AILSA CHANG, HOST:
So I was recently hanging out on a packed floor at a video game conference here in Los Angeles, when I entered this totally alternate reality.
I'm surrounded by blackness but also huge company logos (laughter).
This was my first time ever experiencing virtual reality.
I'm in what looks like a technology lab of some sort.
Well, what I'm actually in is a video game called Marvel's Deadpool VR, with massive goggles and a joystick in each hand. In this other world, I become the superhero Deadpool. And yeah, as Deadpool, things get a bit violent.
I'm, like, head-slamming a guy on a counter. Oh, my - oh, this is actually kind of cathartic right now.
And, hey, I don't only have hands as weapons. I have got virtual guns attached to my waist with unlimited bullets that I can unleash with the squeeze of a joystick.
That's right. Take that. Take that. Down. Down. All right, I'm done. I've killed everybody in this room.
OK, so I'm feeling like a total badass at this point, and all I have to do now is walk across the room to open a door. And that is when a wave of nausea hits me.
I do feel like I'm going to barf, but that's...
This Marvel superhero clearly cannot handle motion sickness, and it's totally obvious to the entire team here.
I'm going to keep going. Keep going. Turn left. Oh, my God. I'm about to, like, throw up. OK. I'm going to stop.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Let me help you right now.
CHANG: Like, do you have, like, an IV or something? (Laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah, yeah.
CHANG: For nearly as long as games have been around, there have been claims that virtual reality would be the future of gaming. But maybe it's a problem if you want to vomit within a few minutes of experiencing that future.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PALMER LUCKEY: What we're doing at Oculus is trying to create the world's best virtual reality headset designed...
CHANG: In 2014, Facebook bet big on virtual reality when it bought the startup company Oculus for $2 billion. And then Facebook bet even bigger. When the company rebranded as Meta, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced a new vision called the metaverse.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARK ZUCKERBERG: Now we have a new North Star, to help bring the metaverse to life.
CHANG: The idea of the metaverse was, instead of just viewing content online, you would be able to inhabit that content.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZUCKERBERG: Imagine you've put on your glasses or headset and you're instantly in your home space. It has parts of your physical home recreated virtually. It has things that are only possible virtually.
CHANG: But nearly four years later, the reality of virtual reality is barely a glimmer of the vision that Zuckerberg described. Meta loses money each year on VR. The headsets are still expensive for the average person, and the number of people who meet in Meta's VR social spaces is still a tiny fraction of the people who meet on Facebook or Instagram. These are just some of the problems that Vishal Shah now has to worry about. He's the president of the metaverse at Meta.
Your title sounds like you should be flying a spaceship or something (laughter).
VISHAL SHAH: It is a fun title and definitely a conversation starter at dinner parties.
CHANG: Shah still wants people to remember, look, VR is already changing people's daily lives.
SHAH: Doing things like watching a movie together, playing a game together, going to a live concert together, going to a sporting event together - just things that we do in the physical world, but we can't always do.
CHANG: OK, but has the promise of the metaverse that Zuckerberg laid out in 2021 been realized?
SHAH: It absolutely has not yet been realized. Because we set out to build a long-term, 10-plus year vision, that was going to take time. And so I think the vision has been laid out. I think the hype around the metaverse, I think, is dead. And that's good because we didn't invest in this space for the hype. We invested in it because we believe in what it can create, the feeling it can create for people. And so that's why it isn't yet there, but we are investing heavily because we believe in it.
CHANG: Thank you for acknowledging that the hype seems to be dead right now. I mean, also want to point out in addition to that, like, just about - what? - 20 million headsets have been sold, but most of them are used for gaming. Does it feel like using VR, virtual reality, to meet and connect with people is still kind of a relatively niche thing in people's minds? What do you think?
SHAH: I think it is actually growing much more quickly than people realize. I think you are correctly calling out that gaming, especially immersive gaming, where you are in another place, acting as another character, is one of the more kind of early use cases that really resonated with people in VR because the device was uniquely capable of transporting you to a whole different place.
CHANG: But I will tell you, it did not resonate with me, like, when I was playing this game, the Deadpool game where I inhabited Deadpool's character, I couldn't even figure out how to walk around a room without wanting to vomit. How do you suggest someone like me live in the metaverse?
SHAH: Well, I think you have to get back to the core use case. I mean, do you play a lot of video games generally?
CHANG: No, not generally, to be fair.
SHAH: If you're not a gamer, I totally get it. That is not for you. But what is increasingly popular in VR is this idea of spending time with other people because in the same way the device is uniquely good at transporting you somewhere else, it is the only device on the planet that helps you feel like someone else is in the room with you, even if they're halfway around the world.
CHANG: OK, so just help us picture that. Like, 'cause when I try to imagine the metaverse in my head, it still sounds so sci-fi. It is still so abstract. Can you just paint a portrait of what the metaverse should be looking like to an average person like me who doesn't game all the time?
SHAH: People always ask me, you know, what is your definition of the metaverse? What are we building towards? And I say, listen, we are here at this dinner or at a bar or wherever we are, and we're having this conversation face to face. But we can only do that once a year, once every couple of months if we live close by, and if you happen to live halfway around the world, maybe every couple of years. How do we build something that feels like you can be next to the person you care about, your best friend from halfway around the world, feel like you're together, doing something together? And so there's building blocks that we need to get there from a technology perspective, from a social kind of acceptability perspective, so I'm not saying this is a flip of the switch and suddenly we're there, but the vision is very much about bringing people together so they feel like they're with one another even when they're physically not together.
CHANG: Vishal, can I ask you a philosophical question now?
SHAH: Of course.
CHANG: If we aspire too much to inhabit some alternate reality, do we lose the ability to live in the present, in our physical reality?
SHAH: I love this question for two reasons. One, it is an important one. We have to consider it. And I don't think anything we are building will replace physical connection with another person. But two, and this is a, you know, conversation you and I can have, this chat over the phone. I'm going to make an assumption that you're pretty happy with your physical surroundings.
CHANG: Yeah. I am. I am. I like living in the now. I like living in my world.
SHAH: Escaping, then, to another place isn't as interesting to you. But there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people in this world who do not have the opportunity to attend the best schools, to have an opportunity to do something that their physical environments restrict them from doing. It is immensely important for you to have a technology that allows you to go and break the laws of physics, to escape from the place that you are today so that you can find a better opportunity for yourself.
CHANG: That is Vishal Shah, vice president of metaverse at Meta. Thank you very much.
SHAH: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And a note that Meta is a financial sponsor of NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAROSLAV BECK'S "BEAT SABER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
