The age change for the Quest headset comes as building a virtual reality-based version of the metaverse has become crucial to Meta’s future. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder and chief executive, has spent the past two years shifting his social networking business to the metaverse. Last year, he spent nearly $14 billion to expand Reality Labs, the company’s arm that is devoted to building hardware and developing the metaverse.
The high costs of trying to turn the metaverse into a mainstream business have spooked Wall Street, causing Meta’s stock to plunge last year. Enthusiasm for the metaverse has also waned over the past year, as more technologists have flocked to the rise of artificial intelligence with the release of chatbots like ChatGPT. Mr. Zuckerberg has similarly pushed to incorporate A.I. into Meta’s products.
But he has also said he remains intent on the metaverse. In a companywide meeting last week, Mr. Zuckerberg assured employees that he was committed to his virtual reality and augmented reality plans and that it would be a long haul toward realizing his vision.
Lowering the minimum age requirements for the company’s Quest headset could help familiarize younger audiences with the metaverse, similar to how Facebook initially started on college campuses in 2004, so that they would be more likely to continue using the technology as they grow up.
Meta is likely seeking to integrate itself into young peoples’ lives, following a strategy used by other gaming companies, including Roblox, Microsoft with its Minecraft game, and Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite. Those games have a combined user base in the hundreds of millions, many of whom are under the age of 35.
“What we have seen is Meta, based solely on business imperatives, continually lowering the age of their virtual reality products and doing so without any evidence that these things are safe for young people,” said Josh Golin, the executive director of Fairplay, a nonprofit children’s advocacy group. “It’s beyond the pale and clearly driven by the fact that they are trying to compete for a market, not driven by kids’ needs.”
Meta is working to assure regulators that it will provide parental controls to keep young users safe when using the device, according to the two people with knowledge of the company’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity. Some of those include time limits, parent-managed controls over content or apps and privacy settings that will not allow other people using Horizon Worlds the ability to follow preteens without approval from them or their parents.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
