I was reading this article this article about the Metaverse when it hit me where all the mistakes were being made.

It’s all about experiences

Roblox is making this huge splash and is being sold as toys and cultural items at an amazing rate. My Walmart has movie toys, but they're obviously for adults and come with higher pricing. The Roblox toys are mostly sold out. The same can be said about Minecraft. The local book store sells more Minecraft books and Roblox books than stuff about cartoons or movies.

The games create an experience, and the fans love that. Facebook can't create that, so they've created a false version of the idea, and are paying for nice articles about their ideas.

The word Experience is being used carefully, because it's expected to become the next big thing. There is a book on it and everything. The problem is, the experience economy has been slowed or not moving the way the really big names want. Meta wants to create the Experience, but has no clue how that works. It's a buzzword and not an understanding. It's the Kinect vs the Wii all over again. The Kinect was a great piece of kit and I loved it, but the entire game design and promotion was a false idea on why the Wii worked so well.

We've already seen the Metaverse on PS3 and it was a similar result. Yet, every few years some big name wants to make it again. I suspect they read too many people read Snow Crash which influenced so many books, anime, movies, and game designers.