Meta will update its Metaverse social app Horizon Worlds as it seeks to attract more teens and young adults

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook parent company Meta will upgrade its metaverse virtual world social application Horizon Worlds, seeking to attract more teenagers and young users, and plans to open it to teenagers as soon as March. The new strategy includes making Horizon Worlds available to teens ages 13 to 17 (the app is currently available to those 18 and older), according to a memo Meta sent to teams involved in the initiative. Meta has confirmed that it will be working with external studios to create new experiences for Horizon. The new strategy also includes prompting retention, growing Horizon's user base, and improving service reliability and maintaining high performance. Gabriel Aul, vice president of Horizon, said, "Teenagers and young users will become true digital citizens in the metaverse, and we need to make sure we serve this group first." In October 2022, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge , Horizon Worlds has too many glitches, and the build team rarely uses the platform. The Horizon Worlds team has been instructed to remain on a "quality lock" for the remainder of the year to ensure quality and performance issues are addressed first.