Horizon Worldsthe virtual reality social platform of Goal, is only available to those aged 18 and over at this time. However, the company would be planning to change that.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journalquoted on the website of Engadget, Meta will open up its social VR experience to younger gamers ages 13-17 starting in March of that year.as part of its efforts to increase Horizon numbers and improve user retention.
WSJ says it got the information from a memo titled “Horizons 2023 Goals and Strategy,” in which Gabriel Aul, Meta’s vice president for virtual reality experience, outlined his goals for the first half of the year.
Aul allegedly wrote that the youngest users are the “true digital citizens of the metaverse” and that Meta needs to make sure it works for them in order for Horizon to be successful.
What did Meta officially say?
Meta spokesman Joe Osborne told the outlet that “teens are already spending time in a variety of virtual reality experiences on Quest.”
“The company wants to make sure this can also give them a great Horizon Worlds experience, with age-appropriate tools and protections.”, he added, without clarifying how they will protect them.
In 2021, Meta started rolling out child and teen safety features and automatically limited activation or sensitive content for new users under the age of 16.
In addition to welcoming younger teens to Horizon, Meta aims to increase the game’s monthly active users from 200,000 to 500,000 in the first half of the year and is aiming for a 20 percent retention rate.
The company aims to launch 20 new Horizon experiences created by third-party studios in an effort to win over more people, too. Additionally, it apparently hopes to make the VR game much more accessible by releasing a web version for mobile and desktop in June.
