Meta Announces Plans to Monetize the Metaverse, and Creators are Not Happy
upstart writes:
Meta announces plans to monetize the Metaverse, and creators are not happy:
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, announced some initial plans on Wednesday to allow content creators to monetize in its would-be Metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds. Meta's planned revenue share for contributors' creations could add up to nearly 50 percent.
[...] First off, Horizon Worlds will support in-world purchases. A handful of creators will be able to sell virtual items from within user-generated areas. Meta also plans to introduce a creator bonus program that awards money to creators based on how much other users engage with their content.
[...] When users purchase an item in Horizon Worlds, Meta confirmed to CNBC that it would take a 25 percent cut-but that's after any amount a hardware platform might take. Right now that just means Meta's Oculus store, which takes a 30 percent cut. So content creators will have to hand over 30 percent to the Oculus store (or the applicable percentage for whatever platform stores Horizon Worlds ends up on later, like Google Play), then they'll have to cede 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 drawn ire from creators in the loosely related NFT community, who are accustomed to single-digit percentage platform takes. There are also accusations of hypocrisy from game developers and others who have seen Meta publicly criticize companies like Apple for charging 30 percent on similar transactions around in-game content.
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