Is the virtual world as much fun as the real one? Meta’s Super Bowl commercial is sad – and it’s not meant to be. It’s the story of an animatronic animal living a miserable life when he is ousted from his hangout, a restaurant called Questy’s, who finds joy at a virtual Questy’s. Ultimately, the spot aims to sell Meta Quest 2 headsets while promoting the metaverse, but the overriding, and perhaps, unintentional message is that the virtual world is better than the real one. It taps into the nostalgia trend in a very sad way. To be fair, it does present the metaverse as a way to reconnect with friends who have become distant. Note that this has been one of Facebook’s common uses.
The 60-second spot, Old Friends, New Fun, by Anomaly made its debut on ABC’s Good Morning America on February 10 and will run during the first quarter of the Super Bowl.
Meta is planning to release a “high-end” virtual-reality headset later this year, and is working augmented-reality glasses. The company is also planning to take the commercial out of video and into people’s lives. Questy’s was built in Horizon Worlds and is planning to enable people to go into Quest and into VR and be in the restaurant.
The company is also hoping, no doubt, that its Super Bowl presence will help its decline. Meta’s shares dropped 26.4% in the first week of February, erasing US$251bn in value, following an unexpectedly sharp decline in profits and a disappointing outlook in its first earnings report.
