Big investors leave the metaverse and Mark Zuckerberg’s last big project fades away

Just under two years after the bombastic announcement of the future of technology and entertainment, the future of the metaverse is increasingly uncertain. By the way, in recent weeks, large companies like Disney, Microsoft or Tencent They have confirmed that they are leaving this expensive virtual adventure.

When it hit the scene in October 2021, the metaverse was heralded as the next great technological revolution – indeed, Mark Zuckerberg it even changed the Facebook name to Meta.

The idea was sold as an online 3D universe that integrates various virtual spaces and allows its users to interact, trade, work, meet, play and even socialize in a virtual context.

After this presentation, industry leaders such as Microsoft, NVidia, Google, Disney, Unity Technology, Roblox Corporation, Amazon, Animoca Brands, Epic Games, Decentraland, and even Binance jostled for a piece of this new technology.

But so far, metaverse technology is failing, largely due to its cost. Many tech experts argue that the concept has never been streamlined for mass adoption.

“The metaverse hype is over. The real problem was its cost. It is not inclusive and both the software and the devices are too expensive,” explained technology expert Egline Samoei to the Quartz portal.

“People keep googling the meaning of the metaverse. It doesn’t meet many people’s needs”, adds company founder Brand Moran.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company, which was the great forerunner of this idea, investing up to 36,000 million dollars in it, has already begun to move away from the metaverse. In fact, Meta will now focus on cutting costs and streamlining projects.

The company’s value has taken a dip since he bet on the metaverse. In this sense, the company cut 11,000 jobs with the goal of keeping this project afloat, but that didn’t work either.

Zuckerberg plans to shed several thousand more jobs and will focus his company’s business on other industries, such as artificial intelligence.

Metaverse: the tech greats who turned their backs on it

Mickey’s company has decided remove the dedicated partition to the development of this experience and also announced that it will lay off about 7,000 employees dedicated to this project, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This split’s goal was to better integrate audiences into the Disney universe through storytelling intertwined with VR, but it ultimately scrapped the idea when it couldn’t find a concrete direction for the project.

Other large companies in the technology sector, such as Microsoft or Tencentthey also closed their metaverse divisions to invest permanently in the development of generative artificial intelligence.

There are few who still project a future marked by the metaverse. However, some remain hopeful. Aside from the current setbacks, they argue that such a complex technology with so many applications will be developed in the long run.