Social media giant Facebook is ramping up its efforts to develop a “metaverse” – a combination of “digital worlds” in which people will enjoy virtual reality on a huge scale. That’s a b ig goal of Cary-based Epic Games, too. The competition is on.
Andrew Bosworth (aka Boz), the vice president of augemented and virtual reality at Facebook, spelled out his vision in a blog post.
“Much of the work we’ve been doing at Facebook Reality Labs connects deeply to the Metaverse vision Mark has talked about. Today we’re standing up a Metaverse product group under my organization to bring together the teams focused on responsibly building this ambitious work,” he wrote.
“Why does the Metaverse matter?
Facebook demos its VR googles. (Facebook image)
“The Metaverse is already here as a collection of digital worlds each with its own physics to determine what’s possible within them. The defining quality of the metaverse will be presence — the feeling of really being there with people — and FRL has been focused on building products that deliver presence across digital spaces for years. Today Portal and Oculus can teleport you into a room with another person, regardless of physical distance, or to new virtual worlds and experiences. But to achieve our full vision of the Metaverse, we also need to build the connective tissue between these spaces — so you can remove the limitations of physics and move between them with the same ease as moving from one room in your home to the next.
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“To focus our efforts and deliver on this vision, we are bringing together the teams that have been driving some of this fundamental work under the new Metaverse PG. I’m excited to welcome Vishal Shah, who joins us from Instagram to lead this new product group; Vivek Sharma, who joins us from FB Gaming, will lead the Horizon teams, and Oculus OG Jason Rubin, who also joins from FB Gaming, will lead the Content team as he and Vivek continue their work with FB Gaming partners on expanding the size and capabilities of Facebook’s gaming platforms.
“There is a lot of work to be done to bridge these worlds that will ultimately form part of the Metaverse and I’m looking forward to what we can accomplish together.”
Bosworth also noted that his group is hiring – there are 720 open positions.
