"The first $1000 in revenues and 30% of revenues after that."
I understand the entire arrangement is probably worth the price, but you have to find a way to separate this component from the rest of the stack.
A pricing arrangement that would be nice to see is something tied to usage. For example, if it's free for the first thousand users (and then start charging if more than 1000 people sign up) then you ensure a healthy lock-in (after all, who is going to risk changing the multiplayer infrastructure if it keeps up with demand -- devs will focus on the game intrinsics) and a solid stream from those who can pay up (most likely, after some traction, the devs will either have cash on hand or do an equity round)
Thanks for the feedback! We initially built this because a couple of our devs requested it, but it looks like there is more interest in it. We're going to look at different revenue models for the SDK as a standalone component for those who don't want to use the rest of our platform. The one you suggest sounds pretty interesting. Do you think people would respond well to a smaller royalty for just the SDK, or the pay per users/api requests model is more attractive?
It depends on how you want to position your firm. The real show-stopper is the fact that you want to take a percentage fee and take the first revenue piece -- its as if you don't want to take the equity risk yet aren't content with a flat payout. You have to choose one (or at least make the upfront smaller or the percentage much smaller). Something like $1000 + 1% or $50 + 20% or 40% would be better.
The way we had been thinking about it (which seems to be an incorrect assumption) was that 1k was a pretty small amount of future revenues to recoup. The reason we had thought this was even if your game is moderately successful (like the game I built when I was 16 which made 35k), the 1k would seem pretty inconsequential, and it is simply a way for us to reduce our investment per game. Our goal has always been to invest in the future of the game. I think psychologically it may seem more greedy than it is in reality, but either way this would be a good reason to reduce the first revenue piece.
I understand the entire arrangement is probably worth the price, but you have to find a way to separate this component from the rest of the stack.
A pricing arrangement that would be nice to see is something tied to usage. For example, if it's free for the first thousand users (and then start charging if more than 1000 people sign up) then you ensure a healthy lock-in (after all, who is going to risk changing the multiplayer infrastructure if it keeps up with demand -- devs will focus on the game intrinsics) and a solid stream from those who can pay up (most likely, after some traction, the devs will either have cash on hand or do an equity round)