Can't find any info on how to submit content packs

#21 Hey everyone. Great thread! We are indeed talking about a lot of these topics.

We are rebuilding our accounting system to be fully automated. Royalties and rev shares were hand built in the past and that's something we must get away from. We can't afford to hire three accounting folks. Right now it's our goal to close the month with a few button presses.

All in all, this really is just a resource question. Over the past year I had 1 person spending less than 10% of their time on the store. The store didn't pay for a lot more. The $99 price will change that.

First though, we need to get our core dev team back up and hitting on all cylinders. Until we do, we are trying to limit things outside of that scope so that we can keep quality high. In other words, our goal is to do it right or not do it at all.

#22 Now... actually have a more *modern* and easier to use store would be great. Talking with other vendors after the fact it was apparent that the system used by old GG/TP was very restrictive in regards to product quality and tedious procedures for overseas parties.

#23 @Michael:

Your experience is not the one described in the publishing bits. All I saw was quarterly and it did not pass my filter. Perhaps I did not explore it more because of that, however your experience lends weight to having access to funds in shorter time frames. One sale in a month might not be important but having e.g. 1000 sales sitting there paid for and waiting might itch a bit ;p

And some people just can't afford to float a company for 3 months if they have all their eggs in one basket.

#24 @Neo

<speculating>
May be a difference between what the contract said and what the staffer was told/permitted to do in practice. I don't see a lot of customers complaining when service exceeds contracted minimums... :-)
</speculating>

#25 @Erik: Can I say again, if it hasn't been said already, how fantastic it feels to have a former customer now with a big hand in how things are moving forward? Not that the GGers were shortsighted w/r/t customers, though I do kind of ... ponder ... about IAC (as an outsider, anyhow ... but as an outsider I hesitate to accuse damningly). Hope you never lose that customer's perspective, every confidence it'll help make it a better company in the long run.

@Eric: Priorities appreciated! Sounds like there are a lot of productive conversations going on... Any chance the next blog might reveal some of the most productive conversations to those on the outside?

#26 I feel exactly like random9q...

@ Erik & Eric: really wanna say thanks, I appreciate this kind of direct comunication with the community... this is something we were really missing :-D

#27 @Erik & Eric, Thank you for the replies, I thought this was an important but relatively overlooked aspect of the site & the community. Improving the way the store is handled, such as removing the bureaucratic red tape from submissions will in the long run help GG rather than hinder. It will be a morale booster for the community, for those who create content and those who want to buy content. Those who create content will feel like their works are appreciated and those who buy won't feel burdened to somehow create content they don't have time or the know-how to make. From a business aspect it is a win-win situation as well. You'll be selling products that support your main product without diverting any development time to make it happen, and generate revenue for GG in the process.

Just a thought though, I think there should be a category "Code packs" for products like "AFX for T3D", "Guide Bot", "Game Mechanics Kit", etc. as they are not actually tools like "Torsion", "L3DT", "DSQ Tweaker".

#28 @ GarageGames

Another thing to consider that hasn't been brought up yet is the differences between the GarageGames Add-Ons Store revenue split and that of other similar web publishers. For instance the iOS App Store has a 70/30 revenue split and I've heard that Steam does as well. Also, so does the Android Market.

Perhaps more importantly, the Unity Asset Store also has the "standard" 70/30 revenue split. I think that this kind of information should be relevant to the changes you're thinking of making to the Add-Ons Store. These things should be considered because they may help to attract more and better add-on developers, which will in turn create greater value for the Torque engines themselves. This, combined with the new $99 price point could also impact the number of unit sales due to the fact that some of the add-on developers may be able to charge less if there was a different revenue split (honestly, this had a lot to do with how I determined the price for my kit; and I suspect this is true of others). And of course giving more GarageGames customers the ability to purchase add-ons will also increase the value of the game engines, as these types of add-ons can be an important asset.

While we're discussing how the Add-Ons Store will be handled, there are a few other things that I'd like to see. Such as real time sales stats for the add-on developers and more importantly, I would like to see a system implemented where I can directly push my own product's updates without having to bother someone on the GarageGames team about it. I think such a system would save us all a lot of time.

#29 Wow Unity Asset Store seems really well organized.

#30 70/30, yes.
Fire underneath some staff asses, yes.

eb shutting up, yes.
eb pointing out that this post was meant to be serious yet funny, done.

//edited to make sure no one gets offended. Some people take my posts wrong.

#31 @Twisted Jenius, I like to 70/30 industry standard way of handling the payments. Might encourage more people to participate with selling art/code packs.

And from what I know about web programming, real time sales stats and being able to update your products without anybody at GG having to do anything is really easy to code. Uploading an update, though it takes more bandwidth, uses almost the same code as updating your avatar on your profile.

From a coding standpoint its really not asking a lot, but they do need to take care of the priorities first. Its a good idea though to share some ideas BEFORE they revamp the store though.

#32 Yep, web store code shouldn't take long. It's all the other stuff around it that takes most of the time. Design, features, preparing a payment gateway and so on. Since GG already have most of it, they just need time to form a team to handle approval. And decide how much control they want to have over what goes in, and if prices are entirely up to the developers posting content.

The Unity asset store has Unity setting the prices, which I'm not so sure I like. But they also have the background project, Union, where they negotiate console deals for developers with extra cool games.

#33 @ Ronny

Quote:The Unity asset store has Unity setting the prices, which I'm not so sure I like.

Actually no; if you look at the link I posted, it says:

Quote:
The Deal
It's a standard web-store 70-30 split: You set a price and recieve 70% of the money people spend.

@ GarageGames

Another suggestion I have, as a way of balancing the problem of quality control versus limiting access to the Add-Ons Store is to implement a customer review system for the store products.

#34 Ah, they did post a ton about that, though. Good thing that changed.