Revenue share worth?

[AllanRW]

I've just finished my game and sent some e-mails to publishers seeking for non-exclusive license model, the ones that reply until now are only offering revenue sharing models, any of you guys do this business model? How it works? It worth?

[dev]

Mostly doesn't work. For example, Toon Goggles just posted it has 350k plays per month on average. If you monetize it with ads at an ad per play and an eCPM of say $1.50, that's roughly $500. Usually revenue is split 50/50, so if Toon Goggles has 100 games on file, that's $2.50 per game per month of revenue. (we've had reports from developers they make < $0.50 per month).

 

Now, Toon Goggles is just an example and there are platforms out there that reach many more players. BoosterMedia for example has millions of monthly active users, each playing the game multiple times each month. Spil Games probably boasts 200 MAU (although it probably counts its massive flash network and does not count unique users because that would mean its games are played by 1/15 internet users!). These two companies, both from the Netherlands by the way, generate solid revenue and that's why the latter is commonly seen licensing HTML5 games around $500 non-exclusive and upwards of $3.000 for exclusives.

 

Generally if a publisher is not willing to pay you $400-500 for a license, it's because they won't make more than double that from ads and don't want to invest and potentially lose to build portfolio size. That means the revenue share will very likely pay very little. There are a few exceptions like BM who generally don't do lumpsum amounts even though they have good money from ads. 

 

Should you still do it? That depends on your opportunity cost, really. If you value your free time, or have loads of client-work that will definitely pay, I wouldn't bother with 9/10 revenue sharing deals that generate $50 a month. Packaging and branding the games for these platforms is just not worth the hassle. But if you don't have any client work, nothing else to do, then why not! It usually doesn't hurt if you've already sold some non-exclusives, very few platforms ask you how much exposure your game has gotten before deciding to license it. If you can negotiate your own brand/linkback, it might drive a bit of traffic back to your site, too.

 

Me personally, it's really simple. From some publishers I know they can deliver massive traffic, e.g. BM. I'll do an adshare with them anyday (unless their API gets extremely complex). From others I have no clue and I'll ask for some rough figures of traffic for their platform and for your average game. Then I look at the implementation. If there's a bit of traffic and upwards potential and I just have to add a single brand, I'll do it and upload it. If I have to integrate some complex API for every single of my game and spend days on integrating my portfolio for $50 a month, I'll skip it.

[AllanRW]

Thanks for the reply, very good advise.

 

It would be a problem if I sell a non-exclusive license to a publisher and then accept a 50/50 revenue share from another publisher that distribute the game to the first publisher portals too?

[Funkyy]

Some publishers will prohibit you from putting your games on free portals. Not sure if its worth the risk as they can assume 50/50 works like putting on free portals.