Parent company Facebook charges outrageously high fees for selling virtual goods in the metaverse

Metaverse is expected to become an estimated $800 billion market by 2024, and that’s what finally brought Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta into the game. Because the social media company is finding salvation in a new trend known as Web3, which promises to create many new revenue opportunities with digital content.

Not only has Meta launched “Horizon Worlds” as a virtual world, but it also has a matching VR headset on the market with a “Meta Quest” headset (formerly known as the Oculus brand) where you can immerse yourself in the world. virtual world. To bring this 3D world to life as well, developers can create virtual goods for it and sell them in “Horizon Worlds”.

In a latest blog post, Meta said it is testing virtual sales inside its Horizon Worlds metaverse platform. The company says creators will be able to sell things like fashion accessories for users’ digital avatars, and exclusive access to portions of their custom virtual worlds. surname.

Meta says it is testing tools to allow creators to sell virtual products on Horizon, the company’s metaverse platform. Meta will charge creators up to 47.5% to sell virtual goods in their metaverse platform – significantly more than what Apple charges developers on its App Store.

That includes a “hardware platform fee” that accounts for 30% of sales made on Meta Quest, their virtual reality system, formerly known as Oculus. The Horizon Worlds metaverse platform alone will charge 17.5%. This means that Meta will charge 47.5%, leaving the seller with only 52.5%.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed to Insider that the math is correct.

They continued: “Over time, we plan to bring Horizon World to more platforms, and as a result, platform fees will not always be the same. As Horizon Worlds rolls out to more platforms,” ​​they continued. For more platforms like mobile, we expect those platforms to be billed separately. school. We believe other platforms can get their share.”

This goes completely against what Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have previously criticized Apple for charging developers 30% when paying for App Store purchases. Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post last November that Meta is making changes to help metaverse creators avoid the harsh fees found on Apple’s App Store.

He said: “When we built for the metaverse, we focused on opening up opportunities for creators to monetize their work. The 30% fee Apple levies on transactions makes that possible. It’s harder to do, so we’re updating our product subscriptions so creators can earn more.”

While Meta considers these fees very “competitive”, the rest of the crypto industry mocks indeed. These hefty fees will really pull developers who just want to stay with The Sandbox or Decentraland platforms, while platforms like OpenSea, cost between 2.5% and 7.5% of total transactions. Translate.

The online NFT community also reacted with mixed emotions to this news, with some believing that Meta has priced itself out of the market and away from the creative economy. Others have expressed anger at the platform for its lack of understanding with the income generated by its creators, calling Meta an “enemy of decentralization”.

In October of last year, Meta announced a rebranding from Facebook to shift its focus from social media to so-called “metaverse” technologies – a futuristic vision of the internet accessed through technology. immersive technology like VR. Metaverse is a virtual world that focuses on allowing people to connect socially by providing them with spaces that look like the real world and virtual digital avatars known as avatars. They can be accessed using virtual reality headsets or computer monitors, and while in that world, users can interact, shop, go to virtual movies and concerts, and play games.

The company says that only a “few” of creators will be testing virtual selling at this time. A spokesperson for Meta declined to give exact numbers when asked by Insider.