I'm convinced it is (or was at least) an investor scam. Before the Silicon Valley banks bubble burst you could slap "metaverse" on anything and investors would line up to dump money on you.
It's not that grim. It was their effort to circumvent SPWN and 3rd party sites to host their own concerts, which will also add the bonus of preventing early piracy. Not having an archive is ass though, but likely they will release Blu-ray version of the events. This also shown in the products, they have their concert working first and everything else is barebone extra added in. If it was an investor scam they would have dropped it and going AI by now. No investor gives a shit about metaverse anymore.
There is also the potential for free events getting monetized (e.g 3d birthday/ anniversaries) which will still be streamed freely on youtube but the holoearth will offer a different experience if you fork up money
AFAIK all the metaverse ventures that laincjed so far tanked spectacularly.
I don't believe for a second that Cover is gonna Succeed where Facebook didn't.
Facebook didn't success because they had 0 way to monetize their metaverse beside spamming ads on people's face. Their strategy was expand first then ads, but they couldnt even expand because they made a shitty product due CEO autism. On top of having an intial budget so high it's impossible to recoup. If anything Facebook's metaverse was the worst attempt ever at it, just because you add a big name doesnt mean they have any clue of what they are doing, e.g. Donald Trump Steaks.
Holoearth already has a form of revenue in selling concert and a dedicated fanbase who will consume it. People also floated around the ideas of gacha, concert super chats that they can monetize also . Or actually adding content to their "game"
They had relatively low cost of development, mostly on salary. Their financial statement state they spent expected to spend 2-3 bil$ on just holo-earth with around 55 employees on 2024? Its not a low sum but it also wouldn't kill the company, it's 1/3 of their 2023 profits, e.g. money that wouldnt have gone anywhere else unless they can think of the next vanity project or money that yagoo can pocket (which he wont)
Isn't merch where Cover make the most money?
Yes but merchs are also tied to events and
... concerts. And they do sells a lot more merchs during concert season. Whatever statistic they had they deemed it's worth it.
end note: one thing im worry about is that they will actually lose viewership on their concert if holoearth is not viable via mobile.