Meta Platforms (FB.O), the parent company of Facebook, has begun testing tools for selling digital assets and experiences within its virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds, a major aspect of its aim to create a metaverse, the company announced on Monday.
The tools will first be offered to a select group of customers who are producing virtual classrooms, games, and fashion items on Meta’s immersive platform, which is accessible via VR headsets, according to the company.
Those selected individuals will be able to sell their accessories or give paid access to specific digital environments they have created using a single tool, according to the business.
The social media behemoth is also experimenting with a “creator bonus” scheme for a select group of Horizon Worlds users in the United States, in which it will pay members each month for using new features that the firm introduces.
“We want there to just be tons of awesome worlds, and in order for that to happen there needs to be a lot of creators who can support themselves and make this their job,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said this in a discussion with early adopters, held within Horizon Worlds using avatars.
The Facebook parent company, which last year changed its name to Meta, has made significant investments in virtual and augmented reality to reflect its new bet on the metaverse, a futuristic concept of a network of virtual environments accessed via various devices where users can work, socialize, and play.
Land, buildings, avatars, and even names can be bought and sold as non-fungible tokens, or blockchain-based virtual assets, in which the corporation competes with up-and-coming virtual world competitors. Last year, the market for these items skyrocketed, with sales fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Horizon Worlds, a large VR social network, and Horizon Venues, a virtual event platform, are early incarnations of metaverse-like environments from Meta.
