In the game industry, there are developers who develop the game itself and publishers who sell and distribute the game, and they maintain the game industry when they play their respective roles. A company called Apogee Software contributed greatly to the birth of a developer and publisher.
Founded in 1987, Affage Software was originally the place to sell MS-DOS-based games created by its founder Scott Miller. As Miller enters his late 20s, his own game is rejected by Infocom, a software company famous for his joke series. At this time, Miller started Affage Software and released the game in the form of a donation if it was good in the Internet community. However, sales did not reach 10,000 dollars.
Later, Miller studies the form of sales. Kingdom of Kroz, released by Affage Software in 1987, was a massive adventure game that spanned 60 stages. Miller attempts to split it into a trilogy. The first episode was released for free and the remaining two episodes were sold for a fee.
As he expected, among those who enjoyed the first film for free, the percentage of people who purchased the second work or more was about 1 to 2%. But nonetheless, it earned considerable profits. At the time of launch, it was sold by check, but later, it supported phone orders using credit cards, with sales in its heyday reaching $2,000 per share.
Realizing the potential of the game business, Miller quit his job in 1990 and devoted himself to Affage Software. At this point, Affage Software starts looking for a game developer to sell the game.
The four people Miller found were John Romero, John Camek, Adrian Camek, and Tom Hall. They founded id Software and later produced the legendary FPS game series Doom. The four developed a game called Commander Keen and sold it to Affage Software.
Commander Keane 1 recorded sales of $20,000 a month, and Romero and others will transform into full-time producers. ID Software announced in 1992 the Wolfenstein 3D, which is considered a monumental game that established the FPS game genre after selling the game as a seller of Affage Software. The game is a huge hit with sales of over $200,000 over a period of over a year.
In the early 1990s, Activision and Electronic Arts (EA) were also publishers, but Activision and EA managed intellectual property rights as part of the publisher contract. Therefore, there was also a strange phenomenon that the developer could not make a sequel to the game he made. On the other hand, Affage Software did not sign contracts for intellectual property rights and remained on behalf of marketing and other agencies. Therefore, ID software has grown rapidly through the 90s.
It was Epic Games, which became known around the world as Fortnite, which appeared in this trend. Affage Software renamed 3D Realms and established a publishing rights protection organization called GOD (Gathering of Developers) in partnership with Epic Games. At the time of the establishment of GOD, Miller is releasing a collection of advice for developers under the title The Ten Developer Commandments. This means that intellectual property should not be sold, merchandising rights should not be sold to publishers, studios with no performance generally start at 15% royalties, but increase to 50% depending on sales, average $750,000 when contracted with publishers In addition, it is revealing details such as a two million dollar advance payment if it is a studio that has made a hit. It is designed to disclose in detail down payment information, which is usually difficult to disclose, so that the developer can conclude a fair contract.
Following Miller’s will, Epic Games is also trying to sign a developer-oriented contract. In March 2020, the contract signed by Epic Games with the three companies (genDESIGN, Playdead, Remedy Entertainment), the developer owns 100% intellectual property rights, and Epic Games develops the market covering the developer’s quality assurance, localization marketing, and all publishing costs. It includes a clause that covers up to 100% of the cost and that the developer accounts for at least 50% of the total profit.
In the Epic Games Store, a game distribution platform operated by Epic Games, the store receives 12% of the sales and 88% of the sales are received by the publisher. Meanwhile, in the world’s largest game platform, Steam, the developer can only receive 70% of the sales and, of course, a 75-80% stake change depending on sales. Compared to the Epic Games store, developers do not receive more.
This Epic Games store management policy reflects the will of Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games. He also said that he wanted to create a platform that would have a good share of profits and convenient to developers in line with the launch of the Epic Games store. He said that if the dominant game store adopts a profit share that is more disadvantageous to developers than its competitors, the creator side will only avoid the dominant platform that will lower game prices. Express your desire to raise.
As a means of doing this, he is implementing a strategy to enhance the appeal of the Epic Games store itself. At the heart of this strategy is how to release free games weekly and deliver exclusive titles. However, criticism is pouring into the method of delivering exclusive titles. Regarding the delivery of the exclusive title, he pledges on Twitter that Steam promises an 88% revenue share for all developers forever, but Epic Games will soon cancel its exclusive sales contract and consider selling Epic Games games on Steam. If Steam corrects expensive royalties and improves developer treatment, he said it is okay to stop delivering exclusive titles. Related information can be found here .