Meta Shifts Its Metaverse Focus to Gaming

As rumors of staff reductions continue, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, intends to redirect attention from the metaverse toward gaming through its VR/AR division Reality Labs.

The big tech ignited a mass round of layoffs back in November 2022. Last month, as part of Meta’s year of efficiency, Zuckerberg announced another round which will begin on May 22 and result in 10,000 more layoffs. Many projects within Reality Labs will be dissolved. Meanwhile, other company teams working on gaming projects should be on the safe side for now.

According to Business Insider, there’s been a recent surge in excitement among Zuckerberg and other top executives at Meta for the gaming industry. However, their enthusiasm for the metaverse has seemingly taken a back seat. The company has also been revamping hardware components to enhance the gaming experience on Quest headsets.

Meta’s Reality Labs also shifted its attention to gaming, which marks a departure from Zuckerberg’s initial vision for the Quest headset to be a device for productivity.

Zuckerberg saw virtual reality as a new world for socializing, work, and commerce, with avatars as the primary mode of interaction in Meta’s metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds. However, the avatars in Horizon Worlds have been criticized for their cartoonish appearance, and the product has struggled to gain widespread adoption. Meta’s last official update on its usage in February 2022 reported having only 300,000 monthly users.

With these changes, Meta hopes to see a different turnaround this year and possibly increase profits. In February, the company reported that Reality Labs suffered an operating loss of over $13 billion for 2022, resulting in a major financial blow for Meta.

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