At the end of October 2021, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook surprised the world by deciding to rename his group Meta. A name change which came after a succession of scandals over the use of social network user data, but which above all marked the group’s ambitions in the metaverse, that is to say a digital universe in which, via a virtual reality helmet, we can interact, buy an apartment, play, trade, etc. “The Internet never stops evolving. We went from fixed PCs to laptops and then to smartphones, from text to photos and then to videos. The metaverse is the next frontier,” said Mark Zuckerberg, who launched a whole debate on the subject of metaverses and heightened the criticism. Then nothing… Until Tuesday when Zuckerberg announced in a Facebook post the launch in France and Spain of Horizon Worlds.
Metaverses: a market worth billions
“I can’t wait to see people explore and build immersive worlds, and bring that to more countries soon,” said the CEO. Eight months after its launch in the United States and Canada, this platform, which has 300,000 members, is an immersive social network in which users evolve in virtual worlds represented by their avatar. To access Horizon Worlds, you must be of legal age, have a Facebook account and have an Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset (449 euros). From then on, you can play, visit museums or attend virtual concerts.
It remains to be seen whether this revolution will be permanent or ephemeral. In France, it will be observed from September by a Metaverse Observatory. Because it is not only Meta-Facebook that is interested in these digital universes whose turnover could reach 678 billion dollars by 2030 according to the firm Grand View Research (GVR).