6 ms·
Lifetime royalty fee on any related worldwide gross revenue is a happy problem?
by ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago
Lifetime royalty fee on any related worldwide gross revenue is a happy problem?
- _bernd 3mo agoTo be able to use this tech in the first place? I have no glue about business problems but this sounds far better then the 30% rip off by apple and Google app stores....
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago> 30% rip off by apple and Google app stores Sounds like a happy problem to me;) By the way you don't only have to file a report for Epic whenever you release a game using UE, you also have to report them your yearly sales and calculate what income is "directly attributable to UE" for that game. For an ordinary small person, for whom you imply lifetime 5% off gross worldwide revenue is a "happy problem", this is way more involved (and prone to legal liability) compared to app stores. You will probably have to hire people well before the million mark to make sure numbers are OK and you don't accidentally owe Epic $$$$$. I know which model I would choose. Probably the one where I raise prices by 30% and don't have to deal with anything else.
- interactivecode 3mo agoAt the point where you have 1 million in revenue you for sure have an accountant even just to do your yearly business taxes. So reporting to Epic just becomes an extra hour of work to make the report.
- BrandoElFollito 3mo agoOr not. I depends on the country and its tax system.
- infecto 3mo agoWhat is this insane argument. Now you are telling me it’s a burden of paperwork because reporting your revenue gets complicated?
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoI'm saying it's not a "happy problem":)
- infecto 3mo agoThere is this high correlation with low quality comments and smiley faces, that and when people like to insult others and put a little winky face at the end. You are simply making up nonsense. It is not a lot of work as most likely sales are being driven through a handful of platforms. Reporting is simple and no different than doing your taxes. It is very much a happy problem. Similar to having to pay more taxes. There is more burden but you are making more money. Your argument is insane because Indonesia average income in USD on the high side is around $300. If you make $1mm USD, having to do some extra paperwork and pay $50k per $1mm of revenue is an awesome problem to have.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoYou're calling my argument insane, you're saying my comment is low quality, and imply I'm the one insulting. What is my argument then, in your opinion?
- infecto 3mo agoIf that’s all you have to respond then you sir are the one with no argument. I have listed my points multiple times. All you keep saying is “they could offer it at a fixed price”. Well that price would be well above any hobbyist. It is kind of an insane argument. They have had fixed pricing before without royalty and usually that price is north of $1mm. Free + 5% is pretty amazing. There is enough competition in this space that you could always go elsewhere.
- lewispollard 3mo agoI mean, he's still going to be paying 30% to Steam.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- CamouflagedKiwi 3mo agoSurely better than this engineer having to pay $100k upfront which would likely mean he never made the game at all. 5% over a million seems pretty reasonable to me. I guess it'd be an issue if profit margins were thin, but that wouldn't be the case here.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoSure as long as we acknowledge that this isn't really free it's just deferred payment
- master-lincoln 3mo agoNot deferred payment for most devs as they do not reach the 1 million revenue
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoFor "the best train sim ever made" they probably reach it.
- CamouflagedKiwi 3mo agoSure, and then he can afford it, because he's making over $1M/year revenue on this sim, and taking a very reasonable 5% off the top of that. So it blunts the profits a bit at that point, but it hardly seems like such a terrible thing at that point.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoBy that logic we should be OK with Adobe's subscription model. It makes it affordable to people who can't otherwise use it. Ultimately it means we can't own it (and just like we can't own UE, we owe Epic income reports for life). I'm not saying it's a terrible model and it's great that games are made with it but let's be honest it's not all rainbows.
- Cthulhu_ 3mo agoYeah, you also get updates to the engine, Steam's share is bigger, and you still keep everything else. I would be okay with getting 75% of everything earned over $1M.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago> you also get updates to the engine They could sell the engine and sell new versions separately as one time purchase. > I would be okay with getting 75% of everything I'd be okay getting 70% from the start. That's not what it's about.
- streetfighter64 3mo agoIf you get a million dollars in revenue as a solo dev, it's pretty much just winning the lottery. You've already spent all the working hours to make the game, so it's pretty much all profit at that point. What costs do you even have? It's a free choice to use the engine, you can use another engine or make your own if 5% is too much for you.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago> If you get a million dollars in revenue as a solo dev, it's pretty much just winning the lottery You know it's not 1 mil per year, it's 1 mil over your lifetime
- mh- 3mo agoThe vast, vast majority of indie game devs will not see $1m in revenue in multiple lifetimes.
- streetfighter64 3mo agoYou typically only win the lottery once as well... It's 1 mil at the release date of the game and the following maybe 3-6 months. Game sales usually happen at the release date and then there's a pretty much insignificant "long tail" of sales. Anyway, while 1 million isn't really enough to retire instantly, for sure it lets you retire 10-20 years earlier if you're just a little bit smart with money.
- infecto 3mo agoShould unreal give away their work for free? What is your argument. They don’t take a single royalty until $1mm and 5% is not a wild number considering it’s making use of the engine. Heck steam takes 30% which is much more egregious but factoring in costs of running steam, payment processing and the free marketing its almost always worth it. Share a counter argument to how it should be please.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoThere's many ways that are better than royalties. Just sell the engine as a one time purchasec have a non-profit foundation where sponsors fund development, etc.
- infecto 3mo agoIf they sold it as a one time purchase this kid would have never been able to use Unreal.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoIf Adobe sold their suite as one time purchase many creatives who can just afford a monthly subscription couldn't use it. Does it make it a great business model.
- infecto 3mo agoSorry I don’t know what you are trying to say?
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoWhat are you trying to say? You can't even get the name of the company right. "unreal" won't give their work away for free. UE is a product, Epic is the company that develops UE.
- 3mo ago
- wrsh07 3mo agoThe question is about counterfactuals If unreal cost money up front, would this have been built? No. Unreal is saying: hey, we contributed to 1/20th of your success, because you could not have done this without us. Thus, in the event that you're extremely successful, yes, you'll owe unreal a million dollars. But that's only because you made 20mm and keep 19mm for yourself. That's an incredible bargain.
- Barbing 3mo agoShiny, that's why I thought you might've felt it fair, but couldn't have put it this well.
- didntknowyou 3mo agoare people really balking at paying 50k on 1 million of sales? that is a problem i would like to have. steam did provide the basic dev/hosting/sale/marketing platform.