The monumental flop of Horizon Worlds forces Mark Zuckerberg to redesign his metavers application

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided to redesign the company’s flagship metavers application, Horizon Worldsafter it was heavily criticized because of its graphic simplicity. The backlash was received following one of Zuckerberg’s avatar selfies in Horizon Worlds presented to illustrate the launch of the platform in France.

Horizon Worlds to get a graphical makeover

Mark Zuckerberg has announced that a series of changes will be made to Horizon Worlds, Meta’s metaverse-focused app, to make it more immersive and visually impressive for users.

Zuckerberg announced the news via an Instagram post, where he also showed off the new graphic style the platform will use going forward. He explained:

Major updates for Horizon and avatar graphics soon … Horizon’s graphics are capable of much more, even on headsets, and Horizon is improving very quickly.

The announced redesign is a response to backlash over a selfie of his avatar used to announce the launch of Horizon Worlds in France, which some users called outdated because of its simple graphics.

Zuckerberg explains

The graphic design of the image has prompted influencers, columnists and users to criticize Meta. Kevin Roose of The New York Times stated::

It’s really surprising that Meta spent over $10 billion on VR last year and the graphics in its flagship app are still as bad as a 2008 Wii game.

It’s genuinely puzzling that Meta spent more than $10 billion on VR last year and the graphics in its flagship app still look worse than a 2008 Wii game. https://t.co/IOwqsrrfKj

– Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) August 16, 2022

Others have also criticized the company, comparing the charts presented to what pre-2000 technologies could do. Emily Gorcenski, a data analyst, stated::

Come work for Meta, where the brightest technologists of the day have made 1995-level graphics.

Come work for Meta, where the most brilliant technologists of the day have achieved 1995 level graphics https://t.co/mHJJohZo1i

– Emily G (@EmilyGorcenski) August 17, 2022

However, Zuckerberg explained the digital selfie graphic, stating:

I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic – it was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch.

The criticism comes as Meta has invested a significant amount of funds into its metaverse unit, Reality Labs. While the unit posted sales of more than $400 million in Q2 2022, its losses reached $2.8 billion in the same period. The company issued $10 billion in bonds earlier this month to continue funding its operations, including its metaverse division.