Facebook: “The future of gaming in the Metaverse is casual gamers” What’s the point?
Video games have evolved over time and we’ve gone from very simple 2D titles to being able to explore huge open 3D worlds with realistic graphics and great complexity. But not everyone is interested in keeping up with the times and dedicating their time to video games, as there is a large group of casual gamers who don’t have much interest in that. However, for Facebook Gaming these casual gamers are the most important audience they need for the Metaverse.
When Meta announced its Metaverse project, expectations were sky high. And the company sold it very well, a series of virtual worlds where we can play, socialize, study or even work. All this was thanks to the VR glasses and the generation of worlds of all kinds, where imagination was the limit. We could see it as a kind of PlayStation Home. We could consider it the first “Sony metaverse” which was quite a revolution for PS3 when it was launched in 2008.
Facebook Gaming survey shows the key to the Metaverse
Unlike PlayStation Home, the Meta Metaverse has not been launched, at least if we take into account what we were promised. And the only thing we have remotely similar is Horizon Worlds and it is a very poor version. In fact, Meta no longer seemed to be as enthusiastic about their Metaverse as years ago and the hype from the company and players was fading.
But now it’s time to talk about this virtual universe again, as a Facebook Gaming survey has revealed that there is a type of player needed for the evolution of the Metaverse. The 2022 survey asked gamers’ opinions on technology, games and developers. The data obtained was shown at GamesBeat Summit 2023, where Facebook Gaming’s Stephen Gray gave his conclusions on the matter.
Casual gamers are the ones who will mark the evolution of Metaverse
Gray states that there is a lot of interest for gamers in the metaverse, but that the type of user they are targeting must be taken into account. According to the Facebook Gaming representative, 50% of all gamers know what the metaverse is, but hardcore gamers get the highest percentage. The rest is divided among other gamers, such as those he considers in the midrange (midcore) and who have already entered the virtual world, assuring that 33% of these use VR and AR. After this we have the midcore players who are interested in the metaverse, but also in cryptocurrencies and NFTS.
Finally there are the opposite of hardcore gamers, as here we have the casuals. According to Gray, these types of players are the most important for the future of the metaverse, as they are not too interested in games but in social experience and virtual worlds. It should be noted that despite being called Facebook Gaming, this is not a triple-A video game developer by any stretch of the imagination.
It must also be recognized that for the moment the metaverse does not seem to have a great future and perhaps expectations need to be lowered even further. Perhaps we see an advance over Horizon Worlds, but only time will tell if Meta is willing to move forward with this very expensive project that has cost them millions of dollars.