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Meta’s Social VR Metaverse Is Growing At A Rapid Pace

A company spokesperson confirmed that Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues have a combined user base of over 300,000.

Meta (formerly Facebook) launched the official open beta for its still-in-development VR social metaverse Horizon Worlds late last year on Meta Quest and Meta Quest 2 headsets. Roughly three months later and the much-talked-about platform already boasts an impressive catalog of user-created worlds and games. But how much exactly has Horizon Worlds, a product which Zuckerberg himself described as “core to our metaverse vision,” grown over the past 12 weeks?

Earlier this week, Chris Cox, chief product officer at Meta, offered some additional insight into the success of both Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, the company’s live event service that launched in 2018 (collectively referred to as the Horizon platform), during an all-hands company meeting. First reported by The Verge, Cox said that the Horizon platform’s combined user base has grown 10x in size since the open beta launch of Horizon Worlds this past December and now exceeds over 300,000 monthly users.

Meta spokesperson Joe Osborne reportedly confirmed the data during the call. According to Osborne, the number provided includes Horizon Venues but does not account for Horizon Workrooms, Meta’s official VR coworking platform that launched on Meta Quest and Meta Quest 2 this past August. Since then the company has expanded the platform with customizable workspaces and official work accounts.

Credit: VRScout

As previously stated, Meta launched Horizon Worlds in open beta this past December, allowing anyone with a Quest headset access to the growing virtual space. Despite receiving a fair share of criticism for its simplistic visuals and heavy user restrictions, the VR social platform has continued to grow thanks to the help of a dedicated community of VR creators. Meta even aired a Horizon Worlds ad during the Super Bowl. As part of the promotion, the company launched a virtual arcade restaurant you can visit in the metaverse.

No doubt as users continue to get a handle on the platform’s advanced scripting capabilities we’ll begin to see even more complex worlds and games make their way to the metaverse.

If you’re new to Horizon Worlds, we recommend checking out our official beginner’s guide. Here you can learn more about how to set up your avatar and begin exploring new worlds. Not sure where to start? Here are five incredible user-made worlds we recommend visiting.

Horizon Worlds is available free on Meta Quest 2.

Image Credit: Meta

About the Scout

Former Writer (Kyle Melnick)

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