Apple and Second Life slam Meta over fees for metaverse creators

pcgamer.com:

One of the promises of «the metaverse» is that anyone will be able to create 3D items, worlds, and games and sell them to other metaverse inhabitants for real money. That plan often includes big, specious ideas about decentralized blockchain marketplaces, but right now we're talking about roughly the same thing as selling a Dota 2 skin on the Steam Workshop. Someone submits a Dota 2 cosmetic, Valve approves it, and then they split the revenue.

A big question answered this week is what that split is going to look like for Horizon Worlds, the social VR app from Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook), and it's not the most inspiring number the platform's future builders could hope for.

After fees charged by the Meta Quest Store and Horizon Worlds itself, creators will receive 47.5% of the pre-tax revenue from sales of virtual items and experiences. That's according to Business Insider, who confirmed the math with Meta after the company announced it had begun testing monetization in Horizon Worlds on Monday.

«If a creator sells an item for $1.00, then the Meta Quest Store fee would be $0.30 and the Horizon Platform fee would be $0.17 (25% of the remainder), leaving $0.53 for the Creator before any applicable taxes,» a Meta spokesperson told the publication.

The Meta Quest Store fee refers to a fee for sales made through Meta's VR game and app marketplace, which used to be called the Oculus Store. (Meta has started to phase out the original name of the VR company it bought eight years ago in favor of its metaverse-themed rebrand.) The second fee, which is 25% of whatever's left after the platform fee, is charged by Horizon Worlds itself. 

Meta told Business Insider that while the Horizon Worlds fee will be paid by