Talk about a nail in the coffin: Minecraft, the proto-3D world-building game played by hundreds of millions, is shutting down its VR and Mixed Reality support.
If there ever was a question of whether the Metaverse is dead (though calling it ‘dead’ assumes it was once alive, which is debatable), this might be the definitive answer.
“Microsoft’s latest update to Minecraft‘s Bedrock Edition, version 1.21.80, removes support for both virtual reality and Mixed Reality, Microsoft’s own take on AR that it killed off years ago. Now, Minecraft remains as a game that can be played on multiple consoles and platforms — just not VR.”
Of course, it is not just Minecraft—after losing oodles of money, Meta (the company which conveniently rebranded itself to indicate it is the king of VR) is shuttering large parts of its VR efforts for quite a while.
Makes me wonder what happened to all the Chief Metaverse Officers (the “new” CMOs)? And yes, THAT was indeed a thing for a hot minute…
A good reminder to keep applying Chris Yeh’s brilliant “Does it have utility?” framework: Frequency / Density / Friction: How often do you encounter the problem? How much time/energy do you spend in the problem space? How much pain does it cause you? If those factors are too low, you simply don’t have a problem worth solving. Metaverse - Never/None/Zero. Q.E.D.
