Meta to charge creators nearly 50pc of sales as fees

Meta will charge creators 47 percent of their sales of digital assets and experiences as fees on their new virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds. This will comprise of a 30 percent hardware platform fee for sales through the Meta Quest Store, and a 17.5 percent Horizon platform fee.

The Meta Quest Store is where Meta plans to sell apps and games meant for its virtual reality headsets. It is an early equivalent of an App Store or Play Store design for Apple and Android phones.

Earlier this week, Meta had announced that it was testing tools for creators to sell virtual assets on Horizon Worlds. These tools are limited to a select set of creators in America at the moment.

"We want tons of awesome worlds, and for that to happen, there needs to be a lot of creators who can support themselves and make this their job," said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a conversation with early adopters using avatars on Horizon Worlds.

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In the past, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had criticised Apple's decision to charge 30 percent fees for mobile application creators through the App Store on iOS.

Frances Haugen, the whistleblower who came to light last year for revealing internal Facebook documents indicating that the social media giant frequently chose business interests over socio-political duties, has criticised their new venture into the metaverse.

Talking to American news outlet Politico, Haugen said that unless Meta provides changes their ethical standards for the metaverse, society will see the same problems replicated. She said, "I can imagine just seeing a replay of all the problems you see on Facebook.”

Facebook has exclusively focussed on the metaverse as the future of their organisation, rebranding to Meta in late 2022. Virtual social platform Horizon Worlds and virtual events platform Horizon Venues are early products for their expansive metaverse ambitions.