Highlights –

  • The Horizon platform fee will be 25%, the lowest amongst the other similar world-building platforms.
  • Horizon Worlds is Meta’s social virtual reality app, where users interaction is possible with an active Facebook account only.

Horizon is Meta’s brand representing a suite of Metaverse social VR apps, including – Horizon Worlds, Horizon Workrooms, Horizon Venues, and now the soon-to-launch Horizon Home. Each uses the Meta Avatar of the users and each requires an active Facebook account for access.

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth (Boz) confirmed in a Tweet that the company is planning to bring its Horizon Worlds social Metaverse platform to the web. The availability on the web will mark a major expansion for the platform that is currently available only on its Quest VR headsets.

Besides the web version, Meta is also working to bring Horizon to mobile phones later this year, said Meta VP of Horizon Vivek Sharma. Further, the plan to integrate the platform with game consoles is in the “early phase of discussion.”

However, Meta spokesperson Iska Saric clarified that it’s still unclear when Horizon might expand to the web as there were “no timing details to share at this time.”

Boz’s remark was included in a Twitter thread where he defended Meta’s 47% take of virtual item sales on the platform. Worlds works similarly to Rec Room (a virtual reality, online video game), enabling users to create their own social games and experiences inside VR through controllers to place and manipulate shapes, using a visual scripting system to add dynamic functionality.

That 47% take is a mix of 30% Quest platform commerce fee and the Horizon fee, which is 25% of the remainder. Bosworth referenced “When Horizon’s web version launches” to point out that in an open protocol with no inherent commerce fee on the web, only the 25% Horizon fee would apply.

In February, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had told investors that his company plans to launch “a version of Horizon on mobile” this year. It is still unclear how exactly Horizon Worlds, an app designed specifically for VR, would work on these radically two different platforms. This is possibly why the executives used the phrase “a version.”

Smartphone and web users will probably be the spectators who cannot create worlds or participate in all activities, making these versions serve as marketing for the full VR experience.