Horizon Worlds: Meta's ambition in Metaverse social networking
This article outlines the important facts, observations, and reviews about Horizon Worlds in hope to serve people who are interested in the development of Metaverse technologies worldwide
Meta’s Horizon Worlds, a Metaverse social networking platform, is now only accessible to users in the US, Canada, and the UK. Though Meta has spent $10 billion on Metaverse technologies, their Metaverse platform is seldomly reviewed by tech media compared to other Metaverse platforms. In hopes to serve people who are interested in the development of Metaverse technologies worldwide, this article outlines the important facts, observations, and reviews about Horizon Worlds.
The release of Horizon Worlds: a cautiously managed process that engaged creators in the early stage
The launch of Horizon Worlds is a cautiously managed process, potentially giving Meta time to fine-tune the product and manage the communities. Before the official launch, Meta publicly mentioned Horizon Worlds (formerly called Facebook Horizon) in 2019. But it took an extra one year for Meta to initial an invite-only beta phase for selected users in August 2020.
General users had to wait until 2021 to try the platform. On December 9th, 2021, Meta officially launched Horizon Worlds to users who are 18 years of age and older in the US and Canada. In June 2022, Meta released Horizon Worlds to another English-speaking western country – the UK. Until today, users outside of the US, Canada, and the UK still can’t access Horizon Worlds.
Meta’s efforts to attract content creators for Horizon Worlds are there since day one. As a relatively new Metaverse platform, Meta shows its ambition to embrace mainstream users and determination to catch up with other platforms by explicitly inviting creators to join. In 2020, Horizon Worlds’s invite-only beta engaged with a lot of creators, making sure that the platform is creator-friendly. In 2021, Meta announced a $10 million Creator Fund to encourage more people to build with them. Meta’s announcement on the official release date described Horizon Worlds as “a VR space with best-in-class tools for creators to build worlds and explore together”, following with an advertisement targeting people who are eager to build, create and explore different worlds – “Together, we can build Horizon.”
With these efforts, Horizon Worlds grew rapidly. As of February 2022, it already had 10,000 virtual worlds built by its users. To put that into context, VRChat, another leading virtual world platform that was officially launched in 2014, has only 25,000 community-created worlds as of 2022.
Best-in-class user experience: simplified interface and avatar system with a smooth hardware-software integration
Among all the Metaverse platforms on the market, Meta’s Horizon Worlds has the best-in-class user experience so far due to its simplified user interface, standardized avatar system, and hardware-software integration.
Simplified user interface. Horizon Worlds’ user interface is relatively simple compared to other Metaverse platforms such as Decentraland and Rec Room. On the landing page, users can check the upcoming events and explore the activities and virtual worlds under the four categories: play, hang out, attend, and create. If their friends are also online, they can explore the platform together by utilizing the “Create a Party” function.
(Source: screenshot in Horizon Worlds)
Standardized avatar system. Horizon Worlds looks relatively harmonized as the avatar system is standardized — users can only build avatars that look like human beings. Though users are unable to become other creatures, Horizon Worlds provides lots of details that users can change to customize their avatar. Users can adjust the look of their avatar by modifying the shape and the color of their hair, eyebrows, eyes, nose, and mouth.
Among the current user communities, the trend is that people love to create avatars that look like themselves in the physical world. Some of them would post the comparison pictures in Facebook fan groups, seeking advice to make their avatar look even more similar to themselves.
Great software and hardware integration. Under the umbrella of the Meta family, Horizon Worlds has a fabulous integration with Quest headsets. The user interface and the user experience are more intuitive because of the great software and hardware integration. Unlike other Metaverse platforms which users have to rely on the buttons of the controllers to call out the main menu, Horizon Wolds allows users to call out the menu in front of them by simply flipping their wrists. Certain hand movements will trigger different functions. For example, users are able to join a party with other people by touching other avatars’ hands for a period of time. Moreover, Quest’s controllers are able to sense the subtle movement of the fingers and provide inputs to the avatar in Horizon Worlds – even if users are just slightly placing their fingers on the controllers, the avatar will change their gestures accordingly.
A better platform for immersion, seamless user scenario transition, and creativity
Compared to traditional 2D social networking platforms, Horizon Worlds can offer users a better experience in the following three aspects: immersion, seamless user scenario transition, and creativity.
Immersion. The nature of VR technology makes the gaming and social activities in Horizon Worlds more immersive. For people who want to take some breaks from their lives, Horizon Worlds can give them a virtual space where they can truly feel presence and more ways to interact with the content and other users on the Internet. For instance, enjoying nature scenery through 2D and 3D devices with other people is a very different experience. With a 2D monitor, users have to find a suitable venue to watch the content with their friends. On the other hand, in Horizon Worlds, users can watch and hike in a beautiful mountain in any physical space with their friends.
(Source: photo taken in “Mellow Mountains”, Horizon Worlds)
Seamless user scenario transition. Just like in the physical world, in Horizon Worlds, users can switch different activities and user scenarios seamlessly. In May 2022, Horizon Worlds combined with Horizon Venues, an online event platform that allows users to watch concerts, gameplay, or videos together. This combination allows users to enjoy different activities smoothly and seamlessly. They can enjoy games such as laser tag with their friends, hang out at a virtual bar for a deep conversation, and then go to a virtual concert together. With all the experiences they can enjoy in Horizon Worlds, the time they spent together can get extended naturally.
(Source: photo taken in “Venues”, Horizon Worlds)
Creativity. With all the functionalities and easy-to-use creator tools, online events and social activities can be more creative in Horizon Worlds. Event organizers can customize their own event venue and activities people can do before and after the events. Take the VR interview with Soh Wai Ching, the world’s tower running champion, as an example, users can listen to the speakers’ sharing, ask questions, and then have a virtual tower running together in Horizon Worlds.
Diversity and inclusion: the key to attracting mainstream users
Among all the Metaverse platforms, it is clear that Horizon Worlds is the one that has spent the most effort on diversity and inclusion issues. There are different worlds and events honoring different identities – a church in remembrance of Dr. Martin Luthur King Jr., a virtual space called “Worlds of Asia” where people can find different worlds created by Asian creators, a meeting space for users in the LGBTQ+ community, an event venue for Women in Horizon members, online gatherings for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI), and so on.
(Source: photo taken in “Worlds of Asia”, Horizon Worlds)
(Source: “Horizon Worlds Of Asia”, Facebook Group)
There are also numerous safety functions to protect different user groups’ user experience. When any incident happens, users can get into a Safe Zone where they can isolate themselves from harassment by simply clicking a button. They can also access safety controls to mute, block, or report others if needed. For users who want to have more personal space, they can utilize personal boundaries and garble voice functions to avoid unwanted interactions with strangers.
(Source: photo taken in “Venues”, Horizon Worlds)
In our previous articles, we address how user experience and diversity and inclusion are the keys to attracting mainstream users. With all these efforts mentioned above, users from different backgrounds are more likely to return to the platform more often for they can find their tribes and manage their user experience proactively. Moreover, these virtual worlds, events and platform functionalities further shape the culture of Horizon Worlds.
The unlimited future of Horizon Worlds, Meta’s version of OASIS
It’s still too early to define what Horizon Worlds is as it hasn’t unlocked its full potential yet. Many consider Horizon Worlds merely a virtual reality gaming platform. However, we can clearly see that it is more than that as its strong creator communities continue to build unique experiences. Now, users are able to play games, enjoy concerts, sports games, and stand-up comedies with their friends, and hang out with people in different clubs.
Probably, a better way to see it is through our imagination. In Josh Constine’s article on TechCrunch in September 2019, he said: “Facebook today announced it’s building its own Ready Player One OASIS.” For people who haven’t watched Ready Player One, the best way to understand OASIS is through the description of Wade Watts, the protagonist of that movie:
“This is the OASIS. It's a place where the limits of reality are your own imagination. You can do anything. Except for eating, sleeping, and bathroom breaks, whatever people want to do, they do it in the OASIS. And since everyone is here, this is where we meet each other. This is where we make friends."
If we see Horizon Worlds the OASIS created by Meta, then it is clear that what users may do in Horizon Worlds in the future is: everything.