[drewtato]

The developer side sounds pretty bad.

> we're able to pay developers a recurring revenue stream, as long as people are playing their game.

That's how normal game sales already work for non-replayable games.

Good indie games are usually more like $20. If you want to be in this service and make the same amount of money, you'd need your existing player count to only play your game for over 2 months, assuming the revenue split is the same (which you've left out). This is unrealistic; I'd expect people to play 2 or so games per month. Your service would need to make that up through a massive increase in advertising. This is already what publishers do, so you probably won't get any Annapurna/Devolver/THQ/etc games. Basically, you're trying to do what Epic did (make a new platform and subsidize dozens of games) without making a billion from vbucks.

> This way, indie games can achieve profitability with a smaller player base

Your service doesn't encourage this. People are going to be less likely to stick with a game, so you need more players to get the same revenue, assuming all else is balanced.

From the player side, people irrationally hate installing new launchers. The DRM thing is probably fine though. It'll depend on how often it breaks games and how much performance it takes.

My conclusion is this is Moviepass for games. Except it only has 11 games.

[Pedro_Magna]

Fair criticism, the model right now truly favors replayable games. If a game sells for $20, it probably gets $10 after commissions and sales taxes. That's probably mean someone needs to play a game for a little under 2 months to earn the same on MagnaPlay, which should be the case as people on average play 5 games a year on Steam. Consider the extra revenue from players who wouldn't normally try out the game, and developers are probably earning more per player than on other platforms. This is still a bit hypothetical, so hopefully we can confirm this when we have more data!

But, to be fair you're right in that we still haven't figured out the best way to pay shorter games. Right now, the upside for them is more distribution. About the new launchers thing, it's a tricky problem to work around. We've thought about just using a website, but you run into issues with DRM implementation.

[fakedang]

In my experience, most indie games aren't replayable. Everyone I know, myself included, plays it for the story value. In fact, there are times when I enjoy a simple playthrough of a game by a really good player a lot more often than playing the game myself, if they maintain the story very well.

Some indie games I've really enjoyed back in the day for the story were ones like What Remains of Edith Finch and Binding of Isaac. I'm certainly not playing them for more than a few days. On the other hand, indie games that I would replay, like Terraria and Stardew Valley, are already making significant revenue through the current Steam model. In fact, many of their current players would have been dismayed by a subscription model, which would have led them to not enjoy that much of a fan base.

[Pedro_Magna]

Depends a lot on the game and player. It's true, there are many short, narrative indies out there. But there are also roguelikes, strategy games, simulation, survival, city-builders, etc. which can be infinitely replayable. Even a game like BoI as you mentioned, it is known for being really replayable due to the sheer amount of items you can collect. Not ever indie is replayable, but there are plenty. And, we also want to have non-replayable games, we just haven't figured out the best model yet.

[jvalencia]

I've thought about this problem before too. I think the better angle is to put the developers on payroll and get rights to the game(s). Then, as they continue to release titles, your catalog grows. The company is then about creating sustainable indie development, rather than just licensing a handful of games and paying a pittance with a subpar library. Not sure it would work, but if you can make it work, that's super cool.

[rossirpaulo]

That's right; I agree with you on the content creation point. We do plan to make originals, much like Netflix creates their own TV shows and films. Yet that's quite a burn for an early-stage startup like ours. The long-term vision of MagnaPlay must encompass funding developers and adding their games to our portfolio. However, in the meantime, all we can do is upstage the indie segment by giving them visibility, staying true to our cause, and supporting developers with community-friendly features. For instance, players can distribute 10% of their subscription to any developer, essentially crowdfunding exciting teams and projects.