“The announcement lays bare Meta’s hypocrisy.Apple took a shot at Meta in a statement to MarketWatch, accusing the company of using small businesses and creators as a scapegoat. Meta’s insistence on characterizing Horizon Worlds as the foundation of its metaverse ambitions, instead of just a game platform, has given fuel to its rivals.But its similar take rate would suggest it doesn’t have a whole lot to offer just yet, especially considering the app is right now restricted to the Oculus Quest platform. Meta is hoping it can pull creators away from platforms like Roblox and Rec Room to build for Horizon Worlds with the promise of revenue sharing.There’s got to be good ways for people to make money.” “In order for that to happen, there need to be a lot of creators who can support themselves and make this their job and make a living doing this. “We want there to just be a ton of awesome worlds,” Zuckerberg said in a recorded interview on Horizon Worlds last week.That means the competition is stiff for Horizon Worlds. Video game developers, on the other hand, don’t get very far if their games aren’t fun or the method by which they make money falls flat. The platform Meta is trying to build is going to require users before it can bank on creators creating virtual goods those users want to buy. Changing the rate after the fact, or keeping it inconsistent across platforms, may not be as desirable as keeping it high out of the gate. Preparing to give 30% to Apple and Google might be why Horizon Worlds has such a high take rate to begin with.But Meta doesn’t yet publish Horizon Worlds on mobile, though it’s planning to this year. By those standards, Meta’s 47.5% take seems reasonable, especially if it were paying out 15% to 30% to Apple and Google.This is why Roblox takes a little under half of all in-app purchases to help finance “platform hosting and support,” “platform investment” and what Roblox characterizes as “ongoing services and operating costs.” After paying out on average 24% to Apple, Google, Xbox and credit card companies, Roblox leaves around 28% to give to creators.Many games do not, and even prohibit selling of in-game cosmetics or monetizing virtual creations. Because so many game companies have to fork over roughly 30% of all purchases to companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Valve, they tend to not leave a lot left over for creators, if they support creators at all.Even games that rely on user-generated content, like Roblox, tend to keep a lot for themselves, largely because video game companies operate closed platforms mostly within the confines of closed ecosystems operated by giant tech and entertainment companies. Video games monetize extraordinarily well. We’re not really sure yet what Horizon Worlds is, but it’s now becoming more obvious why Meta wants to compete directly with Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft and others. But if Horizon Worlds is in fact a metaverse platform, an NFT store or a software marketplace, that steep commission becomes harder to excuse. ![]() ![]() If Horizon Worlds were a video game, like Roblox, that would fall within the industry standard. ![]() Meta last week revealed how it plans to monetize Horizon Worlds, with an aggressive 47.5% take rate of all in-app purchases. The closest thing Meta has is Horizon Worlds, a VR-only social space and game-making platform that’s equal parts Rec Room, Roblox and VRChat. Facebook remade itself into a metaverse-first company, but Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking giant lags far behind the game industry when it comes to building virtual worlds that are both popular and lucrative.
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