Meta reveals its hefty metaverse-monetization plans, taking a bold risk that could alienate “creators”
Open-mic night in the metaverse... where the drinks are virtual and the comedians can only roast your avatar. But if the comedy club wants to sell merch or tickets, they'll have to give Meta a huge cut. Last week Meta became the largest company to unveil its metaverse-monetization plans. Facebook’s parent will charge creators a 47.5% fee on sales of digital goodies and experiences sold through its VR platform, Horizon Worlds. Some background:
- Horizon Worlds is kind of like the App Store, but in 3D (because we're not removed from reality enough already). You need its $300 Oculus VR headset to access it.
- Instead of apps made by programmers, there are “worlds” created by everyday users (think: building a Sims house). And you can hop between worlds.
- Avatars play and socialize in VR. Imagine: Latin dance clubs and games where all players can hear each other (feat. screaming kids).
- Meta released Horizon Worlds in December after years of positioning it as a metaverse building block and says it has 300K users so far.
Back to met-onetization… Meta’s decision to take nearly half of creators’ sales is raising eyebrows. It’s significantly more than Apple’s infamous 30% “App Tax” on in-app purchases and downloads, which Zuck himself has criticized. It’s also more than NFT platforms like Sandbox, Decentraland, and OpenSea get — they take between 2% and 5%.
- Horizon’s “creators” include regular people as well as corporations like Wendy’s and its “Wendyverse.” Meta said it’ll test new ways to sell digital accessories and access to exclusive spaces (like: influencer AMAs).
If you build it, they might not come… Meta’s putting the cart before the virtual horse. For years Facebook put off monetizing through ads, prioritizing growth over $$. As J. Timberlake put it in “The Social Network”: “You don’t even know what the thing is yet.” Meta’s trying to profit from Horizon before it takes off, and has already invested $10B in its meta-vision — but it’s still TBD whether consumers will spend $300 on bulky headsets to hang there.