Meta has begun testing tools to sell digital assets and experiences within its Horizon Worlds platform.
Meta’s Horizon Worlds is an expansive virtual reality social media platform, while its Horizon Venues platform is focused on virtual events. Both are early iterations of metaverse-like spaces, the company said. The new tools to test the sale of digital assets will be available to Horizon Worlds users who are creating virtual classes, games, and fashion accessories within the company’s immersive virtual reality environment, which is accessible via VR headsets.
Using the tools, select users will be able to sell their accessories or offer paid access to the specialised digital spaces they have built. The social media giant is also testing out a “creator bonus” programme for a small set of Horizon Worlds users in the US, through which it will pay participants each month to use new features that the company launches.
The Facebook parent firm, which changed its name to Meta last year, has invested heavily in virtual and augmented reality to reflect its new bet on the metaverse, which is a futuristic idea of a network of virtual environments accessed via different devices where users can work, socialise, and play.
The company is competing with up-and-coming virtual world players where land, buildings, avatars, and even names can be bought and sold as non-fungible tokens, or blockchain-based virtual assets. The market for these assets exploded last year, with sales sometimes fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars.
