THE PRICE FOR VIRTUAL REAL ESTATE IN SOME ONLINE WORLDS, WHERE USERS CAN HANG OUT AS AVATARS, HAS CRATERED. SOURCE: WSJ - PHOTO: GUILLERMO GUTIERREZ CARRASCAL/ SOPA IMAGES/ZUMA PRESS
Disney has shut down the division developing its metaverse strategies, and Microsoft recently shut down a social VR platform it acquired in 2017.
The price for virtual real estate in some online worlds has declined, WSJ reports.
- Slow user adoption, driven partly by expensive hardware requirements, glitchy tech, and deteriorating economic conditions, has dampened expectations that the metaverse will soon drive meaningful revenue.
- Tech companies have been slashing jobs and abandoning projects deemed nonessential, including those in their metaverse divisions.
- Investments in AI promise returns in the near term, so some companies have shifted focus to that instead of the metaverse.
- Meta is still focused on the metaverse but also prioritizes AI.
- Even at the height of the metaverse craze, some tech executives were less than enamored with online realms.
