4. 07. 2023 | Kristýna Bezděková

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Facebook is, without exaggeration, a money factory. But not all areas of the business that the US company Meta Platforms is involved in are ideal. In particular, the virtual reality (VR) division is showing unflattering figures, which company boss Mark Zuckerberg sees a future in.

So now VR is trying to get into positive numbers, basically dollar by dollar – thanks to subscriptions from players.
When Meta unveiled its Quest+ subscription service some time ago, most of the talk was about the classic questions: how much it would cost, when it would come to market, and what users would actually get. But not much space was given at the time to the reasons why Meta was launching the subscription. Because it is anxiously in need of money from players.

Meta Platforms as a whole has had decent results, although for the first quarter of this year it saw its net profit fall 24% to $5.71 billion, revenues beat analysts’ expectations – up three percent to $28.65 billion.

Meanwhile, the outlook for the next quarter is even more optimistic, according to the latest report published in April. Management expects sales of between $29.5 billion and $32 billion. Clarity should come in a few weeks when the official results are released.
However, the BBC server pointed out that in the first three months of this year, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram recorded a loss of four billion dollars in its VR division. Bottom line – it’s not doing well.

It’s with the help of gamers that the company will try to change that. It will charge $7.99 a month ($172) for a Meta Quest+ subscription, or $59.99 ($1,295) a year. At the same time, it is expected that at least tens of thousands of players will take advantage of the offer, which will make us talk about million-digit figures.

As part of the subscription, by the way, users will get two free games every month. In July, these are the rhythm shooter Pistol Whip and Pixel Ripped 1995, which is a ticket to the world of arcade games. The subscription is for owners of the Quest 2, Quest Pro and, in the future, Quest 3 headsets, which are expected to hit store shelves this fall. Facebook’s renaming to Meta Platforms was pushed by Zuckerberg in 2021. He wanted to clearly separate the most famous social network from the company’s future plans. In fact, the company has been working for the last few months on plans for its own metaverse – a virtual universe that will use VR headsets.

This would be used to showcase products and play games. It’s meant to be a place where people will meet each other, using virtual reality systems. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that the creators borrowed the whole idea from the book Ready Player One, written by Ernest Cline.

Source, photo: bbc.com

Kristýna Bezděková

Kristýna is a student of marketing and communication in an undergraduate program. She writes and translates content into the Czech language