Meta wants you to build games on your phone
Meta is launching a tool called Horizon Create Studio on mobile devices that lets users design video games using artificial intelligence.
Games will appear in social feeds
Horizon has struggled to gain traction, but the company plans to give new titles more visibility by pushing them onto Facebook and Instagram. Published games built with Horizon Create and Horizon Studio will receive recommendations directly within those social apps. Users can tap a clip of a game and join a multiplayer session instantly, without downloading a separate application or being redirected to a store page.
Meta states that games which are engaging, stable, culturally relevant, and keep players returning will receive greater reach. The company argues that this approach allows games to live natively in the feeds where people already discover content and connect with friends.
Roblox is doing the same
This announcement arrives as Roblox, a platform similar to Horizon but far more popular, pushes into AI-powered development. Roblox has introduced a feature in its mobile app that similarly allows users to generate games using text prompts.
Meta is pivoting to mobile
Horizon originally launched as a virtual reality application. Meta has since shifted its focus primarily to mobile platforms. It is perhaps no surprise that artificial intelligence is becoming a major component of Horizon given the company’s recent efforts to integrate the technology into virtually every product it can.
Will the games be fun?
Providing tools for rapid creation could increase the number of options available to players. The author remains skeptical that a large volume of AI-generated titles will match the engagement of handcrafted experiences. However, games created in Create and Studio appear to include standard video game elements. This stands in contrast to Google’s Project Genie, which produced brief but empty interactive experiences. Meta claims both tools enable creators to turn any idea into a complete 2D or 3D mobile game, complete with progression systems, balanced difficulty, art direction, multiplayer, and more, then refine every element to their standards.
Scale is the main hurdle
Meta has a long way to go to reach the scale of Roblox, which recorded 123 million daily active users. Horizon has never really taken off; The Verge reported in early 2022 that it had 300,000 monthly users.
