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hwers's comment lacks some context, but there is some truth to it. Consider Carmack's comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo @33:50 onward "A closed platform doesn't deserve to be called a metaverse, or does it?"

Making money in the Metaverse is a pillar of what makes a virtual world an actual world. (Ignoring of who does the money making for now) Scarcity is an integral part of it. Skins, models, rare items. In the virtual world it all scarcity is artificial by definition. Just like with second life and the linden dollar making it to real exchanges. Second life sold worlds as some kind of virtual realtor in the past, VRChat's users sell custom created skins and rigged models today and Meta wants to be the platform facilitating that tomorrow, but on a grand scale.

I also highly applaud Meta's contribution to FOSS btw.

I recommend watching last year's speech by Carmack. It gives a little perspective as to why this was targeted to be a virtual session.

He is not a fan of how Meta pushes the Metaverse, "Money is flowing and enormous wheels in the company apparatus are turning" and he wants to salvage that financial energy to push technology in some meaningful way. (Pushing down audio latency on the Quest 2 was such a talking point). This shows what Meta's tech is capable of, mask off, no per-rendered CG advert and I think that's a good thing.

Besides that, afaik he is largely detached from that project now and only does once a week consulting, with the main focus being his pursuit of AGI.

Doesn't change of course how embarrassingly bad Meta's money invested vs results achieved are.

edit: Fount the spot I referenced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo at 15:10 onward

Looking some more I found this video. Sounds like he is quite heavily involved after all. Interesting video too.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo

Is this the talk you're referring to? https://youtu.be/BnSUk0je6oo?t=912

⬐ sp332

It was the keynote and this Q&A immediately following. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yRFEALq8hc

Carmack said basically the same thing in his Connect 2021 keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo

"There are no lapsed mobile users, essentially... but there are, right now, a whole lot of people that are lapsed VR users...."

> and the VR/meta chapter won't help

Tangential to this thread, I listened to Carmacks keynote[0] for the Facebook Connect event, and it’s very refreshing to hear him push back, in ways that just make sense , instead of towing some corporate line that’s part fantasy and snake oil. See his comments on “social metaverse” and “3D vs flat screens”.

[0] https://youtu.be/BnSUk0je6oo?t=1845

I know, right! I just love how Carmack delivered the line: "... But Mark Zuckerberg decided it's time to build the metaverse..."

Edit: Here's Carmack's keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo

⬐ cblconfederate

Thanks, Carmack's video looks a lot more human than the other one with blond Mr. Data pretending to talk to photorealistic avatars.

Here's his actual keynote speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo

As always, John is a master of communication and clear thought.

⬐ neuronexmachina

Also, Carmack's notes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruv739914jzquue/connect2021.txt?dl...

The Index is great, but it will lose in the end because of 3 reasons:

1) much cheaper price

2) portability

3) seamless onboarding experience

I love my index but there is no way that it can currently beat oculus because of these things.

Also, Oculus is well aware of these features. At least Carmack is.

The highlight of connect for me was the Carmack keynote. I suggest all techies watch it:

https://youtu.be/BnSUk0je6oo

⬐ omgitsabird

What is the boon if someone "wins" VR?

⬐ warning26

Given that Valve's next big product is a cheaper portable non-VR gaming system with a (planned) seamless onboarding experience, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was a test run for a future portable VR set to compete with the Quest.

Valve, with their already existing VR ecosystem, is probably the best positioned to compete in the space.

⬐ pronlover723

Meta has 30x? 100x?, 300x? the resources of Valve. I'm not routing for Meta but it seems unlikely Valve can out do Meta.

⬐ findthewords

When it comes to engineering talent, I wouldn't be so sure. Steam is also among the biggest marketing platforms, especially for early adopter gamers.

⬐ baby

You mean the platform where you could change the password of any user account by going through account recovery and leaving the password blank? (That was exploitable for many years)

⬐ SkyMarshal

Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world (eg not things like Farmville, but games pushing the limits of immersive 3D tech). The only real competitors to Steam are consoles. Games have traditionally been the main driver of home PC hardware, so I wouldn't count Valve out easily.

⬐ onion2k

Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world...

Facebook cannot do VR based on games. It wouldn't bring in enough money to sustain it. They're going after a much bigger market.

The entire global PC gaming market was worth $42b in 2019. It's up a bit since then, but not by much[1]. That's equivalent to about 5 months of Facebook's revenue[2]. In other words, in terms of revenue, Facebook is double the size of the entire PC gaming market.

It doesn't really matter how good or how big Valve are. They're a big fish in a small pond compared to Facebook.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/292516/pc-online-game-ma...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/technology/facebook-profi...

⬐ Tarq0n

As long as Facebook keeps investing in exclusives for their platform while Valve doesn't they'll keep losing market share, no matter what new headsets they come out with.

⬐ AuryGlenz

The main thing Valve has going for it is good will among the gaming population, which Facebo- Meta certainly doesn’t (to a stupid extent, IMO).

However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space. I’m sure that’s somewhat of a business decision, but I honestly think Zuckerberg has a genuine interest in the technology and just wants to move it forward. While Valve could technically also sell at or below cost and hope to make it up with their Steam cut, they haven’t been willing to do that with any other hardware release.

⬐ warning26

> However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space.

It's really a shame this isn't illegal.

You can hear for yourself what he has to say here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo

⬐ coolspot

Very good no-nonsense talk.

Surprising contrast with all other FB Connect keynotes.

10:45 - On barriers he encountered on his quest to release unlocked software for Oculus Go.

20:00 - long critique of Metaverse/Horizon.

34:00 - "Everybody agrees that a closed platform doesn't deserve to be called The Metaverse"

37:00 - On how Horizon World, Horizon Venues, Horizon Workrooms are all mess of disconnected codebases.

38:40 - On upcoming hardware

42:20 - On headset pricing and how "There are people for whom $0 is not cheap enough to make current headsets valuable, because there are plenty of Quest 2 headsets in closets now"

46:00 - On pancake lenses

53:20 - On FB outage

55:30 - On PWA, native and regular Android apps for VR