(Bloomberg) -- Meta Platforms Inc. is losing third-party augmented reality developers to rival Snap Inc. following the social media giant’s unexpected decision to shutter its AR studio.
AR filters are popular on Meta’s Instagram and rival Snapchat, where creators use them billions of times each year in images and videos posted on the apps. Filters can overlay digital images onto the real world, such as adding makeup, glitter, dog ears or other effects to a person’s face. Meta’s AR studio was a platform where developers could make custom photo filters that would show up on Instagram and Facebook.
But Meta’s abrupt decision to close its AR studio, called Meta Spark, confused some developers because the company only recently unveiled its first pair of AR glasses, called Orion. Some feel the company has forsaken them, according to interviews with eight developers, some of whom asked for anonymity because they work directly with Meta. Developers received less than six months notice about the closure, and Meta hasn’t provided an alternative product, meaning developers will be unable to use the filters they’ve created on Meta’s apps, or make money from them, they say.
“Announcing the complete shutdown of a software, as well as their AR filters, only five months in advance shows a total lack of interest in both their creators and their clients,” said Lucie Bouchet, an AR designer who has created filters for brands like NYX Cosmetics and Umami Burger. “Five months is not enough time to adjust, find solutions or make compromises.”
Some developers made money by selling digital filters to brands that wanted to use them for advertising on Instagram or Facebook. Meta has also been purchasing a limited number of AR filters that were built on Spark Studio, according to several developers, but that revenue stream is expected to dry up moving forward.
“It’s a big deal because now nobody is going to be able to make money out of this, and people actually lived off of this,” said Ruya Baraz, a developer who has made filters for Spotify Technology SA and UNICEF.
When asked about the shutdown of Spark, a Meta spokesperson pointed to the company’s website. “Creators are able to download their AR effects and rework or monetize them for other AR platforms,” the company previously wrote in a statement. “We don’t offer alternative tools to build, publish, or manage AR effects across Meta platforms.”
Meta originally launched its augmented reality studio in 2017 as a way to compete with Snap, which helped popularize digital image filters through its Snapchat app. Meta has since lost billions of dollars on augmented and virtual reality technologies, investing heavily into VR headsets and its recently debuted AR glasses.
Developers are expected to play a key role in bringing the company’s vision for augmented reality to life, as they’re likely to build apps and experiences for those devices that Meta couldn’t create on its own.
Many developers were hoping that Spark Studio would be used to develop apps for Meta’s Orion glasses or future versions of its Quest mixed reality headsets, products that Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has said represent the future of the company.
But Meta had already stopped introducing significant updates to Spark before shuttering it, developers said, and the features lagged behind those of Snap’s competing product, called Lens Studio. Some said they preferred building AR filters for Snap, but were hesitant to focus on the photo-sharing app because it had significantly fewer users than Instagram. Now, many of those developers are migrating to Snap.
“Spark didn’t add new features for the past two to three years anyways. It was just getting really monotonous and buggy most of the time,” said Baraz, who also builds AR filters for Snap and TikTok. Snap’s augmented reality platform is the most advanced and the easiest to use, she said.
Snap’s more developer-friendly platform could provide a significant edge as it competes with Meta to capture the nascent smart glasses market. Snap recently started courting developers for its own AR glasses, called AR Spectacles, which were announced at its annual conference earlier this year. Snap’s AR platform lets developers build digital image filters for the Snapchat app and its new glasses.
Meta has a history of contentious relationships with developers, who have built numerous apps and features on top of Meta’s products over the years but also sued the social media giant for killing their projects and have complained about its platforms being difficult to build for.
Meta executives have acknowledged the fraught relationship. “We have not made it easy to develop for our platforms,” Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth told developers at Meta’s annual conference last month. “And I want you to know that we know that, and we’re very sorry.”
Now, Meta risks jeopardizing its relationship with some developers even as AR becomes a core pillar of the company, and as Snap seeks to eke out an advantage over its larger peer.
“I think Meta is burning a lot of bridges with developers, but they seem to be so big that they don’t care,” said Brielle Garcia, a developer who builds AR filters for Meta and Snapchat. “It’s honestly very confusing about what their goals here are.”
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