Tower. But the image quality was definitely below expectations.
I online memes have therefore multiplied in a very short time. Twitter has suffered an avalanche of irreverent images and posts, with someone who has compared the image al Teletubbies video game for PlayStation 1. Which isn’t exactly the kind of comparison you’re looking for when launching a VR social from your multi-billion dollar company in 2022.
Nobody expected cinematic photorealism, but there lack of detail seems overwhelming. Zuckerberg’s flight could be anyone’s. And even the two monuments behind them wouldn’t get a very good grade in a 3D drawing class.
Zuckerberg’s response to tweets
The memes, who entered the new image of Mark Zuckerberg in the movie The Social Network and comments on the disappointment for the metaverse, have not gone unnoticed. Meta’s CEO then decided to answer, but only after making new images, working more closely with the graphic team of social media, we bet.
The new screenshots he posted on Instagram and Facebook show much better quality. And she assured us that we could see soon new graphic details in the worlds of Horizon Worlds and in avatars for use in the metaverse.
Zuckerberg scrive: “Huge updates on Horizon graphics and avatars very soon. I’ll show new ones at Connect. Also, I know the photo I posted this week was pretty basic – it had been made in a hurry to celebrate a launch. Horizon’s graphics can do a lot more – even in headsets – and Horizon is improving very quickly. ”
Last year’s Connect event showed several metaverse news that Zuckerberg strongly believes in, and was held in October. But at the moment Meta has no plans to reveal when the event will take place this year. However, it seems that there will be several graphic novelties. The level of detail seen in the images posted by Zuckerberg is not on par with modern video games, but it sure is a big step up from the PlayStation 1 quality of the previous image. And soon Horizon users will be able to enjoy it in VR too.
The bet of the metaverse
Although Zuckerberg’s response calms the flood of memes and in the meantime also sponsors the next Connect event, many commentators remain skeptical. Meta has invested billions in software to create a cohesive metaverse and must convince users (and investors) that it’s worth it. Memes probably will be remember the answer longer and they will not benefit marketing.
However, other companies are also investing for render the metaverse in higher definitionlike Roblox which seems determined to abandon its brick look to improve resolution.
However, the metaverse bet isn’t just about graphics. One of the comments below Zuckeberg’s original post reads: “In Fortnite you can be Goku with a shotgun”. Illustrating the fact that it’s not so much the graphics that matter, as much as what you can do in the virtual world created.
Horizon Worlds does not have to convince us that a digital world is possible, all gamers already know that it is. It must make us want to enter alternative worlds with our friends, virtually living a social experience. Something more than a video game, at least in Meta’s ambitions. A much more difficult challenge than that of improving the graphics.