Criticisms as Mark Zuckerberg Announces Launch of Horizon Worlds in France and Spain

Mark Zuckerberg has triggered critics with his post on Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) that shows an image from Horizon Worlds. Facebook launched Horizon Worlds for Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest 2 in 2021. Ahead of the initial release, the company had indicated its intention to roll out the virtual reality (VR) online video game at the Oculus Connect event in 2019. The technology company said Horizon Worlds would give everyone the power to build new worlds and activities. Players will be able to create different interactive action arenas from scratch with no prior experience.

Zuckerberg posted a screenshot from the VR game, announcing its release in France and Spain:

“We are launching Horizon Worlds in France and Spain today! Looking forward to seeing people explore and build immersive worlds, and to bring this to more countries soon.”

The image Zuckerberg posted shows his dead-eyed avatar in a space that includes Spain’s unfinished Sagrada Familia and a small version of the Eiffel Tower. The best guess is the Facebook founder was trying to represent the two countries where the game is expanding to. Many people reacted to the Facebook post with loads of comments, likes, and shares. Also, the post led to “Second Life” trending on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), with many people saying it looked worse compared to the decades-old life sim.

Facebook’s Horizon Worlds vs Fortnite’s Dragon Ball Z

Forbes contributor Paul Tassi made a comparison between Facebook’s Horizon Worlds and Fortnite’s Dragon Ball Z. Also, he mentioned the fact that Zuckerberg announced the release of the VR game in France and Space on the same day Fortnite rolled out its crossover with Dragon Ball Z. According to the Forbes contributor, Fortnite’s megapopular crossover makes it more fun and enhances its concept. Tassi said Horizon Worlds has not been performing well since its launch. He said, “its avatars still look like Miis from 2012 and they still don’t have legs.”

He acknowledged the difficulty in showing 2D screenshots of VR and the general challenges of traditional console and PC gaming regarding graphics. However, he added:

“Horizon Worlds is one of the worst-looking offerings I have seen, and that Meta has spent something like $10 billion chasing its Horizon, VR-centric version of the metaverse, even embarrassingly changing their company name to reflect that. And… this is the result.”

Separately, he emphasized the Facebook name change in a tweet. In his opinion, it remains “embarrassing” that the technology company changed its name to Meta.

Furthermore, the contributor stated that Zuckerberg remains immune to the embarrassment despite the bad representation of Horizon Worlds. He complained about the graphics and the entire grand vision of the VR video game. He concluded that the Metaverse vision would not “go well” for either Zuckerberg or Meta if its operation continued in this manner.