I think some programmers were paid that way back in the 80's, with companies such as Broderbund and Penguin Software acting as publishers (although not all prog

I think some programmers were paid that way back in the 80's, with companies such as Broderbund and Penguin Software acting as publishers (although not all programs sold by these companies were royalty-based as some were built in-house). In some ways, today's app stores act as publishers, where indy programmers can get paid roughly 70-80% royalty (or where the programmers pay a 20-30% publishing fee). Difference is back then, there were many publishers, but today there is only one publisher for iPhone, and effectively only one publisher for Android. In today's royalty model, the indy developer takes all the risk. I think back in the 80's, one could sometimes get an advance from the publisher (like with authoring books).