Metaverse Platform Market Passes 600 Million Monthly Active Users, With Strongest Growth Among 17-24 Adults

Chart via Metaversed

Contrary to common Internet wisdom, the Metaverse not only refuses to die, but keeps steadfastly growing in the only place that ultimately matters — monthly active users:

There are now over 600m monthly active users! ‍ That's the major headline from our newly published Q4 2023 Metaverse Universe report, tracking virtual world platforms and their respective user bases. The Universe chart analysis visualises every virtual world in the Metaverse, showing launch date, MAUs, platform type (Web2 or Web3) and access method (via browser/app or VR headset). ‍

On a quarter-on-quarter basis from the start of Q3 to Q4, total MAUs increased 10.4% from 549m to 606.4m.

Go here to get the full report from Nic Mitham. I actually think his numbers are on the conservative side, since he has Roblox at 250 million MAU, but a recent report tracked Roblox at 300 million MAU, and doesn't count Garena Free Fire, which is arguably a metaverse platform and has nearly 200 million MAU by some estimates.

Just as notable, Nic tells me the strongest growth area is from young adults aged 17-24, with the most activity there coming from Fortnite and ZEPETO, the South Korean-based metaverse platform.

This usage growth by is very promising, a sign we might be surmounting what I call the Metaverse Age Cliff:

Consumers’ interest in metaverse platforms tends to drop off sharply after their mid-to-early 20s.

I am among the relatively small coterie of Generation X geeks who fell in love with immersive 3D worlds as kids in the 90s, and continue to play in them. For the most part, however, the rest of my peers have mainly moved on. Above all, immersion requires time and focus, something that steadily erodes in the face of romance, social life, family, work — essentially, adulthood.

Over time, the realization that the Metaverse is still mostly for kids has somewhat haunted Philip Rosedale. 

“Getting adult users into social, virtual worlds as opposed to just kind of escapist or relaxing video games or something, that remains the big challenge of our time,” he tells me. “There's not a lot of proof yet, that you can get people who are older than 18 to hang out in a kind of lean forward socially engaged way with other people in a virtual world or metaverse. We're not there yet, but I remain as enthusiastic from an optimistic-doing-good-for-the-world perspective, as I ever was. But it has certainly turned out to be a lot harder than I thought, if you were to ask me in 2006.”

It will take some major changes and updates to grow this burgeoning 17-24 category into 24-35 and beyond, but that's a topic for another time. Meantime, this is yet another data point to contradict simplistic media analyses of the Metaverse which roughly cash out to, "whatever Meta is doing, I guess".

It's also a counterpoint to the recent round of layoffs at Epic. The simple-minded view is that the company's metaverse ambitions were unrealistic. People who understand how metaverse platforms actually work pay more attention to the fact that nearly 1000 Fortnite Creative user creators are earning a decent part-time ($10K/year or more) or full-time income from their Fortnite content– with many earning more than most Epic employees, some more than everyone except Sweeney himself.

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