Virtual worlds like Rec Room and Roblox thrive off of their creator economies, it’s a vital tool used to attract more people to the platforms. This week Meta has announced its plan to include similar features in Horizon Worlds, revealing early testing of monetization tools for creators.
Creating a viable economy is essential for any metaverse, encouraging people to build new content that’ll lead to more players who’ll stay longer and spend more money. To facilitate this, Meta has begun testing two new features with access given to a handful of creators in the US and Canada – the only territories with official access to Horizon Worlds.
The first is a selling tool that’ll allow builders to “sell virtual items and effects” within their own worlds. These could be anything from fashion accessories to unlocking access to a premium part of that particular world. All creators need to do whilst in Create Mode is to head to the commerce tab to create said items. The announcement is fairly vague about how interoperable these bought items will be, and whether you could take a newly purchased hat, for example, and wear it across the entire Horizon Worlds platform.
Secondly, there’s the Horizon Worlds Creator Bonus program. Purely for US creators, the program will encourage creators to hit certain goals that’ll award monetary bonuses at the end of each month. This could be through the adoption of new tools or features, for example, providing another way to earn money. Meta notes: “Creator bonuses are not subject to fees and will be paid to creators in full.”
These new programs are in addition to Meta’s previously announced $10 million Horizon Creators Fund which helps provide resources through creator competitions and an accelerator programme. For developers, there’s always Oculus Start and Oculus Launch Pad both seeing new Builder Tracks added last month.
Additionally, Meta also has several improvements to its current Horizon Tools lineup. A new template for its Arena Clash game has been introduced and there’s a new analytics dashboard so creators can learn more about how users interact with their worlds.
As Meta continues to enhance its Horizon Worlds metaverse, gmw3 will keep you updated.