Internal memos reportedly say Mark Zuckerberg’s great metaverse app suffers from a ‘quality’ issue, and even employees aren’t using it enough

• Metaverse’s VP memos to staff say the app has too many quality and performance issues.
• A memo says the team building the Metaverse app isn’t spending enough time using it, reports The Verge.
• Metaverse app updates are expected to be shared on October 11 at Meta’s Connect conference.

Internal memos from Metaverse’s vice president to employees working on the Metaverse app highlight concerns that it has too many quality and performance issues — and that even employees don’t seem to be very engaged with it.

The memos, obtained by Alex Heath of The Verge, are authored by Metaverse Vice President Vishal Shah. In them, he tells the team that they will be in “quality lockdown” for the rest of the year so issues can be resolved before more users gain access to the app.

The memos paint an ominous picture for a central part of Zuckerberg’s big bet on the metaverse. The focus on improving the existing product rather than introducing new features comes as the CEO grapples with a massive company pivot to the metaverse, a shift that’s happening as Facebook makes faced with a downturn in its main advertising business and the departure of its main lieutenant, Sheryl Sandberg.

The app, called Horizon Worlds, was released on the Meta’s Quest headset last December and is expected to have a mobile and desktop web version soon. The app allows users to create avatars and interact with each other in a virtual reality world. At a shareholder meeting in May, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told shareholders that the company’s Metaverse project is expected to lose “significant” sums over the next three to five years.

Horizon Worlds ‘didn’t find a suitable product market’

Issues with Horizon World include a “confusing and frustrating onboarding experience,” Shah said in a note, reports The Verge. He also told the employees that they were not flexible enough and that they needed to collaborate better.

Perhaps most tellingly, Shah writes that the app “didn’t find a suitable product market.”

“We believe the Metaverse is the future of computing and should be built around people,” a spokesperson for Meta said in a statement to Insider. “Of course, we’re always making quality improvements and acting on feedback from our creator community. This is a multi-year journey, and we’re going to keep improving what we build.”

In Shah’s memos to employees, he also asked why the app creation team didn’t spend a lot of time on the app.

“Why don’t we love the product we built so much that we use it all the time,” Shah wrote. “The simple truth is, if we don’t like it, how can we expect our users to like it?”

Another memo from Shah said Meta plans to ensure managers force their teams to use the app at least once a week.

“Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds,” Shah said in the follow-up note. “You can’t do that without using it.”

The overall quality and graphics of Horizon Worlds have already been criticized.

Zuckerberg was mocked online in August after sharing his Horizon Worlds avatar with users in France and Spain, the quality drawing comparisons to 1990s video game graphics. He posted another post later that week with a different avatar meant to feature never-before-seen graphical enhancements.

“Horizon’s graphics are capable of so much more – even on headsets – and Horizon is improving very quickly,” Zuckerberg said after the backlash. He added that further updates to the app and avatar graphics would be shared at Meta’s annual Connect conference on October 11.