the technological Goal soon plans to lower the age of access to its metaverse app, Horizon Worlds, from 18 to 13, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The Journal cites an internal letter from Horizon Vice President Gabriel Aul, which attributes the “success” from business to “serve that age group, first and foremost”, and points out that his rivals are doing better.
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The bet on teenagers to boost the metaverse - a high-cost, low-result business - contrasts with Meta's troubled experience with young audiences on other apps, such as Instagram.
Meta is subjected to great scrutiny due to the harmful effects on the mental health of minors that the continued use of its social networks and the advertising they receive through them may have.
On a general level, Meta has commissioned Horizon to multiply its monthly active user base from a maximum of 200,000 registered in December, on Christmas dates, up to a million by the end of this year.
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One of the biggest problems seems to be that users find no motivation to return to the game despite having the Quest virtual reality cases, since a community has not just formed there.
In this sense, their ambitions include increasing the “retention rate” (players who play again the following month) from the 11% registered in January to 20%indicates the newspaper citing the internal note.
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Meta spent $15.9 billion in 2022 on Reality Labsits division that develops devices and software for the metaverse, and according to its annual accounts had losses of 13.7 billion.
