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Facebook Games Technology

Facebook To Create Virtual Reality Social Media World Called Horizon (bbc.com) 58

Posted by BeauHD from the VR-world dept.
dryriver shares a report from the BBC: Facebook is creating an immersive environment called Horizon to tempt people into spending more time in virtual reality. The VR app will be a mix of social places where users can mingle and chat, and other areas where they can play games against each other. People will inhabit and explore the virtual spaces via a cartoon avatar. The app will be made available and tested in early 2020, by a small group of Facebook users. Details about Horizon and early footage of the virtual space were shown off at Facebook's Oculus Connect 6 developer conference this week. Facebook said anyone using Horizon would be able to call on human "guides" to help them navigate and become more familiar with the virtual environment. The guides will not be "moderators" who will police behavior, said Facebook. It added that it would include tools that let people manage how they interact with other users. It will also have options that let people shape and build their own part of the environment. They will also be able to design their own avatars. The entire space has been given a cartoon-like feel as it is intended to be used on Facebook's Oculus Quest headset, which does not have the high resolution graphics of PC-linked headsets.

Sam Machkovech, a reporter for Ars Technica, who has tried Horizon, said Facebook had put "a ton of work" into the version he saw, to make it as welcoming as possible. But he noted that Horizon was "yet another" combination of apps, chat and avatars which Facebook had produced in just a few years. He suggested that it was still searching for a good combination that proved properly tempting to users. "We're still waiting for Facebook to inspire confidence that it will launch a social-VR app and stick with it for more than two years," he wrote. Anyone interested in joining Horizon can sign up to be an early tester. You can watch the strange YouTube pre-rendered CGI ad for Facebook Horizon here.
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Facebook To Create Virtual Reality Social Media World Called Horizon

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  • funny (Score:2)

    by gtall ( 79522 )

    I thought FB already was virtual reality. Now in 3D, errr...I give up, why?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

      I thought FB already was virtual reality. Now in 3D, errr...I give up, why?

      Because we can see that one day there will be a common shared virtual reality and the powerful want to be in control of that. I suspect, however, that people will reject a corporate creation as too limited, and instead opt for a grass roots organic amalgamation of open source applications.

      However, being an idealist, I'm often wrong about what people will do so ...

      • There won't be any large number of people ever in any virtual reality system in any future. The best you could get would be a system just like real life. Why would anyone want that? Anything less is just another video game. People always grow tired of video games. So this is really just FB saying they've run out of ideas to improve bottom line growth by getting more people to stay on FB longer. Stick a fork in it. It's dead, Jim.

        • There won't be any large number of people ever in any virtual reality system in any future. ..... Stick a fork in it. It's dead, Jim.

          Wait until the virtual sex gets indistinguishable from the real thing, or better - because we could get to bang a virtual Mia Khalifi or whoever rocks your boat. Then we can all live happily in sealed cubicles with tubes attached to us and never come out again. Suckerberg will get his rocks off by watching us all from the control centre.

          VR in cubicles is probably the only way there will be room for the population numbers expected by the year 2100 anyway.

          • One - Zucker will be in his own cubicle (which will be far better than yours) and totally uninterested in who *you* are screwing and two - you need to read up on population trends.
          • You watch too many sci-fi movies. We are a zillion years away from giving you an experience indistinguishable from reality. And Mia is going to have you in jail for virtual rape. You didn't have her consent.

    • "I thought FB already was virtual reality"

      I thought it was virtually dead, then I read this and FB is becoming Second Life.

    • Because FB still thinks we see it as ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @06:10AM (#59246246)

      ... some kind of cultural corner stone and "how people interact" innovation leader, for ever and evermore.

      It's basically two effects:
      1. People cannot accept that something sucks, that they have inested so much in. (I feel you, Apple fans.)
      2. Financial inertia. (They have enough money to launch stupid shit for a loong time. See also: Microsoft.)

      Plus, Zuckerberg actively sees us as dumb fucks. (Granted, if we use FB, we are.)
      So it's more what they want to look like than what they or their goals are.

  • And the Ralph Pootawns.

  • Pass (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Laxator2 ( 973549 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @05:31AM (#59246184)

    They just don't get it, do they? User don't want it.
    Well, I guess they invested too much money to give up on it, so they will keep pushing the thing despite the market rejecting it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      Rejecting what? VR? You realise VR use is still on an exponential increase with yearly users doubling over the previous years for the past 5 years running right? Currently the percentage of VR users on Steam is 1% of the Steam population. That's a lot of VR headsets and that figure includes only those linked to Steam and not the Oculus Quest (which is outselling the Rift S which is currently the fastest selling PC based headset), and also doesn't include PSVR, or people who use the Oculus with its own store

      • Imagine if you make games for a living. Do you really want to target less than 1% of the market based on your control scheme alone?

        • That's almost 100,000 monthly users...

        • I don't know, ask Bethesda, or Epic, or id Software, or Ready at Dawn, or Rockstar, or Valve, just a couple of the AAA PC studios who have or are in the process of developing VR games both conversions from their PC releases as well as original content. Or ask the many indie developers that are happily producing games for VR many even already working on sequels to their prior successes in the VR space.

          Personally I'm not a developer so you'll need to ask some of those who developed the over 600 games which ar

          • If your game plays just fine without VR, then adding VR is pointless. If VR games are all low budget VR tech demos or triple A titles that don't play any different in VR, then VR is dead on arrival. Again.

      • Where are you getting your numbers from? AFAIK the only VR system maker to release any numbers is Sony and that was total sales of 4.2 million PSVR headsets back in March [arstechnica.com].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rowan_u ( 859287 )
      * Current users don't want it. I am one of those. However, if they can get VR to go mainstream then HELL YES those users will want it. The vast majority of the internet is used for social interaction.

  • 3rd Life ? (Score:3)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @05:33AM (#59246196) Homepage Journal

    Uh... looks exactly like a more modern version of Second Life. Except that they cheaped out on absolutely anything that takes a tiny bit of effort... like legs. Or purpose.

  • Dumb movie idea, worse implementor. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @06:02AM (#59246240)

    This seems to be one of those ideas, that look good in movies, work as fads due to novelty, but are stupid and pointless in reality, especially in the long run.

    Like transparent upright standing touch screens. (See: Gorilla arms.)

    And having FB as the implementor, definitely makes it the dystopic version.
    I wonder if FB are self-aware at all. Regarding what they represent, even to gardening grandmas (as I can verify myself), nowadays.

    Plus, the novelty effect is long gone since AlphaWorlds and Second Life started it in the 90s. Adding VR glasses, which by now have stopped being novel too, won't change that.

    I predict a stillbirth, followed by failing attempts to "keep alive" the zombie with enough marketing power and lightning, giving it a surprisingly long "lifetime" with much coiling due to the long tail of the inertia of them not wanting to accept their failure.

    • The novelty will be in humans having direct access to Hell for the first time. If you think Dante's vision was unpleasant then you will be astounded by the horror of the real thing. My guess is that spending a few hours in it will end up being used to replace life imprisonment sentences for the most evil criminals.

    • You have no idea. There is already exactly what they are creating. It's called RecRoom, and it has a huge -- and growing -- community.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/RecRo... [reddit.com]

      They are cloning it instead of buying the company -- which is what they should have done in the first place.

      • Nobody here has ever heard from it.
        And growing does not exclude my arguments either.
        So I do not see any argument in there.

        As an explanation for your example, I'd say flash in the pan fads can grow quite massive due to the sheer number of people merely trying it out that one time.

        Case in point: Flappy Bird.

        • RecRoom has a substantial community of people who go *back* to it, with hundreds or thousands of hours.
          Virtually everybody who uses VR has heard of it.
          The point is that the VR market in itself is very small.
          So OK, *huge* in the VR world. Maybe not in the gaming world as a whole.

          Argue all you want, that's that it is.

          The bet is that the VR world will eventually grow very big. The size of the cake will get much bigger -- and so will the Recroom slice.

    • This seems to be one of those ideas, that look good in movies, work as fads due to novelty, but are stupid and pointless in reality, especially in the long run.

      Like transparent upright standing touch screens. (See: Gorilla arms.)

      And having FB as the implementor, definitely makes it the dystopic version.
      I wonder if FB are self-aware at all. Regarding what they represent, even to gardening grandmas (as I can verify myself), nowadays.

      Plus, the novelty effect is long gone since AlphaWorlds and Second Life started it in the 90s. Adding VR glasses, which by now have stopped being novel too, won't change that.

      I predict a stillbirth, followed by failing attempts to "keep alive" the zombie with enough marketing power and lightning, giving it a surprisingly long "lifetime" with much coiling due to the long tail of the inertia of them not wanting to accept their failure.

      It's still born for another reason: Lack of anonymity. I experienced the early attempts at 3-D chat rooms with avatars. Those not moderated did pretty well.

      Appreciate this was back when people hooked up anonymously and had "cyber sex" via text-based chat.

      Facebook demands real names and that will definitely cool social interactions. Also, the 3-D version will be moderated.

      People love drama and sex. Fist fights and fisting.

      When someone provides that in 3-D, there's a better market.

      • Yeah, those things would offer quite a lot more ... novelty. ;)

        But sadly, society has a cancerous growth known as SJWs / p.c. culture, right now. And they will eviscerate-rape this as soon as it gets big enough to reach Blue-Haired Mom and Vegan Lesbian.

        • I disagree.

          As evidence, I offer:

          - Ashley Madison
          - Adult Friend Finder
          - Victoria Milan
          - Well Hello
          - Swipe Flirts
          - Free Hookup Search
          - Chaturbate
          - ChatSpin
          - MyFreeCams
          - LiveJasmin
          - CamsCreative
          - ImLive
          - SlutRoulette
          - Camster
          - Cam4

          Those interactive sites have a lot of traffic and the Marching Mothers of America aren't campaigning to bring them down because they are members.

          Objections to sex on the Internet is so high school. So are pickup bars.

          With the growth of remote-controlled sex toys, the market is explod

  • This is my blank face comment.

  • This is a clone of RecRoom (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tonymercmobily ( 658708 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @06:30AM (#59246292) Homepage Journal

    I am surprised nobody here mentioned it.
    This is basically a clone of RecRoom. The Slashdot crown obviously doesn't know much of VR. RecRoom is a hugely popular platform, and they are discussing it in the ReddIt: https://www.reddit.com/r/RecRo... [reddit.com]

    I wish they had bought RecRoom, rather than reinvent it.

    It's also possible that RecRoom will continue exploding, and Facebook's Horizon will be like Google Buzz.

    What's really missing, is the ability for people to run their own world in their own servers.

    One can only hope.

    (Unfortunately, High Fidelity is a failure...)

    • It's also a clone of Second Life, only with VR support out of the box. (Second Life has VR headset support now.) I am surprised you didn't mention it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jowifi ( 1320309 )

      I wish they had bought RecRoom, rather than reinvent it.

      If RecRoom is so good as it is, would you really want it to be taken over by Facebook?

      • Because if Facebook puts _all_ if its muscles cloning *anything*, it will eventually push it to extinction. Snapchat anybody?

  • Why don't they just buy "Second Life"? Does that still exist?

    • Surprisingly it still does. Believe it or not it SL came out in 2003 a year before World of Warcraft (Nov. 2004)

      Back in 2017 Ars Technica wrote about what happened to it. [google.com]

      It still has a small, hardcore, vocal minority -- much like /. -- after the mainstream has moved onto the next latest and greatest "fad". I.e. Fortnite BR (Battle Royale).

  • Just go to Second Life, a much richer and complex social environment than this cartoon environment will ever become.
    • Because FB is not ok having Zuckerberg accidentally running into his own grandmother in a virtual whore house sex dungeon. That's why not.
      • Well, if, theoretically, Zuckerberg is "accidentally running into his own grandmother in a virtual whore house sex dungeon" I think the issue is a family issue and not a Second Life issue. And why do you even know such a place exists? As in real life, adults get to decide where they go. If you are so inclined to visit such a place the consequences are on you.
        • Lol, "I know you are but what am I?". Really? You went there? Omg this place. So hilarious. It's like being in 3rd grade again but through the web. And how do I know about such things? I met yermom in one before we spawned you.
  • Is this going to go the way of Second Life, with sex dungeons, guns, and weird role-play? Call me when it does. I just want to watch. Honest.

    • Is this going to go the way of Second Life, with sex dungeons, guns, and weird role-play? Call me when it does. I just want to watch. Honest.

      IT professionals need to be up to speed on current trends so they can address questions intelligently. If there are hardware requirements like headsets, or fees and in-app purchases, management should let us expense that.

      Part of the job.

  • RecRoom already exists (Score:3)

    by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @08:15AM (#59246404)

    RecRoom [recroom.com] does this, gives users each their own dorm room, you can create worlds and share them, or go to others and play. Each world has logic, you can build almost anything you like. Shooters, adventure games, win/lose/draw style games, bowling, hang gliding, paintball, capture the flag, tennis, or just simply a lounge.

    It's free, you can use it on many platforms (it's built in unity), supports VR optionally, supports motion controls or gamepad or mouse/keyboard

    There are kid friendly parental controls as well.

    I love it and it's a great way to interact with people in VR. Playing games while chatting and gesturing/emoting with motion controls works very well.

    I think I will avoid the Facebook thing because of their privacy issues.

    • [recroom.com]

      I think I will avoid the Facebook thing because of their privacy issues.

      This.

      Facebook demands real names. How sucky would that be? Doxxing made easy.

  • Cool idea but not if Facebook or Zuckerberg has anything to do with it. I'll stay FAR away from their privacy leeching techniques!

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