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by opyate 1006 days ago
Tangential: what other downloadable software makes (or, tries to make) money with "revenue share"?

I'm aware of these not-downloadable-but-is-digital services/stores/platforms that do:

- app stores (Apple takes 30%, Google takes 30%)

- content (YouTube keeps 45%, Twitch takes a cut)

- e-commerce (Etsy 5% transaction fee; eBay takes a %)

- music/podcast (Spotify; SoundCloud)

- e-learning (Udemy; Teachable)

- gaming (Steam takes 30%; Epic takes %12)

- rental (AirBNB service fees; Turo commission on each car rental)

- freelancing (Upwork's sliding fee; Fiverr takes 20%)

But Unity is DOWNLOADABLE software, not a platform/app-store/SaaS. So, why revenue share? Surely most devs just make free-standing/downloadable games that don't tie into any platform-y features?

AFAIK, even Unity Enterprise [0] is just source code, support, 3-year LTS bug fixes, and the only real thing that's platform-y is the build server, which seems to cost extra anyway.

0. https://unity.com/products/unity-enterprise

2 comments

For starters, their number one competitor Unreal.
It's best to think about more like a royalty.
Well, in that case, I'm glad it's not common across software, e.g. imagine authors having to pay MS Word or Scrivener a cut for every book sold, or musicians for every song made with Logic Pro or Ableton.

What makes games so special?