Cage-fighting in the Metaverse

Proponents of VR (Virtual Reality) say that the technology offers training opportunities unparalleled in metaspace. “Over the past few years, the cost to deploy VR has plummeted,” noted a Harvard Business Review article. “The technology has expanded into more general use at Fortune 500 corporations, where employees working in industries such as retail, logistics, and customer service are practicing in VR headsets to get better at their jobs.”

But detractors are myriad. The bulky vision-occluding headsets currently used in VR are often cited as an inhibiting factor to widespread adoption.

Corporate training utilizing VR technology takes a backseat to recent headline grabs by Meta — the artist formerly known as Facebook.

Born of cyberpunk

The term “metaverse” seems so irresistible that, in 2021, “Facebook was renamed Meta Platforms and its chairman Mark Zuckerberg declared a company commitment to developing a metaverse. Many of the virtual reality technologies advertised by Meta Platforms remain to be developed.”

The concept didn't begin with Facebook, but rather a seminal cyberpunk novel by science fiction author Neal Stephenson. The 1992 tome presents a dystopian future where some choose to spend their existence plugged into an alternate reality.

Gamers and techies are already familiar with competing VR platforms

“Users of the Metaverse gain access to it through personal terminals that project a high-quality virtual reality display onto goggles worn by the user, or from low-quality public terminals in booths (with the penalty of presenting a grainy black-and-white appearance),” says Wikipedia. “Stephenson also describes a subculture of people choosing to remain continuously connected to the Metaverse by wearing portable terminals, goggles and other equipment; they are nicknamed ‘gargoyles’ due to their grotesque appearance.”

Comparisons to video games are inevitable, and gamers as a tribe are more conversant with technologies average users might find unwieldy. But instead of pitching to gamers, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg chose a more feral pastime.

Enter the cage-fighter

The Meta CEO garners flak from all sides nowadays, often for trivial reasons. But Zuckerberg was smiling when he perched cage-side at a recent UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) event.

The promotion features mixed martial arts fights by men (and, since 2013, women) in an eight-sided octagonal cage. The October 1 event in Las Vegas was purged of fans and media before Zuckerberg arrived, which didn't sit well with many UFC fans.

Will screaming UFC fans sport occlusive VR headgear?

But some are excited about the VR possibilities for consumption of future events. On October 13, the UFC declared their First Live Combat Sports Event in Meta’s Horizon Worlds. It's worth noting that competing combat sports promotion Singapore-based One Championship offers VR MMA fights on their website.

Market leader UFC promises: “Fans will enter an immersive environment in Meta Horizon Worlds where they can see and speak with other fans in real time while enjoying unprecedented VR views of all the thrilling action...including strikes, takedowns, grappling, and more.”

It remains to be seen if the stands will feature rows of screaming fans sporting occlusive VR headgear.

Catchweight bout

Many UFC fans, including Zuckerberg, practice mixed martial arts themselves. Internet forums bristle with salty comments predicting mythic bouts between the Meta chief and various opponents, often referencing the difficult art of weight-cutting (if mandated weight is missed, sometimes a “catchweight” bout with an interim agreed-upon weight is the solution — the show must go on).

If Meta thought they'd find a receptive audience, they're mistaken: MMA fans tend to be vocal and opinionated. There's no shortage of advice on how to slice the VR pie among the UFC faithful — many scorn the technology, while others laud the efforts of One Championship in the VR space. Some are contemptuous of anything Zuckerberg-related while others applaud the efforts of Meta to promote the technology.

The coolness factor

When it comes to the coolness factor, Meta seems fragile. A recent story by Allison Morrow on CNN Business titled “Meta's big problem: Everything about VR looks supremely uncool” highlights the issue.

“Here's the deal: Zuck is betting the future of his half-a-trillion-dollar company, Meta, on a vision of the future in which all of us spend more time in a virtual space known as the metaverse, repped by digital alter egos created in our own image,” writes Morrow. “The trouble is, everything we've seen of that future so far looks lame as hell.”

The imagery coming from Meta isn't encouraging. “2022, where Zuckerberg’s avatar is a legless knock-off of a Nintendo Mii with some really weird buttons and the eyes of a corpse,” writes Kotaku staff writer Zack Zwiezen. “And this isn’t just how Zuckerberg looks, this is the way all avatars appear in Horizon Worlds...I can find Nintendo DS and Sony PS Vita games with better, nicer-looking art and models than what we’ve been shown so far in Facebook’s metaverse.”

This is a distinct problem for Meta Platforms: gamers and techies who might become early adopters are already familiar with competing platforms. Comparisons with avatar-driven online multimedia platform Second Life are inevitable, and there's little inkling of how Meta plans to deal with the technical and sociological challenges SL has incurred since its launch in 2003.

Skittish investors

“Horizon Worlds, Meta’s flagship metaverse for consumers, is failing to meet internal performance expectations, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reviewed internal company documents,” saysCNBC. “Meta initially aimed to reach 500,000 monthly active users in Horizon Worlds by the end of the year, but the current figure is less than 200,000, according to the report.”

More worrying: investors are not thrilled with Meta's R&D costs. “Meta has spent more than USD15 billion on its Reality Labs metaverse venture since the beginning of last year, but so far, the company hasn't shared on what, precisely, money is being spent,” says a Business Insider article. "The problem is that they spend the money, but the transparency with investors has been a disaster,” Dan Ives, a tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, said. ''This continues to be a risky bet by Zuckerberg and the team because, for now, they're betting money on the future while they continue to have massive headwinds on their core business,” he added.

And there are reports that those tasked with developing the platform aren't keen on it either. “Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship “metaverse” app — is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building it isn’t using it very much,” according to internal memos obtained by The Verge. “In one of the memos to employees dated September 15th, Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, said the team would remain in a 'quality lockdown' for the rest of the year to 'ensure that we fix our quality gaps and performance issues before we open up Horizon to more users'.”

A puncher's chance

Pioneering new technology is always a perilous exercise — no one's clamoring for a Power Glove (80s-era VR mitt) nowadays. It seems that for Zuckerberg to advance forward in the VR arena, he's going to have to lace up his fighting gloves and bite down on his mouthpiece, as the MMA guys say.

Time will tell if Meta is setting up for a spectacular knockout in the VR space or punching above their weight.

Stefan Hammond is a contributing editor to CDOTrends. Best practices, the IoT, payment gateways, robotics, and the ongoing battle against cyberpirates pique his interest. You can reach him at [email protected].

Image credit: iStockphoto/g-stockstudio