Mark Zuckerberg has announced that people will be able to sell virtual products and property in the metaverse just like in real life—as long as he gets a cut.
On Monday, the Meta CEO announced that creators would be able to sell "virtual items and effects" within Horizon Worlds, the company's main metaverse app.
These include virtual fashion accessories for player characters, access keys to 'paid' areas of a metaverse world, or even in-game property.
However, there's a catch. Sellers will only get around half of what they make, as Meta will take a 25 percent cut on top of a 30% transaction fee on its own Oculus Quest store.
A spokesperson for Meta told the NY Post that the figure was accurate, but that Horizon Worlds will eventually become available on the hardware of other companies, who could set their own transaction fee.
Vivek Sharma, Meta's Vice President of Horizon, said that the the charge is "a pretty competitive rate in the market".
He told The Verge: "We believe in the other platforms being able to have their share."
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"You all need to be able to support yourselves and make a good living building these awesome experiences that people have. We're still pretty early in the journey but all the stuff [you're] building is awesome," said Zuckerberg told Horizon creators in a video released on Monday.
In the past, Zuckerberg has repeatedly criticised the likes of Apple and Google for charging app store fees of up to 30%, despite now going on to charge almost 50% in fees on Horizon.
Using technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality, the metaverse will allow people to be 'physically' present in a virtual world.
Metaverse 'real estate' companies are spending millions of pounds each year snapping up land and property in the virtual reality world in the hope of turning a profit.
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