Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, announced some initial plans on Wednesday to let content creators monetize its future Metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds. Meta’s planned revenue share for contributor creations could reach nearly 50 percent.
Horizon Worlds is a network of 3D shared spaces currently available exclusively on Oculus Quest headsets. (Meta has plans to bring it to mobile, game consoles, and desktop VR in the coming months and years.)
There are already people creating spaces for Horizon Worlds, including a virtual yoga studio and a Second Life-like fast food brand integration in the form of the “Wendyverse.” But to date, Horizon Worlds has not provided the tools for creators to make a living creating that content as they could on similar services like Roblox†
That’s not to say creators haven’t made money; some are paid for contract work outside of Meta’s content creation system for brands or other users to use. But Meta’s announcements paint a picture of what to expect.
First, Horizon Worlds supports global purchases. A handful of creators will be able to sell virtual items from user-generated areas. Meta also plans to introduce a creator bonus program that will award money to creators based on how much other users engage with their content.
This all sounds like what you would expect, but Meta caused a stir in the AR/VR, NFT and the relevant online communities when it revealed details about how much revenue Meta will earn from each transaction.
When users buy an item in Horizon Worlds, Meta confirmed to CNBC that it would take a 25 percent discount, but that’s after every amount a hardware platform could take. At the moment, that means only Meta’s Oculus store, which requires a 30 percent discount. So content creators have to give 30 percent to the Oculus store (or the applicable percentage for whatever platform store Horizon Worlds ends up in later, such as Google Play), and then they have to give 25 percent of what’s left to Horizon Worlds .
That leaves creators with just over half of their content’s revenue before any applicable taxes.
The announcement has sparked anger among creators in the loosely related NFT community, who are used to single-digit platform shooting. There are also accusations of hypocrisy from game developers and others who have seen Meta publicly criticize companies like Apple for charging 30 percent for similar transactions related to in-game content.
So far, Meta has brushed aside the controversy. Vivek Sharma, Meta’s VP of Horizon Worlds, told The Verge, “We think it’s a pretty competitive rate in the market… we believe the other platforms can have their share.”
Meta is a huge company with several diverse objectives and teams behind each of those objectives. Unsurprisingly, a Horizon Worlds executive tells a different story (other platforms deserve their discount) than the parts of Meta that are stirring up Apple and others (claiming those platforms’ cuts are unreasonable).
But aside from conflicting reports, the content creators we spoke to say the piece of the pie they get on this platform is much less than expected.
Horizon Worlds is just one part of Meta’s plan to bring AR, VR and virtual worlds to the masses. The company also plans to introduce augmented reality glasses to the mass market sometime in 2024, putting it in direct competition with Apple and other companies with similar plans.
