Thank you for pointing out this confusing language! We’ve had a team of lawyers review the contracts as well as I’ve read it myself but somehow this got missed. We are not asking for source code. We’ll be updating this agreement and want to make clear we are never asking or demanding source code.

-Nathan Lands

I’m kindda new to indie game development. Is it common for a distributor to ask for source code?

This is worrying. The low % as well as no guarantee of the exact %.

“Like said, I don’t know how good deal they have, but they’ve got World of Goo in their system, so it can’t be all that bad I believe.”

But since WoG isn’t being distributed just through this service, they may not be worried about the % they’ll be getting.

Jake: I’ve heard some horror stories about that deduct rating :)

Thanks for commenting, Nathan. 35% of net is certainly better than 25%, and I appreciate that you’re listening. Could I ask precisely what expenses are deducted from gross revenue to arrive at the “net” figure upon which the developer’s 25%/35% revenue share is calculated?

@Juuso: I don’t know if I’d call 75% “very, very high”. It is higher than any deal I’ve seen, but you can easily get close to it with several of the non-casual distributors. e.g. Stardock, who to their credit are unusually open about their terms, offer 70% of gross on Impulse. And they raise it to 85% if your website is the referrer!

Ref: http://www.impulsedriven.com/developers.aspx#Publishing

As I mentioned above, I wouldn’t expect 70% in an affiliate-style system like GameStreamer, simply because of the extra middleman (affiliate -> GameStreamer -> developer instead of, say, Steam -> developer). But for digital distribution deals in general? Totally doable.

There are plenty of other digital distributors with ample traffic who offer well above 50% on *gross* proceeds (units * sales price – sales tax; sales tax is a perfectly acceptable deduction). No bandwidth or advertising expenses deducted. See Steam, Impulse, D2D, etc. Against this kind of competition, GameStreamer’s value proposition to indie devs is highly questionable.

I realise their white-label model is a bit different from that of most distributors, but in essence it’s merely a very fancy affiliate system. Most game affiliate splits, as implemented by e-commerce companies such as BMT Micro, are much more equitable. Splits of 40%/50%/10% affiliate/dev/ecommerce are reasonably common in this area. The developer can also choose other splits, e.g. 30%/60%/10%, which are also fine. Importantly, the developer is in control and can choose the split which they think is fair, or even negotiate one-on-one with potential affiliates.

The obvious counter-argument is that GameStreamer’s more advanced tech and the advantages it brings (rentals and so on) make up for the lost revenue share. I don’t agree with this argument, however, because percentages inherently scale. If GS’s tech really does offer such a commercial advantage, then the resulting increase in sales will be more than enough to pay for the additional cost of developing that tech. If it doesn’t, then the entire counter-argument falls apart anyway, since it’s predicated on the assumption that there *are* worthwhile advantages. GameStreamer needs to demonstrate confidence in their own platform.

What revenue splits would I consider fair? Well, I’d start by looking at the affiliate model. At first I was thinking 30% to GS based on my digital distribution experiences, but then I remembered they’re not doing any marketing or directly driving any traffic. So maybe 20% as a compromise. If the retailers take 40% (note this is at the upper end of the scale in the affiliate world) then the developer is left with 40% of gross – better. If the developer can set their own percentage, or even negotiate per-retailer, even better.

40% of gross is still bad when you’re competing with Steam/Impulse/D2D/et al, mind you. It’s a back-catalogue, low-return-on-high-exposure kind of range. I wouldn’t put my new games on there until I’d exhausted their ability to sell on the more profitable channels, for fear of cannibalising the better revenue shares. (Please note, this is what I’d do at 40% of gross. At 25% of net, I’m not touching them with a 10 foot pole.)

Importantly, these are percentages of GROSS revenue. None of this making the developer pay for the distributor’s expenses! I don’t see them paying for my expenses!

Wake me when they implement a decent revenue share and base it on gross revenue.

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