Comment on Meta has discontinued its metaverse for work, too
clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world 2 days agoThe whole concept was dead on arrival. Second Life never took off and it was perplexing to see that Meta thought it could make it work.
Second Life never took off
“In 2013, it had approximately one million regular users.”
‘Second Life’ has been chugging along for twenty-two years, with an actual in-game economy and a GDP of 500 million bucks. But clutchtwopointzero here thinks it ‘never took off’.
What happened to Second Life anyway? All the gooners are on VRChat now and they seem to be doing fine
Pretty sure it just has been going through a slow but inevitable death. Probably being propped up by like 2 gen x and 5 generation Jones.
I mean, SL took off enough that it’s still here. A lot of F2P MMOs from around then aren’t really around anymore at all, I can only think of 2 others.
It may not be one of the big MMOs, but an estimated 600k MAU isn’t anything to sneeze at either.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 2 days ago
I mean - it kind of does work. There are millions of people socializing in online games. Playing World of Warcraft with their friends or people they met there. Building crazy things on a Minecraft server while forming friendships. Playing on that Counterstrike Server for decades with the same people. Forming that guild or that clan in an MMORPG. There is something that does work. Not sure why Zuckerberg wanted VR to be part of that and that Facebook touch of poo is also not helping, but trying to build “World of Warcraft for your aunt” is not the worst idea.
snooggums@piefed.world 2 days ago
Games have something to do with socialization as an extra benefit.
The meta shit was conceived of as 3d advertising with socialization as an extra benefit.
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
i guess, but it woulf require the least likely people to adopt a new and expensive technology. think about how long it took for the older generations to catch on to the internet and smart phones. they may be glued together now but it took 20 years and every single other person on earth getting one to make it happen.
warcraft for your lonely aunt is a fine idea. making that vr was poorly conceived. it would have to work on a phone AND be more compelling than just taking on call or text.
but also, the early adopter types that are more or less necessary to get something like this off three ground were never going to like it. that’s us. you can’t create a new tech market segment that wasn’t explicitly asked for without at least considering the nerds. meta has negative trust among nerds. we all saw this as the marketing and data collection tool that it is meant to be.
it was never going to happen. at least until they have full control of all of our devices and platforms and can just say we need it to continue existing in society now. that or b2b contracts are the only ways i could see this ever taking off. it would take some serious marketing voodoo bullshit to convince any sizable businesses that this would increase profits.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 1 day ago
Yeah - Facebook kind of is the right company to produce something like this. They kind of had a little bit of this with Farmville back in the day. They have all those people and your aunt on their apps. There has to be a way to get all those Facebook users into gaming, to get all those WhatsApp groups to play together or to implement something on Instagram. It’s really stupid how they did this
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
yeah, they really lost their early edge on the granny gamer market lol. they’ve all jumped ship to those bejeweled like games and virtual jugsaw puzzles. maybe wordle if they’re bookish.
i think there are little things you can play in some of their messaging platforms, but they change so much on those so often that these kinds of users probably ignore 90% of the interface. i think those hit more with the gen z and gen a younger crowds. especially when it can also become social media content. tiktok is great at that.