After Mark Zuckerberg shared a screenshot from Horizon Worlds for an announcement, people criticize the graphics and Meta's $10B investment in the metaverse

Forbes 2022-08-19 Paul Tassi

Context & Ripple Effects

The screenshot backlash made Horizon Worlds’ visible product quality a proxy for judging Meta’s much larger metaverse commitment. Zuckerberg answered days later with a promise of substantial avatar-graphics updates, showing that the criticism had moved from social-media mockery to a product-response problem.

The episode also fits a longer coverage arc: later reporting described a metaverse keynote that failed to resolve skepticism, before Meta’s original metaverse vision was effectively abandoned in favor of AI.

First-order effects

Meta and Zuckerberg face immediate public scrutiny over whether Horizon Worlds’ graphics justify the stated $10B metaverse investment.
Horizon Worlds becomes the focal point for that scrutiny, placing pressure on Meta to demonstrate visible improvements rather than rely on the scale of its investment.

Second-order effects

Zuckerberg’s pledge of avatar-graphics updates turns visual polish into a near-term benchmark for Meta’s metaverse narrative.
The backlash gives critics a concrete reference point for the broader skepticism that later coverage said Meta’s metaverse keynote did not address.

Third-order effects

The mismatch between Meta’s strategic ambition and Horizon Worlds’ perceived product readiness foreshadows a capital-allocation problem: large platform bets require consumer-facing proof before they can sustain confidence.
Meta’s later shift away from the original metaverse vision suggests that immersive-world investment was increasingly judged against alternative priorities, particularly AI.

The trend: Meta’s metaverse effort illustrates how a highly visible consumer product can determine whether a long-horizon platform investment retains strategic credibility.

Discussion

UPROXX Matt Prigge on x
Mark Zuckerberg's Latest Metaverse Image Isn't Getting Great Reviews On Social Media
@jrhennessy James Hennessy on x
Looks great! https://twitter.com/...
@ordinarytings @ordinarytings on x
Mark Zuckerberg launches Horizon Worlds in France and Spain with an eye-gougingly ugly VR selfie. Meta's metaverse ploy is surely dying in the dark. https://twitter.com/...
@shannonvallor Shannon Vallor on x
The saddest thing for me about modern tech's long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance is how it has just slowly killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech. Every product Meta or Amazon announces makes the future seem bleaker and grayer. 1/n
@paultassi Paul Tassi on x
A tale of two metaverses https://twitter.com/...
@chrisjbakke Chris Bakke on x
Facebook spent $10 billion on metaverse projects in 2021. The graphics look like they came out of a computer game developed in 1997. https://twitter.com/...
@darth @darth on x
[Screenshot from Blade Runner with Zuckerberg on a large billboard]
@kaelivanfossen @kaelivanfossen on x
Zucky can keep his $10B low poly playpen that looks like SL circa '05 but with fewer tools. Without question, the aesthetics, creativity, and economy are “billions” times better in Second Life '22. As you can see, I am all about my vacey-vibes. Can your HW do this? please..😎🌴 htt…
@cd_hooks Christopher Hooks on x
this looks like a 2002 Nintendo GameCube release called like “World Baby” https://twitter.com/...
@bradneuberg Brad Neuberg on x
@JamesX08fu ... Thanks, that's interesting. I heard there was an earlier external compute puck design by Apple that had photorealistic avatars, sounds like they had to stop that direction for now
@yuanyi_z Yuan Yi Zhu on x
So much this. I remember the thrill of browsing Engadget or whatever; now it's just Zuck doing creepy stuff in RuneScape graphics. https://twitter.com/...
@jamesx08fu James on x
@bradneuberg ... the story by @waynema states that apple too had to go with cartoonish avatars similar to Memojis because the photorealistic avatars they initially made looked uncanny and couldn't run anyway on the standalone headset design they decided to go with.
@bradneuberg Brad Neuberg on x
@hmltn ... Meta has actually presented research in both of those areas, and I think people will be surprised at how photorealistic avatars can be on mobile VR class hardware (I believe Apple will actually have something like this on their January 2023 announced XR headset).
@jakeanbinder Jake Anbinder on x
It's remarkable how of the big five tech companies Meta's net contribution to society is like orders of magnitude below the others
@cixliv @cixliv on x
So uh... who is going to tell him? Seriously is this some insane level of groupthink at Meta? Or is he not listening to his peers? It's truly tragic for our industry that the CEO spending more money than anyone else in VR is so out of touch. https://twitter.com/...
@bradneuberg Brad Neuberg on x
@hmltn ... I think the ultimate plan is to use something like Nvidia's DLSS to train a neural network to very quickly draw people's avatars, and then have custom hardware that can run avatars very fast at high fidelity and very low power drain.
@mattscalici Matt Scalici on x
The biggest digital media company in the world invested $10 billion in a thing that looks like the Bible Adventures guys tried to make a Nintendo 64 game https://twitter.com/...
@zenofdesign @zenofdesign on x
My money is on Zuck or other exec setting some insane bar like ‘this game HAS to support 5000 players in close vicinity at the same time’, the artist and graphics programmer showing him a screen that looks like this to show its a bad idea, and hearing ‘ship it’ in response. https…
@sarahmei Sarah Mei on x
Someday I really, really, REALLY want to hear the story about how FB spent $300 million and got...this. https://twitter.com/...
@kevinbuist Kevin Buist on x
I have a theory about why Zuck's metaverse looks bad: It's because he wants it to have an aesthetic that's as neutral as possible, so it feels like infrastructure instead of a game. He wants it to feel like emoji, a seemingly author-less visual language. https://www.forbes.com/..…
@ddiakopoulos @ddiakopoulos on x
I will simply put these two pieces of media side by side to highlight the gap between SOTA research and product... from the same company. https://twitter.com/...
@hmltn Ian Hamilton on x
@rachelmetz I'll be curious if Meta ends up supporting a 1:1 calling feature and drops away the environment whether they can get much better avatars on current hardware. With Project Cambria's sensors it could be pretty impressive. @boztank?
@jeremysmiles Jeremy Kaplowitz on x
if mark zuckerberg was smart he would pay a billion dollars to have “real life cgi” surgery and make himself look exactly like this irl so no one could say the metaverse has bad graphics. but he's a moron https://twitter.com/...
@rachelmetz Rachel Metz on x
@hmltn @boztank oh that's an interesting idea. you mean, like, blacking out the environment (or something else to simplify it) when you're just doing a chat w someone else's avatar?
@michaelmiraflor Michael J. Miraflor on x
Does Meta have a hardware product marketing problem? The Facebook Portal was an elite communication device, but never got real traction and is being sunset. The Oculus Quest 2 is amazing, but that's not the vibe you get from Meta VR.
@joeamendola @joeamendola on x
@jrhennessy Say what you want about the graphics of the Metaverse but they really did seem to nail Zuckerberg's perfectly featureless face
@hmltn Ian Hamilton on x
@rachelmetz @boztank Yeah. Current social VR spaces have to optimize to support complex environments with enough processing leftover for a reasonable # of avatars. What happens when all the processing is thrown at a single avatar that's driven by real expressions?
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
just fired up my N64 and I must have left the Zuck cartridge in it https://twitter.com/...
@theandrewnadeau Andrew Nadeau on x
So as far as I can tell, the Metaverse is just Animal Crossing but you're being hunted by Mark Zuckerberg. https://twitter.com/...
@jessnode @jessnode on x
what if this is a PR stunt to have us all talking about the metaverse but they plan to clap back with a redesign once we've built public opposition solely on the basis of the graphics being garbage; like forcing us into a critique corner https://twitter.com/...
@eevee @eevee on x
no one has spelled this out, so: it's not about polygons or whatever. it's the avatar that has less emotional range than miis, the landscape that is vaguely hi-res but consists of two props and some overlapping spheres on a flat plane https://twitter.com/...
@fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x
I keep wondering why meta's Paris only has two buildings and grass
@rajat_suresh Rajat Suresh on x
this looks 🔥 https://twitter.com/...
@kenklippenstein Ken Klippenstein on x
A new life awaits you in the lower resolution off-world colonies https://twitter.com/...
@rachelmetz Rachel Metz on x
i just think it's really interesting to observe the contrast between mark zuckerberg's vision of himself in the metaverse and the current reality. [Screenshot of Mark Zuckerberg's avatar at Connect 2021]
@kenklippenstein Ken Klippenstein on x
finally got around to reading up on what the Metaverse is and it's apparently just World of Warcraft but lower res and boring?
@mitchyd Mitch Dyer on x
It's truly embarrassing that someone this rich is hinging his gargantuan company's existence on something that looks like a JibJab birthday video from 2004 https://twitter.com/...
@stevekovach Steve Kovach on x
This literally cost $10 billion. https://twitter.com/...
@emilygorcenski Emily G on x
Come work for Meta, where the most brilliant technologists of the day have achieved 1995 level graphics https://twitter.com/...
@junlper Transgender Marx on x
how does this shit look worse than miis did on the wii 15 years ago now https://twitter.com/...
@dosmeow @dosmeow on x
Nothing will ever be the same https://twitter.com/...
@tha_rami Rami Ismail on x
Indies, raise your hand if you and your $300 & food delivery discount voucher marketing budget would be embarrassed to post this https://twitter.com/...
@jeffnolan Jeff Nolan on x
The critics are not wrong. It really looks comically bad. OTOH there are some interesting questions that arise from VR too closely resembling real life. Not sure I want that either. https://twitter.com/...
@funnygodmother Cheryl Platz on x
I'm not going to dunk on the visuals, but the discourse raises a point I think gets missed a lot. What human need is Meta hoping their platform improves upon? It's obviously not “actual reality”. Second Life can be whimsical and lets people transcend. This isn't aspirational. htt…
@plainsite @plainsite on x
Turns out, the whole Facebook thing was just a big joke the whole time that kind of destroyed the world along the way. $FB $META https://twitter.com/...
@dmitricherniak Dmitri Cherniak on x
Facebook spent 10 billion on the metaverse, and didn't even get a Fidenza. Damn.
@morningbrew @morningbrew on x
The metaverse really captured the essence of Mark Zuckerberg's eyes https://twitter.com/...
@kurtmargenau Kurt Margenau on x
Facebook trying to build the metaverse for like $300B meanwhile all Fortnite has to do is like, add a mode where you can share PowerPoint?
@stephen_collins Stephen Collins on x
From last year when Zuck n Clegg did that Metaverse launch https://twitter.com/...
@iwriteok Robert Evans on x
tragic that every airline and tourist economy in the world is about to collapse now that Facebook has utterly eliminated the need to travel https://twitter.com/...
@lesterfreamon Kelsey Plume on x
How in the fuck https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@libbycwatson Libby Watson on x
I mean this as earnestly as I can: what IS this https://twitter.com/...
@9_volt_ @9_volt_ on x
we have spent billions of dollars on making it possible to experience the world as if it was a shitty looking Wii game. what do you think https://twitter.com/...
@jkass99 Joe Kassabian on x
Facebook melted journalism and empowered a few genocides all so they could come up with a shitty ps2 game in 2022 https://twitter.com/...
@kevinroose Kevin Roose on x
It's genuinely puzzling that Meta spent more than $10 billion on VR last year and the graphics in its flagship app still look worse than a 2008 Wii game. https://twitter.com/...
@thinking_panda @thinking_panda on x
“It looks like Mark Zuckerberg watched Ready Player One and thought he would be able to recreate that universe with MS Paint.” 😆😆😆 https://www.forbes.com/...
@day25 Steve on x
Meta spent $10 billion on their metaverse in 2021 and this is what Zuck posted today. Stop complaining. https://twitter.com/...
@gartenberg Michael Gartenberg on x
There's a reason why people call Zuckerberg a two dimensional character. https://twitter.com/...
@kevinroose Kevin Roose on x
People who know things about VR: what's the likely explanation here? That Meta cares more about fine-tuning interactions, and can upgrade the graphics later? That there's some uncanny valley reason you don't actually want VR avatars to be photorealistic?
@skelecap @skelecap on x
What's particularly weird is it's unclear to what degree they want this to run on hardware they control. A Rift and w/e it's attached to should have a lot more processing power than this uses. Plus even MMOs released ~20 years ago have different graphics sliders and texture packs…
@ballmatthew Matthew Ball on x
@kevinroose #1 - Most not on “VR” #2 - Wii had a fan for heat, used power grid not battery, didn't need to fit on face or weigh on spine, didn't have half dozen cameras or other sensors for room or body detection, was sold at profit not $100-200 loss. All of these uniquely constr…
@etbrooking Emerson T. Brooking on x
5000 newspapers died for this https://twitter.com/...
@jack @jack on x
Meta https://twitter.com/...

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