Comments on: 25% Is a Rip-Off?

By: Leroy Frederick

Leroy Frederick — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 09:26:40 +0000

Yeah, 25% is waaaay too low at the moment.

The only way I would be interested in this is if I can have my game distributed through the system in a fashion that I can have links and methods to get customers to my website / mailing list etc, therefore taking low short-term revenue but getting higher value from potential future / lifetime customers.

Other then that at best it’s a short term-only potential revenue increase avenue but not one to build a business upon.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 06:45:31 +0000

(Casual portals are 25-30%, core portals give much less, as I know.)

You mean much *more*, surely? (See my comment on Juuso’s previous blog post.)

By: mrkwang

mrkwang — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 04:23:27 +0000

25% for the game maker / publisher, right?

If portal does affiliate & must pay them some money, affiliate might get 25-30%. So they could pay 25 – 30% to the game maker. (Casual portals are 25-30%, core portals give much less, as I know.)

25 (game maker) : 50 (portal) : 25 (affiliate)
or
25 (game maker) : 5 (traffic fee) : 40 (portal) : 25 (affiliate) : 5% (2nd. affiliate)

But if portal doesn’t do any affiliate, don’t have to pay some share to others, just final sales are all made by that portal…

25 (game maker) : 75 (portal)
or
25 (game maker) : 5 (traffic fee) : 70 (portal)

That’s insane, as I think.

By: Jake Birkett

Jake Birkett — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:17:54 +0000

Of course appstore gives 70% so is the leader. Someone once tried to make a develop run portal that gave 100% but it failed. Why? Lack of money spent on marketing I guess, which is what the portals do…

By: Jake Birkett

Jake Birkett — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:17:01 +0000

The worst portal deal I got was 25% which is a shame as the portal actually shifted TONS of copies. The best deal was 40% from a couple of portals. Others ranged in-between. Anyway, it’s all about volume. 40% of 10 sales is nothing, but of 50,000 (even if they are at $6.95), then yeah, it’s pretty good.

By: Sargon

Sargon — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:56:18 +0000

If 25-35% is what gamestreamer can offer in respect to how much they need to survive as a business, I can understand that.
But if other big(ger) portals offer something like 50-70%, then either gamestreamer is in the wrong business, or either they are too greedy.
But all this is just talks.
If gamestreamer can show data that they outperform portals like steam and others, relative to the deal they offer, then there is something to consider.

By: James

James — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:08:05 +0000

Scale can be important but in the context of Gamestreamer it isn’t relevant. Gamestreamer hasn’t launched so any projections are pure speculation (and probably inflated due to marketing hype). A service starting out will take years to build any type of traction so I agree that they should be offering more competitive rates until their service is proven. Until then, I’d give them a miss and wait and see.

By: Paul Eres

Paul Eres — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:45:08 +0000

the worst deal i’ve ever had proposed to me was by merscom, who offered me 15%, after someone else takes 45% from both me and merscom. meaning i’d get roughly eight cents to the dollar. what do these publishers take developers for? do they really think anyone would do that?

By: tycoon games

tycoon games — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:35:38 +0000

The most important thing is getting repeated customers and everyone knows that. Also, my theory is that there’s a finite number of customer or product XYZ. So you you “burn” all your potential customers quickly getting 25% only you will, in the end, earn much less for that product lifetime.
(or in other words, you COULD make 50k in 2 months and stop, or you COULD make 250k in 3 years, retaining customers that would help you sell future games as well).

By: Koen Witters

Koen Witters — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:19:26 +0000

I was surprised to see myself quoted here ;) Thank god I deleted the last sentence of that post before submitting (it involved words such as “pants” and “bending” :D).

In the past I was never very good at negotiations, but I read a lot on the subject and since then practiced a lot. I think it’s one of the most important skills anyone can have, you need it everywhere. Here are the things I know, and the things that will get you into the right mindset when doing deals:
* There is no such thing as a standard contract or deal
* You should make a win-win deal, so both parties have the same amount of gain. Win-win or no deal.
* They probably need you more than you need them. If you think you need them more, you’re already losing.
* You don’t get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.

For this situation:
* If scale is that important for getting enough revenue, make sure you get an advance royalties payment as guarantee.
* One of the basic negotiation tactics is to let the other party think you’re offering a ‘standard contract’. GameStreamer seems to apply this perfectly with their subscription agreement text (offering 25%).
* Unfortunately game developers are very bad in negotiations and making deals, which ruins it for the rest of us :(.

If GameStreamer just puts your game into their online shop, and you get 25% of 5000 sold copies, you might get $$$ out of that which seems like a lot. But it’s not you that’s making the great deal. That deal is in their advantage.

In the other post they already stated to increase the revenue share to 35%, so remember, they are offering a percentage as low as they can get away with… who wouldn’t?