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[tiglionabbit]

Edit: People keep saying this has indeed been discussed before, but I can't find any threads about it!  Here's the closest one I found.

Edit again: I am not talking about a steam-like application!  I'm just talking about a paid membership.

Redirect me if this has all been discussed before, but the big-ass thread on pirating got me thinking.

Netflix is an excellent solution to the movie piracy problem.  People with money wouldn't waste time, bandwidth, and disk space torrenting when they could just watch a movie online.   It's just more convenient!  Can we combat piracy the same way?

Gametap seems to be an attempt to apply Netflix's business model to videogames.  Only it's not very appealing because, compared to Netflix, their library is tiny.  But these very forums produce ton of games all the time.  What if we started releasing some of them only to paying members?  This sort of feature could be added directly to TigDB or anywhere else games are downloaded.

To start a subscription service like this takes a lot of buy-in and visibility.  I mean, you need a lot of providers participating before it's an attractive offer for consumers, and visa versa.  But I think we could do it.

Revenue sharing
Of course, the point of this is for game developers to get paid.  But how do we divide up the money fairly?  Can't just split it evenly amongst the games, as that would incentivise releasing tons of little games while bigger games would get comparatively little for their effort.  Besides, some games are more fun than others.  How about we let the paying users decide how money is split up, via voting?

Your revenue per month = (number of paying users this month * subscription fee - service maintenance) * (number of votes your game received this month / number of votes cast on all games this month)

(This equation might some tweaking though.  I mean, this seems like it would give you more sway on revenue distribution if you voted more often.  I'm not sure if this is really a problem, but if it is, you could implement something where an individual's votes gradually devalue, just a little bit, the more of them there, approaching zero value if they attempt to vote positively on every item in the catalog, since they are effectively providing zero information about what games are the best.)

I'm thinking voting should be simplified to an "I like this" button, like facebook, and it should allow you to vote on the same game again each month (kinda like newgrounds lets you vote again each day) so you can continue to send money toward the games you're still playing or still thinking about.  Since only paying users could vote, there would be no sock-puppet voters unless they were paying a second subscription, which would be awesome.

Conveniences
To further discourage piracy, it's good to give your paying users a lot of nice conveniences for working inside the system.  For example, there could be a steam-like game manager that downloads and launches games for you, keeps their files organized, or otherwise gets you from wanting to play to actually playing as fast as possible.  The service providers might even help developers out with technical issues related to getting a game running on different computers.  This is completely non-integral to the system though.

Not quite like Steam
People have been talking about a steam-like service.  But steam is like iTunes: you have to buy the games individually.  That means you have to know you want it before you've played it, unless there's a demo or something.  Though, making a good demo is a difficult task.

Personally, I prefer Rhapsody to iTunes (even though it's a little crashy), because it uses the Netflix-like subscription model.  Since it's a subscription service there's no risk involved in trying out everything we have to offer.  Users come out more cultured, more likely to try odd/risky games without a second thought.  And that's really what we want in the indie community, isn't it?

Edit: Ok, maybe there isn't enough regular content to make this work.  Sorry for harping on it so much.

[tiglionabbit]

Revisiting the formula for a moment, this might be more fair if it was done completely transparently.  Perhaps we could allow paying users to input exactly how they want their money distributed between the games they liked.  Then instead of one big pot, it would be like a lot of individual contributions.

There are a lot of ways this could be implemented.  One fun way would be to allot users X votes per month, with rollover, where each vote granted the game develeopers a portion of the voter's membership fee.  Users could toss more votes toward games they like more.  Perhaps users could change their votes within a week or so of voting, in case they changed their mind about the game, or found one they like better.

This makes it like a mandatory donation.  YOu know exactly what you're paying for, and you don't have to pay any money to games you don't like.  What do you think?

[moi]

This has been discussed to death and there is a similar thread every 6 month, so let me just say that you are talking about business and business can't be built on good intentions alone. Someone has to make a profit.

[tiglionabbit]

This has been discussed to death and there is a similar thread every 6 month, so let me just say that you are talking about business and business can't be built on good intentions alone. Someone has to make a profit.

Could you link me to some old threads about it?

It's not hard for the host to take a cut.  Why has no one done this yet?

[Falmil]

I can't say that torrenting is less convenient than Netflix. Also, I would be concerned about there being enough quality games to justify a subscription, and since most indie games don't compare to commercial games, the subscription charge would probably have to be pretty small. Also, profit does corrupt things. There would be complications in profit sharing and some people would be simply be in it for the money alone. If a user could select who to donate money to, why have the service at all? The only real reason would be to publicize the games in a central location.

On the other hand, if there was simply an application like Steam that connected to a game repository (like TIGDB) and allowed a person to view new games and install them with a just a few clicks, I would think that to be a good idea.

[tiglionabbit]

I can't say that torrenting is less convenient than Netflix. Also, I would be concerned about there being enough quality games to justify a subscription, and since most indie games don't compare to commercial games, the subscription charge would probably have to be pretty small. Also, profit does corrupt things. There would be complications in profit sharing and some people would be simply be in it for the money alone. If a user could select who to donate money to, why have the service at all? The only real reason would be to publicize the games in a central location.

It doesn't have to be a big subscription.  Likely no more than $10/mo, maybe as low as $3 at launch.  I like to think of it more like a mandatory donation.  You have to pay before you can play any premium game, but after playing you can decide which games really deserve the money.  I like to think enough quality games come out of tigsource for this to work.  Could even allow people to give the money to non-premium games in tigdb if none of the premium ones are good enough.  In this way, blocking off some games as premium would just be a way to get more users paying in general, regardless of what they're paying for.

I like indie games more than most commercial games, personally.  And I'd expect a lot of people on the players forum feel the same.

On the other hand, if there was simply an application like Steam that connected to a game repository (like TIGDB) and allowed a person to view new games and install them with a just a few clicks, I would think that to be a good idea.

There is.

[bateleur]

Why, as a developer, would I want anything to do with this service?

If my game would have been released for free before, this system would make it non-free and therefore dramatically cut down its audience. If my game would have been a commercial release, my potential revenue from it now drops dramatically because even if players love it I'll only make ~$5 per player. That and all my potential players now need IndieTap accounts.

[tiglionabbit]

Why, as a developer, would I want anything to do with this service?

If my game would have been released for free before, this system would make it non-free and therefore dramatically cut down its audience. If my game would have been a commercial release, my potential revenue from it now drops dramatically because even if players love it I'll only make ~$5 per player. That and all my potential players now need IndieTap accounts.

I was thinking it would be good if you wanted to make money off of really experimental games, that wouldn't be big sellers on their own.  Risky games.

I guess if you're content to release every game either for free or for individual sale already, then yes it doesn't really give you anything.  However, it seems to me like there is a huge gap between free and any money at all.  A lot of games fit in this gap, and that is what this service would be for.  (And at the very least, it would cut down on paypal overhead on small payments)

Also, I think people would be more likely to spend more money buying into a catalog subscription than they would buying games individually.  They would get to play a lot more for-pay games for their money, too, so everybody wins.  If you have more paying players, you can make more money even if the amount each person pays is less than what you'd sell the game for normally.

The subscription model makes payments more fair, too.  Normally, you have to buy a game before you play it.  You haven't played it when you make the purchase, so your purchase is likely influenced entirely by advertising / promotional material, not the quality of the product itself.  It's not like a snack food that you can buy repeatedly, or cease to buy: you only buy a game once.  But in this model, you still pay upfront, but then you get to play all the games and allot your payment to them according to what you actually liked.  Then the developers' revenue is based entirely on who likes your game, not who likes your promotional material.  That is, so long as you get them to play it at all .  But it's a lot easier to convince someone to play a for-pay game now that it is effectively free under a prior blanket payment, than it is to get them to pay for something they've never tried and don't know if they'll like.

<Insert general backlash against profits from sequels, etc.>

[bateleur]

And at the very least, it would cut down on paypal overhead on small payments

Now that would be useful. But how would that work? The site has to pay the developers somehow. Seems more likely to involve two lots of PayPal fees!

[BlueSweatshirt]

I think a system that acted like a portal would be much better, honestly.

You have people pay, say, $3/mo.-$5/mo. for your service. They can try any game they want.(the amount of 'try' they get is dependent on what the developer wants-- meaning games would probably have to be tailored to this service.)

If they like it, they can buy it for a discounted price.

The money from the users for subscription goes into paying for the server, etc, and easing the discount the developers take as a hit on the money they get.


A business model like this could work out quite easily, I believe. But the problem is content. There's not enough commercial indie games yet, I don't think.

Just thinking here, there's also the possibility of an "arcade" service. Akin to playing at an arcade, you pay-per-play. Of course, it would be tailored to arcade style games. I think it would fit in quite well with this service, as you could get some free tokens for your subscription monthly, and be able to buy more if you wanted.

[tiglionabbit]

I think a system that acted like a portal would be much better, honestly.

You have people pay, say, $3/mo.-$5/mo. for your service. They can try any game they want.(the amount of 'try' they get is dependent on what the developer wants-- meaning games would probably have to be tailored to this service.)

If they like it, they can buy it for a discounted price.

This seems needlessly complicated to me.  I prefer the simplicity of a single subscription, like an internet subscription.  Unlimited access subscriptions encourage people to try new things.  If you put micro-payments all over, people will have to make value judgements about everything they pay for, instead of just trying it.  What if instead of using the whole internet, you had to buy tokens for bandwidth, or buy access to websites individually?  Now try thinking about games the same way.

A business model like this could work out quite easily, I believe. But the problem is content. There's not enough commercial indie games yet, I don't think.

Then make the price match the product.  There has to be a right price for this.  When more developers start using it, the price can go up.  Even if the price is a little high at first, people could justify it by saying "I'm supporting the indie community".

[Falmil]

I don't know about you, but I don't think I would ever pay a subscription to play an offline game. A lot of people do actually have metered bandwidth and while paying for individual websites would be bad for the individual, it would actually provide a working business model for the Internet. Of course, since almost everything is already free, there's probably no going back now.

I still don't know that there are enough quality games being made to justify such a service. I think the popularity of a portal/game manager might shed light onto whether its viable or not. But if such portal/game manager existed, it would be difficult to make people start paying for what was once free.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

This has been discussed to death and there is a similar thread every 6 month, so let me just say that you are talking about business and business can't be built on good intentions alone. Someone has to make a profit.

Could you link me to some old threads about it?

It's not hard for the host to take a cut.  Why has no one done this yet?

perhaps if you've read those previous topics you'd realize why nobody has done this yet -- or rather, why it hasn't succeeded yet (people have attempted it and failed, it's just too time-consuming).

search for the 'tigbox' thread, for instance.

[tiglionabbit]

perhaps if you've read those previous topics you'd realize why nobody has done this yet -- or rather, why it hasn't succeeded yet (people have attempted it and failed, it's just too time-consuming).

search for the 'tigbox' thread, for instance.

I found:
TigBox
TigPlayer

But, isn't this just a piece of software?  When I said it would be cool to have something like gametap, I didn't mean the software.  I meant the business model.  You could do this without distributing any software, just by adding features to the tigdb site to gate premium content.

Though it occurs to me that I am pushing this in completely the wrong way.  If I want this to happen, I should talk to developers and see who would get onboard with selling games through a membership.  I guess I just assumed some business people would be excited enough to help with that part.  Sorry.

[alspal]

TigDB doesn't have enough doujin games though.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there's also the matter that gametap itself accepts indie games. the path and several other indie games are on there.

[Falmil]

But, isn't this just a piece of software?  When I said it would be cool to have something like gametap, I didn't mean the software.  I meant the business model.  You could do this without distributing any software, just by adding features to the tigdb site to gate premium content.

What premium content? You keep talking about premium content and such but I have no idea what you're talking about. It's not like there are dozens of Braids and Aquarias and World of Goos just sitting in TIGDB. Why would people pay a subscription to play games by amateurs? Even if the games are good or great, many of them are made by non-professionals in their spare time. Developers and game makers using this service would be cutting their potential audiences, which is more or less the reason they're making games. Also, you realize that games in TIGDB are downloadable and playable elsewhere? If not even the software has gotten off the ground, I'm not sure how you think a paid service is going to.

Though it occurs to me that I am pushing this in completely the wrong way.  If I want this to happen, I should talk to developers and see who would get onboard with selling games through a membership.  I guess I just assumed some business people would be excited enough to help with that part.  Sorry.

What? You think we're trying to hold you back or steal your idea or something? Netflix rents commercial big budget movies, GameTap does nearly the same with games, but I don't get how you think indie games have the potential to be profitable enough and overcome all the other issues. If you can do it, hats off to you, but it just doesn't seem feasible. Not everyone is excited to work on a project that will most likely be a waste of their time.

[jcsymmes]

I think this idea in some world working pretty well.

If for example i could pay 10 dollars a month to play all the indie games on XBLA i think that would be a great service-particulary if you could play them on PC. One of the bueaty of XBN(and the iphone for that matter) is how they ease the transactional purchase of content-STEAM which makes you use your credit card is still releativly cumbersome. If you could make it even easier in that you don't need to actually pay anything and do it upfront would be even better and funner.

( The Disney company once did a survey and they found that one of the principals reasons people weren't having fun was "They had to spend money(or ride tickets. This may sound stupid but theres truth to it)

The problem becomes in terms of whats on there-The content would presumibly have to be such that it would be better then the free flash stuff theres tons of and less then the buy individual games you often find. I think to work you would have to pay your devolopers-and the fees might be pennies on the dollar.

However if say you happened to have your XBN or IPhone game lying around that might be a good fit. You see A lot of stuff like Virtual consule or GOG despite making proffits i understand in the "buy a realitivly nice used car" size. However a used car, is a used car.
 
If you could port your XBLA Indie Game here with minimal work that might be something.However microsoft might have something to say unless you reprogram it-which might be more trouble then its worth from a proffit standpoint.

This and probabbly numerious other problems i think kind of limit the idea in my mind-i think it could exist, and theres a chance that it could even proffitably exist(the idea is in someways an intresting variation on an MMO).

However i am not sure it will exist.
 

[moi]

If you want to take people's monthly subscription, that's a lot of work just for administrative matter, keeping account books, maintaining website, monitoring users, etc...
Also: once it's done , it's very likely that nobody will hear about it/care about it. Unless you make a lot of marketing , but even like that, it will be lost in the huge ocean of videogames available right now.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah -- if it's a serious business proposal, you'd need serious startup money and people with experience. otherwise it'll go the way of manifesto games (manifesto games was a portal exclusively for non-casual indie games, but nobody heard of it, even though it got some press when it started up and was started up by a moderately famous/experienced person and had some funding). doing stuff like this is pretty hard.

i think we'd have more success just petitioning the actual gametap to include more indie games than it does right now.