Launch HN: Dropleaf (YC S17) – subscription service for indie PC games
Zi (Rygeko) and I started Dropleaf because, as gamers, we feel that space around games could be so much better. With the rise of tools that make games easier to make, more people from diverse walks of life are creating games. That means the potential for more games that speak to a wider set of people, and we think that’s really good for the industry. We want to encourage that trend in a few ways:
Discoverability: It’s hard for smaller developers to find people who love their games, and it’s also harder for gamers to find games that will resonate. Our focus on indies and our discovery tools mean that we’ll be able to connect devs with the players who will connect with their art.
Diversity: We think the industry wins when gamers, devs, and media are more diverse and inclusive. One of our goals is to encourage that with our community and the way we think about what we do (You can read more about our community here: http://bit.ly/2uyCsFK ).
Dollars: Pricing trends in the industry don’t favor smaller developers or gamers. Gamers are less likely to take a risk on buying a game they don’t know much about, so it’s harder for indie developers to gain traction. And when indie devs can’t make money, they can’t make games. So our customers play a flat monthly fee, and devs get paid based on time played. This means games people like to play will be rewarded, and players won’t have to worry about the cost of entry.
We’re really excited to launch Dropleaf! We’d love to hear any questions you have, or learn about your favorite games!
59 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadWhat does your Linux support look like?
I would love to subscribe if so.
We're actually adding a couple more games today including one I'm super excited about, Redout: https://34bigthings.com/portfolio/redout/
Our goal is to have a wide range of games, so that there's something for everyone to fall in love with, but we absolutely plan to be quite selective with what we allow in. If we have a game, it's because it's either great, incredibly compelling in some other way, or very interesting to the gaming nerds out there
One example: http://store.steampowered.com/app/581200/Nash_Racing/
This is literally just the demo for https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/advanced-tuning-car... being sold for money. It's unmaintained and runs like crap.
Some of the ones that are obvious beginner games that aren't really polished have their place in EA/ex-GL, with people actually passionate about it and trying to build a product. Kudos to them for trying and good luck. This is a great thing, provides visibility for these creative minds, and all that.
And then you have http://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=Tero%20Lunkk...
This publisher deserves to be removed from Steam completely. It is not beneficial to the platform or to the players, and would probably cause increased refund request support load / chargeback or dispute load.
How much revenue could I make if I were a part of your program?
It's ReactJS; so possibly can be wrapped with electron (etc) or do you mean windows smart-phone. In which case, it can have windows build.
Given that it's so much easier to create "video game content" than in the past, it makes sense to treat it more like Netflix, for the casual consumer.
$5/mo seems like way too little to go around.
We expect the full price to be 9.99 a month, but for anyone who signs up now, they'll keep their plan for the life of their subscription!
I hope you will give us a try and let us know what you think :D
TBH there wont be a "netflix for games" until the big ones sign up for that
And they wont since such a service would be a big pay cut from selling games for 60 bucks
Even if you end up doing a little worse per-unit gross, chances are your COGS goes down a fair bit.
Second - There's a whole host of technological and model difference that will allow us to be financially better for developers, and to include larger and more technologically demanding games.
And as far as that pay cut goes, I think you'd be surprised as to how much subscription revenue can add up over the year. After all, we won't be 5/month for very long at all. We've definitely seen more replayable games doing better - per user- than they would have on a traditional storefront.
When it comes to integrating those 60 dollar games though, we're going to need to make sure we're not re-creating the problem for the indies that we were trying to solve though.
Oh and, unlike jump, we're currently up and running ;) (sorry, couldn't resist)
Short games with a small but great single player story campaign will die out against the rocket leagues.
A subscription service doesn't make sense in this context because it doesn't make sense for the unicorns to collaborate with you.
What I wish would exist however, is YC for games.
But beyond that, I think you just made the case for those games to sign up for a subscription model! If someone's playing a game, say minecraft, month over month, then that developer is getting paid month after month. In other words, if a game takes over someone's life, it'll almost definitely do better per-user on a subscription platform than on a store front.
By the way, check out Flare: http://www.flaregames.com/flare-accelerator/
If I factor in Steam and Humble Bundle it's safe to say that I don't consume games the same way that I would "consume" a web browser or text editor.
That being said I'm also not in the high spending "hardcore gamer" segment and smaller indie games are more my flavor.
https://dropleaf.io/Catalog/Game/?Id=57&GameTitle=Warcube
We're hoping our discovery system will fix a lot of this. Instead of wall o' games, we want to show you games that are specifically on the list of things you're going to love!
Our process isn't super formalized yet, but we think we make it pretty easy for devs. We don't really have expected revenue numbers, since we just launched!
Have you considered alternative rev share models? Whenever I see this sort of service, I'm concerned that it is going to make shorter games and genres with low replayability even less viable than they currently are. Games that people play for hundreds of hours, like Terraria, Rimworld, or Factorio are going to get the dominant share of the revenue.
You can argue this is fair, but I hate to see the industry moving in a direction that makes games like Inside less viable.
Revenue is distributed on a per-user basis, we think that's hugely important! Thanks for the question :)
If I pay a 5 USD subscription and just play 2 games, one for an hour and the other for 10 hours; who will get what and when?
Also, being a subscription model, does this imply now all of these games are online-only? If I'm offline, a game does not know if my subscription is valid/active. How is that handled?
What happens later, when I cancel my subscription? I don't see an easy way for you to protect the games once a user has downloaded all of them and cancelled your service.
You do need an internet connection to launch games, you're right about that!
We use both an API and some encryption to make sure that a game which is saved to your computer is only launchable through the client. If you cancel your subscription, you're going to have a bunch of files you can't use.
However, we don't ever want you to lose the characters you've fallen in love with, even if you leave us, so your save files are yours to keep, and should be compatible with any other windows or steam build of the game!
As far as growing our brand, we're going to use all of the typical avenues that a games company might! Twitch and Youtube influencers, physical presence at cons, and twitter/fbook/instagram.
It's taken some work to get things moving, but now that we've got great games like Evoland, Cluster Truck, Redout and tumblestone, we think we've got a virtuous cycle instead of a chicken and egg problem!