245 - Meta Horizon Worlds and the Death of the Metaverse

245 - Meta Horizon Worlds and the Death of the Metaverse

From The Worst of All Possible Worlds by Josh Boerman, A.J. Ditty, and Brian Alford

June 17, 2026 · 26 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the decline of Meta's Horizon Worlds and the broader implications for the metaverse concept.

THIS IS A PREVIEW. FOR THE FULL EPISODE, GO TO Patreon.com/worstofall Mark Zuckerberg spent seven years and $80 billion attempting to build Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality "metaverse" that peaked at around 200,000 monthly users in October 2022. After years of decay, Horizon froze the creation of new worlds in VR this week, shifting the platform's focus back to mobile and marking the effective end of Meta's virtual reality ambitions. This week, the lads perform an autopsy on both Horizon Worlds and Mark Zuckerberg's dream of the metaverse more broadly, discovering how a platform built on the vision of a revolutionary gaming headset eventually gave way to a world solely inhabited by dozens of eight-year-olds screaming slurs in 360 degrees of immersive 3D. Media Referenced in this Episode: Meta Horizons Worlds for Oculus Quest, including the following worlds: “Horizon Central” “Bobber Bay Fishing” “NBA Arena” “Coldplay Music of the Spheres World Tour” “METDONALD’S” “Pizza Kitchen” “Bad Roommates UPDATED!” “I Spent A Week Alone In The Metaverse” by Jarvis Johnson (August 1, 2023) Kickstarter campaign for Oculus Rift Oculus VR profile on Crunchbase “Happy Go Luckey: Meet the…

People in this episode

Hosts: Josh Boerman, A.J. Ditty, Brian Alford

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Meta, Oculus

Products: Horizon Worlds

Books & works: I Spent A Week Alone In The Metaverse

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