Meta Platforms (FB.O), the parent company of Facebook, will charge artists 47.5 percent on sales of digital goods and experiences created in Horizon Worlds, the firm’s virtual reality platform.
According to a Meta spokeswoman, the overall price consists of a 30% hardware platform fee for sales made through Meta Quest Store, where it offers apps and games for its virtual reality headsets, and a further 17.5 percent cut as Horizon platform fees.
On Monday, the internet giant announced that it would begin testing tools for creators to sell digital goods and earn money on Horizon Worlds, a crucial component of its metaverse ambition.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has been a vocal opponent of Apple Inc.’s 30% app store fees, but Meta’s current effort to tax creators nearly half of their sales on its own platform has enraged many of them.
The parent company of Facebook, which changed its name to Meta last year, has invested heavily in virtual and augmented reality to represent its new bet on the metaverse, a futuristic vision of a network of virtual spaces accessed via various devices where people may work, socialize, and play.
Horizon Worlds, a huge virtual reality social network, and Horizon Venues, a virtual event platform, are two early Meta metaverse-like settings.