Technology The 'Metaverse' in Gaming Discussion

[Agent23]

Facebook isn't unreasonably valued right now. It has a P/E ratio of 11.39, which is fair for how its performing right now.

Tesla, though overvalued, is generally impressive in that breaking into the auto oligopoly shouldn't have been possible at all.

Yeah, gradually the reality is catching up to these Silicon Valley shits, however even at that P/E ration FB still has a lot of problems, the main one being the CEO and his obsession with VR.

Also, we are in a downturn and money flowing into advertising will decrease, and Facebook has the huge problem of not being able to attract that many young people, who are a favored demographic for advertisers.

The brats are going to TikTok in droves.

You can also add the EU and its crusade against data collection to the headwinds and you get a not all together rosy picture for the company.

And the real recession/depression/market downturn hasn't really started yet.

Oh, and there is the elephant in the room, which is the fact that FB and most of these overpriced boondoggles AREN'T PAYING A FUCKING DIVIDEND.

So, why should any investor want to own a piece of a "growth" company with a declining marketshare, a business model affected by insane regulations that will cut into its profits, in a downturn, and run by a megalomaniac autist that thinks he is Napoleon and that does not pay a dividend?

It has been, what 18 years?

And FB, Google and Amazon are still using the muh growth excuse and not paying a frigging dividend.

I don't know about you, but for me the key factor in a business is its ability to make money for the stockholders.

 

[Atarlost]

Amen. If you don't have a contractual schedule by which you will start paying dividends or bankrupt yourself trying you're not an investment you're a ponzi scheme. It's a ponzi scheme being used to fund a business, but if the investors aren't getting their fair share of the profits their share of the ownership is a lie.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I feel it's worth making a note of just how staggeringly incompetent the Metaverse leadership really was. It came out in 2019 just before COVID lockdowns, and was pushed during a long period where the supply chains were snarled up and there were no game consoles to be found despite massive demand. This was also a time when the demand for work from home, telepresence, and telecommuting were at their highest ever. These are literally the most perfect conditions to launch a new gaming/VR Chat platform possible. Infomercial humanity would have trouble failing their new platform under those conditions.

Meta managed to go nowhere under those conditions.

 

[Agent23]

I feel it's worth making a note of just how staggeringly incompetent the Metaverse leadership really was. It came out in 2019 just before COVID lockdowns, and was pushed during a long period where the supply chains were snarled up and there were no game consoles to be found despite massive demand. This was also a time when the demand for work from home, telepresence, and telecommuting were at their highest ever. These are literally the most perfect conditions to launch a new gaming/VR Chat platform possible. Infomercial humanity would have trouble failing their new platform under those conditions.

Meta managed to go nowhere under those conditions.

Well, there has been a working and fairly popular VR chat for a while now, and I even know a few people that use it, hell, Bearing did a lot of shit on there years ago, I think Sarg and and that Canadian dude that hangs around with them did, too.

I see zero utility in VR where telecommuting is concerned, working in many fields is less about seeing the poeple around you, and IMHO VR would be totally incapable of translating those facial expressions and gestures that in person communication allegedly benefits from, and if you have to look at stuff like spreadsheets, code, or other stuff on your PC you'd need that piped into the Meta VR.

It is just faster and more efficient to have a call on Google Meet/Slack/Zoom/Teams and share your display, then use GSuite or Outlook's sharing and suggesting capabilities or git if it is a team effort.

IMHO VR detracts from, it does not improve, telecommuting.

Also, it will be lovely to have that heavy headset on my face all day long, yes, sir...

Maybe they could have sold it better to people stuck on the couch or to some boomer bosses, but the tech is not there and this thing does not have a killer app.

 

[Marduk]

I feel it's worth making a note of just how staggeringly incompetent the Metaverse leadership really was. It came out in 2019 just before COVID lockdowns, and was pushed during a long period where the supply chains were snarled up and there were no game consoles to be found despite massive demand. This was also a time when the demand for work from home, telepresence, and telecommuting were at their highest ever. These are literally the most perfect conditions to launch a new gaming/VR Chat platform possible. Infomercial humanity would have trouble failing their new platform under those conditions.

Meta managed to go nowhere under those conditions.

Still, the technology isn't there, and the concept isn't there either. If it was basically perfected to the point of size and price of a more pricey gaming headset and didn't need a quite decent gaming PC to run properly, the chances would have been better, but still far from a guarantee.

But even that wouldn't fix the concept, the software, its use and design. The utility for remote work purposes is nebulous at best, a significant yet pointless cost and source of problems at worst when compared to a plain cheap screen. For entertainment, a certain niche already exists, but Meta of all things is not even close to being the leader there, which is doubly humiliating considering that its hardware is popular, it's just that other companies have better ideas as to what to do with it, but then again, since when is Meta planning to be an electronic hardware company? It was supposed to be just a basis for their grand VR projects.

 

[Agent23]

Still, the technology isn't there, and the concept isn't there either. If it was basically perfected to the point of size and price of a more pricey gaming headset and didn't need a quite decent gaming PC to run properly, the chances would have been better, but still far from a guarantee.

Considering the quality of the graphics and the longevity of the project I am quite surprised that it still needs high-end gaming PCs to run.
For games like Alyx it would be a requirement, but have you seen the metaverse?

Looks like some of those stupid LEGO videogames from 10 - 15 years ago.
VRChat has been around for over 8 years now.

I mean c'mon, man.

But even that wouldn't fix the concept, the software, its use and design. The utility for remote work purposes is nebulous at best, a significant yet pointless cost and source of problems at worst when compared to a plain cheap screen. For entertainment, a certain niche already exists, but Meta of all things is not even close to being the leader there, which is doubly humiliating considering that its hardware is popular, it's just that other companies have better ideas as to what to do with it, but then again, since when is Meta planning to be an electronic hardware company? It was supposed to be just a basis for their grand VR projects.

Well, they bought Oculus, and that company had a hardware division too, iirc.

And Zuck's problem was that no hardware manufacturer would put enough resources into VR hardware and then turn around and sell them at or below cost.

 

[Marduk]

Considering the quality of the graphics and the longevity of the project I am quite surprised that it still needs high-end gaming PCs to run.
For games like Alyx it would be a requirement, but have you seen the metaverse?

Looks like some of those stupid LEGO videogames from 10 - 15 years ago.
VRChat has been around for over 8 years now.

I mean c'mon, man.

The headset itself has that listed in its own requirements, so... Guess they didn't bother with implementing low resource use modes or something like that, running with assumption that anyone who pays up for this stuff does want to have high end graphics and can pay for them.

Well, they bought Oculus, and that company had a hardware division too, iirc.

And Zuck's problem was that no hardware manufacturer would put enough resources into VR hardware and then turn around and sell them at or below cost.

Well, the irony is that so far they are doing far better at the stuff that they just bought to provide a base for their main specialty, than in the supposed main specialty itself.

 

[Agent23]

Well, the irony is that so far they are doing far better at the stuff that they just bought to provide a base for their main specialty, than in the supposed main specialty itself.

Depends on what your definition of far better is, mine is that something is making a profit without being subsidized, the way Meta's headsets are.

That’s the approach that we want to take to help build the metaverse too. We plan to continue to either subsidize our devices or sell them at cost to make them available to more people.

 

[Marduk]

Depends on what your definition of far better is, mine is that something is making a profit without being subsidized, the way Meta's headsets are.

Looks like bad mismatch between planning and reality. If Metaverse was indeed this massively successful and profitable VR software that everyone wants to throw money at like Zuckerberg advertised it, then paying for more people to get into VR would have a similar rationale as consoles being subsidized. But doing that while it isn't just makes him the year round Santa Claus of the VR community.

 

[ParadiseLost]

Considering the quality of the graphics and the longevity of the project I am quite surprised that it still needs high-end gaming PCs to run.
For games like Alyx it would be a requirement, but have you seen the metaverse?

Looks like some of those stupid LEGO videogames from 10 - 15 years ago.
VRChat has been around for over 8 years now.

I mean c'mon, man.

Its because it requires a shit ton of pixels/FPS to look good

Oculus Quest 2 is 3940 x 3864 pixels (so almost 80% bigger than regular 4K, which is already pretty intensive on PC), and then it requires 90-120 FPS.

On the other hand, the Valve Index has only a 2880 x 3200 resolution, which makes it easier to run Alyx on there.

 

[Agent23]

Its because it requires a shit ton of pixels/FPS to look good

Oculus Quest 2 is 3940 x 3864 pixels (so almost 80% bigger than regular 4K, which is already pretty intensive on PC), and then it requires 90-120 FPS.

And still fails.

 

[Agent23]

Looks like bad mismatch between planning and reality. If Metaverse was indeed this massively successful and profitable VR software that everyone wants to throw money at like Zuckerberg advertised it, then paying for more people to get into VR would have a similar rationale as consoles being subsidized. But doing that while it isn't just makes him the year round Santa Claus of the VR community.

Too bad that Zuck is trying to force people to use FB with it as well as push more vendor lock in from what I have read.

Also, you have the huge problem of removing market incentives.

I have seen projects where the "product" is internal crap that is the pet of some C-level boomer moron, those projects do not end up well and all the good people usually quit(Like Carmack) and you are left with yes men that will asskiss and milk a paycheck.