IPhone Licensing Model Discussion
by Brett Seyler · in General Discussion · 08/14/2008 (2:15 pm) · 73 replies
Hey guys,
I thought a long time about doing this, but I've decided that I want some some early feedback from those of you interested in licensing Torque for the iPhone before we set up a licensing model to roll with permanently. Building an effective, fair licensing model is a tricky thing to do. To give you some perspective, the costs for getting TGE and TGB ported are pretty considerable. We're talking about 3 full-time devs for nearly 3 months. If you do the math, it's a significant investment, but one we're proud to have nearly done at this point. We expected interest in the product would be high, but it's outpaced even our most optimistic assumptions. Many of the inquiries have been from you, our core users who take game development seriously, but aren't making millions at it yet. It's always been our mission to enable you to reach the next level, and making games for the iPhone could be a really great chance to do that at a minimal cost. In the past, getting games on a phone required huge hurdles, so "hitting the big time" usually meant making a great PC game and getting picked up to put your game on a console or two. With the iPhone, this could be much easier. There's no dev kit to buy except the iPhone or iPod Touch as a "dev kit" and of course you have to work on a Mac (unless you're really crafty...more on that later) which some people already do. Pretty nice!
So while it's important for us to be able to recoup the investment in porting TGE and TGB and to be able to continue funding improvements to the SDK, it's even more important that we don't close the door on any of you who are serious about making iPhone games with Torque. Originally we had planned to roll out a licensing model very similar to what we have for consoles (Wii and 360), but we're not absolutely glued to that. What I want to do here is open a discussion about what you all would like to see in terms of licensing Torque for iPhone development. I promise I'll take your feedback into account and in the end, we'll try to make the best decision we can for you.
As a frame of reference, here are some possible models we considered:
$15k unlimited titles, no royalty
Pros: Clean, simple, actually much less expensive than our console licensing of Torque
Cons: A bit high for many Indies
$5k / title, no royalty
Pros: Clean, simple, still a fraction of our console pricing
Cons: Still a bit high for Indies
$2-3k / title, 10% royalty
Pros: A bit more affordable for serious developers
Cons: Royalties can be a pain to track and Apple's already taking 30%
$500 / title, 30% royalty
Pros: Definitely affordable for anyone shipping games
Cons: Royalties for the same reasons as above
Obviously the latter choices would allow us to license Torque for the iPhone to more of you, so that's appealing, but we can get creative with this if we want too. Let us know what you think. Nothing's written in stone here. Again, goal #1 is be able to pay for the work and continue to fund improvements to the SDK. Goal #2 is to get this in as many people's hands as possible.
Please share your thoughts in a constructive way. The floor is now open for discussion. Thanks in advance guys.
I thought a long time about doing this, but I've decided that I want some some early feedback from those of you interested in licensing Torque for the iPhone before we set up a licensing model to roll with permanently. Building an effective, fair licensing model is a tricky thing to do. To give you some perspective, the costs for getting TGE and TGB ported are pretty considerable. We're talking about 3 full-time devs for nearly 3 months. If you do the math, it's a significant investment, but one we're proud to have nearly done at this point. We expected interest in the product would be high, but it's outpaced even our most optimistic assumptions. Many of the inquiries have been from you, our core users who take game development seriously, but aren't making millions at it yet. It's always been our mission to enable you to reach the next level, and making games for the iPhone could be a really great chance to do that at a minimal cost. In the past, getting games on a phone required huge hurdles, so "hitting the big time" usually meant making a great PC game and getting picked up to put your game on a console or two. With the iPhone, this could be much easier. There's no dev kit to buy except the iPhone or iPod Touch as a "dev kit" and of course you have to work on a Mac (unless you're really crafty...more on that later) which some people already do. Pretty nice!
So while it's important for us to be able to recoup the investment in porting TGE and TGB and to be able to continue funding improvements to the SDK, it's even more important that we don't close the door on any of you who are serious about making iPhone games with Torque. Originally we had planned to roll out a licensing model very similar to what we have for consoles (Wii and 360), but we're not absolutely glued to that. What I want to do here is open a discussion about what you all would like to see in terms of licensing Torque for iPhone development. I promise I'll take your feedback into account and in the end, we'll try to make the best decision we can for you.
As a frame of reference, here are some possible models we considered:
$15k unlimited titles, no royalty
Pros: Clean, simple, actually much less expensive than our console licensing of Torque
Cons: A bit high for many Indies
$5k / title, no royalty
Pros: Clean, simple, still a fraction of our console pricing
Cons: Still a bit high for Indies
$2-3k / title, 10% royalty
Pros: A bit more affordable for serious developers
Cons: Royalties can be a pain to track and Apple's already taking 30%
$500 / title, 30% royalty
Pros: Definitely affordable for anyone shipping games
Cons: Royalties for the same reasons as above
Obviously the latter choices would allow us to license Torque for the iPhone to more of you, so that's appealing, but we can get creative with this if we want too. Let us know what you think. Nothing's written in stone here. Again, goal #1 is be able to pay for the work and continue to fund improvements to the SDK. Goal #2 is to get this in as many people's hands as possible.
Please share your thoughts in a constructive way. The floor is now open for discussion. Thanks in advance guys.
About the author
Since 2007, I've done my best to steer Torque's development and brand toward the best opportunities in games middleware.
#22
08/16/2008 (10:31 am)
I agree that the licence should be like the other engines, $100 for the engine and maybe 10% of income over 10k or something.
#23
$100-$300
unlimited games
no royalty
upgrade to $10K (pr game) license required if sales exceed $20K (AFTER apples cut)
$15K
unlimited games
no royalty
that way if I make 20 games that only sell for 2k-3k etch I only pay 100-300 and if some of them makes it big you get 10k pr game (that gets over 20k sales), if I get 2 games that makes it big then believe me I would buy the 15k license.
This would be better for both garage games and developers, cheep to get started and if something succeeds garage games gets a fair cut.
but asking a developer to pay 5K before he even knows if the game will make any sales is ridicules.
08/16/2008 (7:00 pm)
5k is way too much to pay before even knowing if the game will be a hit or a complete failure, how about this:$100-$300
unlimited games
no royalty
upgrade to $10K (pr game) license required if sales exceed $20K (AFTER apples cut)
$15K
unlimited games
no royalty
that way if I make 20 games that only sell for 2k-3k etch I only pay 100-300 and if some of them makes it big you get 10k pr game (that gets over 20k sales), if I get 2 games that makes it big then believe me I would buy the 15k license.
This would be better for both garage games and developers, cheep to get started and if something succeeds garage games gets a fair cut.
but asking a developer to pay 5K before he even knows if the game will make any sales is ridicules.
#24
-Brett
08/18/2008 (2:47 pm)
Just wanted to say "thanks" for all the feedback thusfar. I expected there would be some resistance to the higher pricepoints, but I appreciate that you guys understand we're trying to make the best decision for GG and act in the long-term interest of Torque and the Torque community. I think we'll come to a final decision this week. If any of you are still holding back and have thoughts to share, please do so now.-Brett
#25
I follow the general feeling of being slightly shocked by the price-points discussed here. I had in mind something like $100-150 to develop (ie have access to) and $100-150 per title released. The fact that even the lowest offering seems to be $500, (with a big royalty cut) will put the engine out of the reach of many.
Quite frankly at those prices you will lose a lot (and I mean a LOT) of potential customers to Unity. Its not a debatable matter in my opinion, thats just what will happen. Not intending to offend, but it feels that with these price plans GG is definitely showing its new corporate side (IAC) and maybe going a bit off target with what GG's mission is (was...?) and that was affordable tools to indie developers. $15k is not affordable to indie developers. $500 is a big ask of solo hobby developers.
The mention of the pricing for Torque on consoles confused me somewhat. iPhone is not a similar platform to a wii or 360 in my opinion, not at all. $15 is fairly pricey on iPhone, $15 is bargin bin on a console. It seems illogical to try making a comparison between the platforms like that. Not to mention that sales on the app store will stabilise out considerably after the initial rush.
Regarding sale figures etc people have thrown around, well that says it all doesn't it? Requiring the sale of literally many thousands (of something priced in line with other apps) to break even isn't something you can really expect of one guy in his bedroom is it? One of the core things I like about the setup of the app store on iPhone is that anyone, no matter what their dev budget is (ok, $99+), can get stuff on the iPhone... why not fall into line with this (and existing GG products) and offer something that'll allow anyone to get something on the iPhone?
Some more figures, these just stating the obvious: 500 people buy Torque for iPhone at $150, you've got $75k before anyone even ships 1 title. Not only have you covered your costs but you'll be fending off Unity big time with that pricing... become the alpha dog in the area of games engines on iPhone, it'd be a good role to have!
As for the royalty stuff for the higher amount of sales, I wouldn't mind that actually. Hows about first X units (something reasonable, to take the sting out of the initial engine purchase) sold are royalty free and above that 10-20%? Remember we already lose 30% to Apple...
I'm sure I've missed some stuff here (its almost midnight, thats my excuse :D) but I think that gives the gist of my thoughts on this thread.
08/18/2008 (3:46 pm)
I've been watching this thread with quite some interest. I thought I'd throw my thoughts into the mix after Brett requested anyone else with ideas to chime in now. To put this into perspective, I intend to develop for the iPhone, I already have a little game prototyped out nicely specifically for iPhone.I follow the general feeling of being slightly shocked by the price-points discussed here. I had in mind something like $100-150 to develop (ie have access to) and $100-150 per title released. The fact that even the lowest offering seems to be $500, (with a big royalty cut) will put the engine out of the reach of many.
Quite frankly at those prices you will lose a lot (and I mean a LOT) of potential customers to Unity. Its not a debatable matter in my opinion, thats just what will happen. Not intending to offend, but it feels that with these price plans GG is definitely showing its new corporate side (IAC) and maybe going a bit off target with what GG's mission is (was...?) and that was affordable tools to indie developers. $15k is not affordable to indie developers. $500 is a big ask of solo hobby developers.
The mention of the pricing for Torque on consoles confused me somewhat. iPhone is not a similar platform to a wii or 360 in my opinion, not at all. $15 is fairly pricey on iPhone, $15 is bargin bin on a console. It seems illogical to try making a comparison between the platforms like that. Not to mention that sales on the app store will stabilise out considerably after the initial rush.
Regarding sale figures etc people have thrown around, well that says it all doesn't it? Requiring the sale of literally many thousands (of something priced in line with other apps) to break even isn't something you can really expect of one guy in his bedroom is it? One of the core things I like about the setup of the app store on iPhone is that anyone, no matter what their dev budget is (ok, $99+), can get stuff on the iPhone... why not fall into line with this (and existing GG products) and offer something that'll allow anyone to get something on the iPhone?
Some more figures, these just stating the obvious: 500 people buy Torque for iPhone at $150, you've got $75k before anyone even ships 1 title. Not only have you covered your costs but you'll be fending off Unity big time with that pricing... become the alpha dog in the area of games engines on iPhone, it'd be a good role to have!
As for the royalty stuff for the higher amount of sales, I wouldn't mind that actually. Hows about first X units (something reasonable, to take the sting out of the initial engine purchase) sold are royalty free and above that 10-20%? Remember we already lose 30% to Apple...
I'm sure I've missed some stuff here (its almost midnight, thats my excuse :D) but I think that gives the gist of my thoughts on this thread.
#26
08/18/2008 (3:55 pm)
I agree with Craig, it won't be hard for GG to make a profit once hundreds of developers are throwing out games. I still think the royalty fee sucks, but I also understand, 10% cut tops for GG I think would add up to a really shiny penny in no time. $100-150 for engine licensing seems just right. Anything over that will definitely turn away a good portion of developers ;-)
#27
08/18/2008 (4:29 pm)
I also agree with Craig, and have been following this posting. The prices you have listed above are too high for an indie. I was actually looking through books a million this week for a good book on creating a 2d game engine, because I might eventually move in the iPhone direction, and I will not be paying 60% in royalties along with an initial investment. Whether you loose indies to competing products on the iPhone, or indies simply roll their own, you will not be serving the indies with these prices.
#28
1. Craig mentioned being "shocked" by the price points I mentioned here to start. I can understand this if just comparing what I'd posted to the standard Indie pricing for Torque. I think it's easy to overlook just how inexpensive those PC publishing licenses are. TGE has basically been the same price since 2001 with nearly 7 years of updates and only one requiring any payment at all. TGB was launched in 2005 and has seen 3 years of upgrades at zero cost. It remains the only professional level 2D game engine on the market. There are very few encumbrances on these licenses. There's no Torque watermark, and you can self publish absolutely anywhere. It's well proven with dozens of shipped titles not just on PC but all consoles and now mobile platforms. Even Unity (to which we've compared a few times on this thread), which is probably still priced well below the value it delivers to game developers, won't deliver that kind of license, functionality or publishing freedom for less than $1500 + 500 for their proprietary asset server (a requirement if you have multiple people participating in a project).
I'm not saying Unity's overpriced. Just the opposite actually. I think Torque delivers even more value than Unity (though it appeals perhaps more to true programmers than to artists and hobbyists), and the cost is a fraction on the PC. Yes, the prices I posted at the top of this thread, though just a framework for discussion, were much higher than what many of you are used to, but honestly, they're *very* low compared with the value Torque delivers and certainly much lower than the competitive alternatives (Flash, Quake, Unreal, Gamebryo, Unity).
2. Craig mentions that we'll lose a lot of potential customers to Unity with the prices posted. This might be true. I don't know what Unity will deliver or when they'll deliver it and at what cost. It's entirely unknown. If Unity offers more bang for the buck, they deserve the customers that would choose them. We'll see. I'm confident that Torque for the iPhone will be the best value on the market as long as it's out there.
3. "....with these price plans GG is definitely showing its new corporate side (IAC) and maybe going a bit off target with what GG's mission is (was...?) and that was affordable tools to indie developers. $15k is not affordable to indie developers. $500 is a big ask of solo hobby developers."
I agree that at these prices, not everyone will be able to afford it. Our view has always been and continues to be that a dedicated small team or individual with talent who wants to make a game should have a real shot to succeed in games. I think we continue to to do this everyday with out very accessible PC publishing licenses. Making games for the iPhone is a new market and new opportunity we'd like to help people reach, but let's be fair, it doesn't make us "corporate" (in the pejorative sense) to reach for dreams of our own. We have to make a calculated call just like you guys do. If we license Torque too inexpensively, we may quickly find ourselves failing. It's hard not to take offense to the subtext here, which is that GG is somehow being greedy. If this company were driven by greed, we would have long ago abandoned the Indie licensing of Torque and taken the path most game companies take focusing games and/or the high-end middleware market.
One final note, I don't think $500 is a big ask of someone making games for the iPhone. Consider that they've already spent nearly $2k on the hardware and service plan, invested in a Mac, and paid Apple $100 for an annual subscription just to get to the gate. I know not everyone's goal is making money from the App Store, but there is no doubt in my mind that $500 (or $2000) spent on Torque will save that developer more than a month's development time for their title. Even at minimum wages, the SDK will pay for itself very quickly and likely enable devleopers to make a much better game much sooner than they would have starting from scratch.
4. "The mention of the pricing for Torque on consoles confused me somewhat. iPhone is not a similar platform to a wii or 360 in my opinion, not at all. $15 is fairly pricey on iPhone, $15 is bargin bin on a console. It seems illogical to try making a comparison between the platforms like that. Not to mention that sales on the app store will stabilise out considerably after the initial rush."
Two things. First, porting Torque to the iPhone is very similar to porting it to a new console. We had to write a new graphics layer optimized for the hardware (OpenGL ES) and map custom inputs. We also have to hit a moving target with the iPhone SDK just as we have to with Microsoft's XDK and the Wii SDK. This introduces extra maintenance not as often necessary on a PC / Mac. Second, you seem to be taking a pessimistic view of the App Store's potential. Consider that even still, the games available are very rudimentary and there's a very limited selection. On the Xbox 360 for example, you're competing again the best of the best at gamers who expect quality. The App Store puts you in front of a huge audience with lower expectations, lots of expendable income, and instant accessibility anywhere. Pretty hard to beat that. I'm not saying that I'm drinking all the Kool-aid or anything, but if you don't believe in the platform, I wouldn't make games for it expecting to make money.
5. "The prices you have listed above are too high for an indie. I was actually looking through books a million this week for a good book on creating a 2d game engine, because I might eventually move in the iPhone direction, and I will not be paying 60% in royalties along with an initial investment. Whether you loose indies to competing products on the iPhone, or indies simply roll their own, you will not be serving the indies with these prices."
OK. Time for a sanity check. First, there are no competing products on the iPhone at the moment. There is no middleware available for game dev, so the only option here is rollin your own. How long do you think it would take to replicate TGB or TGE functionality? These products have had hundreds of man-years of development from experienced, super-talented devs. They've been QA'd and torture tested in a variety of different game types. Let's say you really only wanted to create just one type of game in 2D. If you spent just a month on the engine (a ridiculous underestimate), you'd have spent $1600 at $10/hr and you'd have no way of knowing if you could ever really use it again. Unless you're *way* better developers than we are (in which case you'd bill your time at *way* more than $10hr), there's no chance this is even in the ballpark. For TGE, "rolling your own" is an absurd comparison. Not to be flip, but good luck.
6. "I agree with Craig, it won't be hard for GG to make a profit once hundreds of developers are throwing out games. I still think the royalty fee sucks, but I also understand, 10% cut tops for GG I think would add up to a really shiny penny in no time. $100-150 for engine licensing seems just right. Anything over that will definitely turn away a good portion of developers ;-)"
---to be continued...
08/18/2008 (9:16 pm)
@Craig, DALO and Greg: Thanks for jumping in with some more thoughts before we make a final decision here. There were a couple points I wanted to address specifically. Please understand that I don't take any of this personally and I appreciate the feedback, I just want to explain a little where we're coming from.1. Craig mentioned being "shocked" by the price points I mentioned here to start. I can understand this if just comparing what I'd posted to the standard Indie pricing for Torque. I think it's easy to overlook just how inexpensive those PC publishing licenses are. TGE has basically been the same price since 2001 with nearly 7 years of updates and only one requiring any payment at all. TGB was launched in 2005 and has seen 3 years of upgrades at zero cost. It remains the only professional level 2D game engine on the market. There are very few encumbrances on these licenses. There's no Torque watermark, and you can self publish absolutely anywhere. It's well proven with dozens of shipped titles not just on PC but all consoles and now mobile platforms. Even Unity (to which we've compared a few times on this thread), which is probably still priced well below the value it delivers to game developers, won't deliver that kind of license, functionality or publishing freedom for less than $1500 + 500 for their proprietary asset server (a requirement if you have multiple people participating in a project).
I'm not saying Unity's overpriced. Just the opposite actually. I think Torque delivers even more value than Unity (though it appeals perhaps more to true programmers than to artists and hobbyists), and the cost is a fraction on the PC. Yes, the prices I posted at the top of this thread, though just a framework for discussion, were much higher than what many of you are used to, but honestly, they're *very* low compared with the value Torque delivers and certainly much lower than the competitive alternatives (Flash, Quake, Unreal, Gamebryo, Unity).
2. Craig mentions that we'll lose a lot of potential customers to Unity with the prices posted. This might be true. I don't know what Unity will deliver or when they'll deliver it and at what cost. It's entirely unknown. If Unity offers more bang for the buck, they deserve the customers that would choose them. We'll see. I'm confident that Torque for the iPhone will be the best value on the market as long as it's out there.
3. "....with these price plans GG is definitely showing its new corporate side (IAC) and maybe going a bit off target with what GG's mission is (was...?) and that was affordable tools to indie developers. $15k is not affordable to indie developers. $500 is a big ask of solo hobby developers."
I agree that at these prices, not everyone will be able to afford it. Our view has always been and continues to be that a dedicated small team or individual with talent who wants to make a game should have a real shot to succeed in games. I think we continue to to do this everyday with out very accessible PC publishing licenses. Making games for the iPhone is a new market and new opportunity we'd like to help people reach, but let's be fair, it doesn't make us "corporate" (in the pejorative sense) to reach for dreams of our own. We have to make a calculated call just like you guys do. If we license Torque too inexpensively, we may quickly find ourselves failing. It's hard not to take offense to the subtext here, which is that GG is somehow being greedy. If this company were driven by greed, we would have long ago abandoned the Indie licensing of Torque and taken the path most game companies take focusing games and/or the high-end middleware market.
One final note, I don't think $500 is a big ask of someone making games for the iPhone. Consider that they've already spent nearly $2k on the hardware and service plan, invested in a Mac, and paid Apple $100 for an annual subscription just to get to the gate. I know not everyone's goal is making money from the App Store, but there is no doubt in my mind that $500 (or $2000) spent on Torque will save that developer more than a month's development time for their title. Even at minimum wages, the SDK will pay for itself very quickly and likely enable devleopers to make a much better game much sooner than they would have starting from scratch.
4. "The mention of the pricing for Torque on consoles confused me somewhat. iPhone is not a similar platform to a wii or 360 in my opinion, not at all. $15 is fairly pricey on iPhone, $15 is bargin bin on a console. It seems illogical to try making a comparison between the platforms like that. Not to mention that sales on the app store will stabilise out considerably after the initial rush."
Two things. First, porting Torque to the iPhone is very similar to porting it to a new console. We had to write a new graphics layer optimized for the hardware (OpenGL ES) and map custom inputs. We also have to hit a moving target with the iPhone SDK just as we have to with Microsoft's XDK and the Wii SDK. This introduces extra maintenance not as often necessary on a PC / Mac. Second, you seem to be taking a pessimistic view of the App Store's potential. Consider that even still, the games available are very rudimentary and there's a very limited selection. On the Xbox 360 for example, you're competing again the best of the best at gamers who expect quality. The App Store puts you in front of a huge audience with lower expectations, lots of expendable income, and instant accessibility anywhere. Pretty hard to beat that. I'm not saying that I'm drinking all the Kool-aid or anything, but if you don't believe in the platform, I wouldn't make games for it expecting to make money.
5. "The prices you have listed above are too high for an indie. I was actually looking through books a million this week for a good book on creating a 2d game engine, because I might eventually move in the iPhone direction, and I will not be paying 60% in royalties along with an initial investment. Whether you loose indies to competing products on the iPhone, or indies simply roll their own, you will not be serving the indies with these prices."
OK. Time for a sanity check. First, there are no competing products on the iPhone at the moment. There is no middleware available for game dev, so the only option here is rollin your own. How long do you think it would take to replicate TGB or TGE functionality? These products have had hundreds of man-years of development from experienced, super-talented devs. They've been QA'd and torture tested in a variety of different game types. Let's say you really only wanted to create just one type of game in 2D. If you spent just a month on the engine (a ridiculous underestimate), you'd have spent $1600 at $10/hr and you'd have no way of knowing if you could ever really use it again. Unless you're *way* better developers than we are (in which case you'd bill your time at *way* more than $10hr), there's no chance this is even in the ballpark. For TGE, "rolling your own" is an absurd comparison. Not to be flip, but good luck.
6. "I agree with Craig, it won't be hard for GG to make a profit once hundreds of developers are throwing out games. I still think the royalty fee sucks, but I also understand, 10% cut tops for GG I think would add up to a really shiny penny in no time. $100-150 for engine licensing seems just right. Anything over that will definitely turn away a good portion of developers ;-)"
---to be continued...
#29
I think the royalty thing sucks too :) I don't want to do it and I don't think any of you guys want to see it. With Apple taking such a fat slice for forcing you to use them to host the download and process the transaction, it makes little sense. Funny how Apple is now doing everything they complained about Microsoft doing in their "bully" years. Oh well, the hardware kicks ass and it will be fun to make some games for it.
All this feedback has been really helpful and I think we're actually really close to making a final decision on licensing. You'll likely see something from me this week about it. We won't be quite as inexpensive as many of you are asking for. $150 with no royalties and unlimited titles won't work, but I don't think we'll be at $15k or even $5k either. Our goal with this project is to allow us to earn enough money to fund new projects and continue improving current products (like this one).
In the long run, I think that's better for the entire community. We're not a non-profit and we don't work for free, but I do believe we have good goals that benefit gaming in general and small developers in particular. I'm actually really proud of our place in the industry, and to make an even bigger impact, these projects need to be successful. Everyone here works for ridiculously sub-market wages (you wouldn't believe it if we told you) because we're interested in the growth and prosperity of the Torque community. I don't know if we'd be able to make this all work without the common, shared effort of the developers here and the generous input from you guys. I don't like the idea of pricing anyone out of the ability to make their game, but I like even less the thought of GG not being able continue supporting all the Torque line because we gave away our work. I promise I'll do my best to make this work in the spirit we've always held to.
Thanks again guys. You'll hear from me later this week.
08/18/2008 (9:16 pm)
...continued---I think the royalty thing sucks too :) I don't want to do it and I don't think any of you guys want to see it. With Apple taking such a fat slice for forcing you to use them to host the download and process the transaction, it makes little sense. Funny how Apple is now doing everything they complained about Microsoft doing in their "bully" years. Oh well, the hardware kicks ass and it will be fun to make some games for it.
All this feedback has been really helpful and I think we're actually really close to making a final decision on licensing. You'll likely see something from me this week about it. We won't be quite as inexpensive as many of you are asking for. $150 with no royalties and unlimited titles won't work, but I don't think we'll be at $15k or even $5k either. Our goal with this project is to allow us to earn enough money to fund new projects and continue improving current products (like this one).
In the long run, I think that's better for the entire community. We're not a non-profit and we don't work for free, but I do believe we have good goals that benefit gaming in general and small developers in particular. I'm actually really proud of our place in the industry, and to make an even bigger impact, these projects need to be successful. Everyone here works for ridiculously sub-market wages (you wouldn't believe it if we told you) because we're interested in the growth and prosperity of the Torque community. I don't know if we'd be able to make this all work without the common, shared effort of the developers here and the generous input from you guys. I don't like the idea of pricing anyone out of the ability to make their game, but I like even less the thought of GG not being able continue supporting all the Torque line because we gave away our work. I promise I'll do my best to make this work in the spirit we've always held to.
Thanks again guys. You'll hear from me later this week.
#30
How about 4k five titles and no royalty?
$1k / title no royalties. You get a slight discount for buying into five titles from the start.
I've left out the royalty based plans because I think those are already painful given Apple's cut. I think if you guys *must* go with a royalty based plan then you should look towards building a large user base of iPhone devs bring in a small royalty cut, maybe 5-10%. To reach a large penetration point you will need to make the dev kit initially accessible to indie developers (i.e your current customer base).
Problem with my suggestion is that I don't know what your current numbers are for all products combined, or products that have a porting path to the iPhone product, so we're all kind of shooting in the dark here in that respect.
I'm pretty heavily tied to GarageGames products at the moment, so I truly want to see you guys succeed with this, and continue developing and improving the rest of your product lines. At the same time, I want access to the iPhone dev kit you guys are developing.
You could possibly still have a "lifetime membership" option around the 15k mark, this will enable those devs that are cashed up from the start to pay GG big $ to use a stable product with which they probably already have a decent amount of experience with (TGB etc). I personally don't think there's a problem with that, and I don't think you are betraying indie devs, this is simply tiered pricing. That's the nature of the game really, want more, pay more.
Anyway, I think I've said everything I can say on this. I am sure we can all come to some middle ground here.
08/18/2008 (11:32 pm)
Ok, I've pretty much read this entire thread, so now it's time for my 2 cents.Quote:
$15k unlimited titles, no royalty
Pros: Clean, simple, actually much less expensive than our console licensing of Torque
Cons: A bit high for many Indies
How about 4k five titles and no royalty?
Quote:
$5k / title, no royalty
Pros: Clean, simple, still a fraction of our console pricing
Cons: Still a bit high for Indies
$1k / title no royalties. You get a slight discount for buying into five titles from the start.
I've left out the royalty based plans because I think those are already painful given Apple's cut. I think if you guys *must* go with a royalty based plan then you should look towards building a large user base of iPhone devs bring in a small royalty cut, maybe 5-10%. To reach a large penetration point you will need to make the dev kit initially accessible to indie developers (i.e your current customer base).
Problem with my suggestion is that I don't know what your current numbers are for all products combined, or products that have a porting path to the iPhone product, so we're all kind of shooting in the dark here in that respect.
I'm pretty heavily tied to GarageGames products at the moment, so I truly want to see you guys succeed with this, and continue developing and improving the rest of your product lines. At the same time, I want access to the iPhone dev kit you guys are developing.
You could possibly still have a "lifetime membership" option around the 15k mark, this will enable those devs that are cashed up from the start to pay GG big $ to use a stable product with which they probably already have a decent amount of experience with (TGB etc). I personally don't think there's a problem with that, and I don't think you are betraying indie devs, this is simply tiered pricing. That's the nature of the game really, want more, pay more.
Anyway, I think I've said everything I can say on this. I am sure we can all come to some middle ground here.
#31
How about just giving access to the SDK for a cursory sum from the begging (no source code)? When the developer has a title that is ready to ship, they pay a large sum, or make up the difference of a single license. So if they pay $200 to get the SDK, they have to pay another $800 to release. This mitigates the risk somewhat.
08/18/2008 (11:35 pm)
Actually, one more suggestion:How about just giving access to the SDK for a cursory sum from the begging (no source code)? When the developer has a title that is ready to ship, they pay a large sum, or make up the difference of a single license. So if they pay $200 to get the SDK, they have to pay another $800 to release. This mitigates the risk somewhat.
#32
"Our view has always been and continues to be that a dedicated small team or individual with talent who wants to make a game should have a real shot to succeed in games."
It doesn't apply to every engine/product in the GG arsenal. Even I about fell off my chair when I saw the prices, but then I had time to absorb it and think about it. The problem lies in that we have all been used to the low priced engines and expected that to apply to all GG products. I think that GG is trying to put out products that will render them greater profits on top of the other affordable engines in order to let the company grow. Which like they say will benefit us all in the long run. While I still think it is still a little high priced I think they will make a good decision in the end. Unfortunately the iphone engine as tantalizing as it is benefits/targets the higher end developer.
Well whatever GG has come a long way and have done alot of work to get here and I do think they deserve it, but I know this will not be an affordable solution for most.
While I think we've "had it good" for a long time here, I also feel these engines are worth more than GG charges. GG is not all about indies anymore. They cater to indie's and higher end developers. I guess they have to keep moving up to stay in the game, so to speak.
Ah well who knows maybe im way off
My .02
08/18/2008 (11:48 pm)
I think that everyone needs to realize that the GG mission/goal/whatever you call it"Our view has always been and continues to be that a dedicated small team or individual with talent who wants to make a game should have a real shot to succeed in games."
It doesn't apply to every engine/product in the GG arsenal. Even I about fell off my chair when I saw the prices, but then I had time to absorb it and think about it. The problem lies in that we have all been used to the low priced engines and expected that to apply to all GG products. I think that GG is trying to put out products that will render them greater profits on top of the other affordable engines in order to let the company grow. Which like they say will benefit us all in the long run. While I still think it is still a little high priced I think they will make a good decision in the end. Unfortunately the iphone engine as tantalizing as it is benefits/targets the higher end developer.
Well whatever GG has come a long way and have done alot of work to get here and I do think they deserve it, but I know this will not be an affordable solution for most.
While I think we've "had it good" for a long time here, I also feel these engines are worth more than GG charges. GG is not all about indies anymore. They cater to indie's and higher end developers. I guess they have to keep moving up to stay in the game, so to speak.
Ah well who knows maybe im way off
My .02
#33
1. price of the SDK
2. price to publish a single title
3. royalties.
Now, the original post didn't mention a #1 but is taken for granted, given the cost of the previous engines. (Disclaimer: I'm a Torque newbie, so I didn't read up on what was included in the cost of the current engines. I'm primarily focusing on the iPhone version.) There has got to be a way we can eliminate one of them, especially if they're upfront costs. You really have to believe in your project and pray to God that you're not going to be sideswiped by a larger company or someone with a similar idea. There has got to be room to experiment without so much risk.
I don't want to sound like a sob story, but I'm a single-income family man with three kids and all I got going beyond my job is a passion project of mine that I think will nicely supplement my income if I can just get it off the ground.
I still like the idea of an annual subscription. It keeps everyone in line, GG developers know that money will still be rolling in from current users, retaining and building their customer base simultaneously, and the users will know that they will be receiving the cutting edge updates on game platform development.
"...And the best part? The price. As with all its products, GarageGames is committed to providing affordable technology to get you to your first iPhone game."
I'm just hoping I'll be able to hold you to your word.
08/19/2008 (5:52 am)
What I'm concerned about is GG may have been proposing a triple knockout punch to indies:1. price of the SDK
2. price to publish a single title
3. royalties.
Now, the original post didn't mention a #1 but is taken for granted, given the cost of the previous engines. (Disclaimer: I'm a Torque newbie, so I didn't read up on what was included in the cost of the current engines. I'm primarily focusing on the iPhone version.) There has got to be a way we can eliminate one of them, especially if they're upfront costs. You really have to believe in your project and pray to God that you're not going to be sideswiped by a larger company or someone with a similar idea. There has got to be room to experiment without so much risk.
I don't want to sound like a sob story, but I'm a single-income family man with three kids and all I got going beyond my job is a passion project of mine that I think will nicely supplement my income if I can just get it off the ground.
I still like the idea of an annual subscription. It keeps everyone in line, GG developers know that money will still be rolling in from current users, retaining and building their customer base simultaneously, and the users will know that they will be receiving the cutting edge updates on game platform development.
"...And the best part? The price. As with all its products, GarageGames is committed to providing affordable technology to get you to your first iPhone game."
I'm just hoping I'll be able to hold you to your word.
#34
Thanks for such an in depth reply. Sorry if you found the corporate comment offended you, it really wasn't meant to imply greed. It was meant to imply that I now see GG as more of a "normal" company, ie they are out to make a profit and grow. The prices that GG were selling their engines for was somewhat making them a charitable organisation ;) The word "Corporate" has certain negative connotations and I guess it was a bad choice to use it.
You're correct, I was shocked when seeing the price points discussed in relation to other Torque products. I don't think I was being immature in my view here i anyway, its just that after many years of buying GG products it comes as a shock when suddenly I need to check my bank balance before even flirting with a purchase.
I wouldn't mind paying for updates every 6 months, even up to 50% of the original purchase cost. I would buy them happily as I don't have an initial big purchase hit.
I'm not actually against the royalty stuff, you'd still end up with a better royalty then you would if you were in a standard dev/publisher relationship. It would also allow the initial purchase hit to be alleviated even more so... really what I think needs to be done is to reduce the entry costs to allow indies in (yea I'm big on the initial price hit issue...). If you charge more after they sell more, they don't care so much - the issue is getting their foot in the door. They don't have the money that a big dev has to start with.
Scenario:
If Torque was to be 2x the price of Unity and Unity was only "half as good" as Torque, but I could afford Unity and not Torque... which would I buy?
A pessimistic view of the app store? No, a realistic one. I believe that to think the current rate that apps are being bought off the app store to be sustainable is a rather naive (sorry...) view. It will level off and stabilise. It is just an initial surge at the moment, thats not to say I don't think it will level off to a more than comfortably high level that will allow plenty of opportunity for development and ultimately be a viable development space.
Customers time to create an engine vs buying one. A hobbyist doesn't count their spare time as $x/hour. So its not applicable to compare their time to someone developing an engine as their job and to be sold.
A quick lil' disclaimer: If any of this sounds like I'm trying to tell you how to run your business and that you should be selling stuff to me much cheaper then thats not my intention. You asked for honest feedback and I'm giving it. I have no airy-fairy ideas that you are in any way obliged to do what we developers say, its not our business to run. BUT, ultimately we are your customers and the consensus here is summed up by the use of a 4 letter word: "woah!" (I played for a while with what word to use there and make it family friendly :D)
08/19/2008 (6:01 am)
Brett,Thanks for such an in depth reply. Sorry if you found the corporate comment offended you, it really wasn't meant to imply greed. It was meant to imply that I now see GG as more of a "normal" company, ie they are out to make a profit and grow. The prices that GG were selling their engines for was somewhat making them a charitable organisation ;) The word "Corporate" has certain negative connotations and I guess it was a bad choice to use it.
You're correct, I was shocked when seeing the price points discussed in relation to other Torque products. I don't think I was being immature in my view here i anyway, its just that after many years of buying GG products it comes as a shock when suddenly I need to check my bank balance before even flirting with a purchase.
I wouldn't mind paying for updates every 6 months, even up to 50% of the original purchase cost. I would buy them happily as I don't have an initial big purchase hit.
I'm not actually against the royalty stuff, you'd still end up with a better royalty then you would if you were in a standard dev/publisher relationship. It would also allow the initial purchase hit to be alleviated even more so... really what I think needs to be done is to reduce the entry costs to allow indies in (yea I'm big on the initial price hit issue...). If you charge more after they sell more, they don't care so much - the issue is getting their foot in the door. They don't have the money that a big dev has to start with.
Scenario:
If Torque was to be 2x the price of Unity and Unity was only "half as good" as Torque, but I could afford Unity and not Torque... which would I buy?
A pessimistic view of the app store? No, a realistic one. I believe that to think the current rate that apps are being bought off the app store to be sustainable is a rather naive (sorry...) view. It will level off and stabilise. It is just an initial surge at the moment, thats not to say I don't think it will level off to a more than comfortably high level that will allow plenty of opportunity for development and ultimately be a viable development space.
Customers time to create an engine vs buying one. A hobbyist doesn't count their spare time as $x/hour. So its not applicable to compare their time to someone developing an engine as their job and to be sold.
Quote:First, there are no competing products on the iPhone at the moment.As I said earlier, become the alpha dog and scare them off. ;)
A quick lil' disclaimer: If any of this sounds like I'm trying to tell you how to run your business and that you should be selling stuff to me much cheaper then thats not my intention. You asked for honest feedback and I'm giving it. I have no airy-fairy ideas that you are in any way obliged to do what we developers say, its not our business to run. BUT, ultimately we are your customers and the consensus here is summed up by the use of a 4 letter word: "woah!" (I played for a while with what word to use there and make it family friendly :D)
#35
A subscription idea. I like it -- I've always liked it. I've always thought that TGE/TGEA/Whatever should be purchased on a subscription level, and then you get free updates for a year. Pushes more money into the coffers for them, and it also gives GG a bigger incentive to keep updating & adding features. The price for us does turn out to be higher, but it's in bite size pieces so it's something you can sneak past the wife (or husband, best friend, conscience, whatever), and then you get all the nice updates that they're able to afford now...
How about Brett - Test out the subscription idea with the IPhone product, and then spread it to all the engines!
08/19/2008 (7:01 am)
@Raphael - A subscription idea. I like it -- I've always liked it. I've always thought that TGE/TGEA/Whatever should be purchased on a subscription level, and then you get free updates for a year. Pushes more money into the coffers for them, and it also gives GG a bigger incentive to keep updating & adding features. The price for us does turn out to be higher, but it's in bite size pieces so it's something you can sneak past the wife (or husband, best friend, conscience, whatever), and then you get all the nice updates that they're able to afford now...
How about Brett - Test out the subscription idea with the IPhone product, and then spread it to all the engines!
#36
It's taken me just a little under a month by myself to do just that... so I think your are over exaggerating the difficulty of such a port. But seriously, less competition for me is a good thing at the moment so ya for high prices!
08/19/2008 (9:43 am)
"For TGE, "rolling your own" is an absurd comparison. Not to be flip, but good luck."It's taken me just a little under a month by myself to do just that... so I think your are over exaggerating the difficulty of such a port. But seriously, less competition for me is a good thing at the moment so ya for high prices!
#37
You've ported TGE to the iPhone?
08/19/2008 (1:38 pm)
Quote:It's taken me just a little under a month by myself to do just that... so I think your are over exaggerating the difficulty of such a port. But seriously, less competition for me is a good thing at the moment so ya for high prices!
You've ported TGE to the iPhone?
#38
It might be true that TGE is untouchable by a solo developer, but I recently read some material on integrating LUA into code and I can see how the possibilities open up a bit at this point. There is also the lessened depth of platform support by shooting for the iphone. The iphone is a pretty static platform to develop for.
I am simply trying to point out that the price just doesn't seem to fit.
08/19/2008 (1:38 pm)
Not everyone is looking to roll a 3d engine, and even if they were there are a lot of open source models available to work from. I could name a few here but I won't. Also, I have built partial 2d game engines and one complete casual game from scratch (a mahjong clone). It might be true that TGE is untouchable by a solo developer, but I recently read some material on integrating LUA into code and I can see how the possibilities open up a bit at this point. There is also the lessened depth of platform support by shooting for the iphone. The iphone is a pretty static platform to develop for.
I am simply trying to point out that the price just doesn't seem to fit.
#39
$500 / title, 30% royalty
Pros: Definitely affordable for anyone shipping games
Cons: Royalties for the same reasons as above
Even this doesn't hurt too much:
$2-3k / title, 10% royalty
Pros: A bit more affordable for serious developers
Cons: Royalties can be a pain to track and Apple's already taking 30%
I just dropped a request for licensing info prior to coming to this page. We have a team in place ready to begin development and a distribution model that deals with the AppStore clutter, so if someone would give me a buzz ASAP I'm ready to talk turkey, like tomorrow.
Richard Bottoms
Intelligent Messenger
350 Townsend Street Suite 407
San Francisco, CA 94107
richard@intelligentmessenger.com
http://www.intelligentmessenger.com
08/19/2008 (7:19 pm)
This model really works for me:$500 / title, 30% royalty
Pros: Definitely affordable for anyone shipping games
Cons: Royalties for the same reasons as above
Even this doesn't hurt too much:
$2-3k / title, 10% royalty
Pros: A bit more affordable for serious developers
Cons: Royalties can be a pain to track and Apple's already taking 30%
I just dropped a request for licensing info prior to coming to this page. We have a team in place ready to begin development and a distribution model that deals with the AppStore clutter, so if someone would give me a buzz ASAP I'm ready to talk turkey, like tomorrow.
Richard Bottoms
Intelligent Messenger
350 Townsend Street Suite 407
San Francisco, CA 94107
richard@intelligentmessenger.com
http://www.intelligentmessenger.com
#40
Then its really possible you will have at least 500 people in this community (which is just a 1% of the torque community I think) jumping into the iTorque bandwagon which will cover for almost all the initial expenses. Also, dont forget you will get a HUGE increase on interest in the Torque engines as it exposes a whole new platform for deployment.
Luck!
Guimo
08/19/2008 (9:28 pm)
I really think GG should stick to his initial idea of having an indie license and a commercial license. Sell an indie license for $150 and a commercial license for $15000 if you sell over $200000. Maibe an intermediate license for $5000 is you sell over $20000.Then its really possible you will have at least 500 people in this community (which is just a 1% of the torque community I think) jumping into the iTorque bandwagon which will cover for almost all the initial expenses. Also, dont forget you will get a HUGE increase on interest in the Torque engines as it exposes a whole new platform for deployment.
Luck!
Guimo
Torque Owner Dale Cannon
but Im having a hard time figuring out why GG has decided to go way off of they're normal pricing scheme and theme "affordable for the indie/hobbiest". Big $$ and royalties? Since when? I was excited to hear about the Torque for iPhone and I was going to be the first to jump on, but if this is going to be the structure then Im afraid I will have to pass. I am just a hobbiest. I do it just for the pleasure of seeing my creation on the screen.
I would gladly pay $100 or so for an indie version with unlimited titles with no royalties and even have a higher $ commercial version for profits over $20,000 or whatever. You know... what GG has done from day 1, well at least since I've been around(2003).
Just my .02