[imagesource: Houseparty]

It’s the end of an app.

The Houseparty is over.

We are talking about the video chat app Houseparty that Epic Games bought in 2019, which later soared in popularity during various COVID-19 lockdowns.

The company announced yesterday that they are shutting the party down.

The curfew is October, when the app will formerly stop operations, per Mashable.

The announcement came via various channels, including Twitter:

Millions of people around the world have used Houseparty to connect with their friends and family since the app launched. Today, we’re sharing that we’ve made the decision to discontinue the app in October. ❤️👋

Read more: https://t.co/ZaJO8I1CPo pic.twitter.com/tMMMuViwAm

— Houseparty (@houseparty) September 9, 2021

In March 2020, when COVID-19 first caused global lockdowns, the app managed 17 million downloads.

In April of the same year, the app integrated with Fortnite, allowing players of the iconic battle royale game to chat while playing and also stream their sessions, Gizmodo reports:

However, the company now says that it’s time to put the party to bed, claiming that it can no longer “give the app or our community the attention that it deserves” because it’s saddled with other projects.

Image: Houseparty

These other projects seem to have something to do with the “metaverse”:

“The team behind Houseparty is working on creating new ways to have meaningful and authentic social interactions at metaverse scale across the Epic Games family,” reads the statement in part.

What exactly is the metaverse, you ask?

The metaverse, for those stuck in meatspace, is a loosely defined term coined by the science fiction author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash.

It is basically Silicon Valley’s new gimmick to stir up interest in virtual and augmented reality markets:

It’s become a bit of a cause célèbre among members of the tech set, like billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, who for some reason seem intent on advancing a fundamentally dystopian vision.

Although, what exactly the Epic team means by “metaverse scale” is open-ish to interpretation for now:

For game developers like Epic, VR and AR are clearly common sense investments, given their potential to totally transform user gaming experience.

On that front, Epic has apparently been aggressively prepping, raising $1 billion last year to invest in such new meta-projects, the Washington Post reports.

Anyway, thanks for the, um, memories, Houseparty.

[sources:mashable&gizmodo]