

Show HN: mgwuSDK, Turn Based Multiplayer SDK - DesaiAshu
http://www.makegameswith.us/sdk/

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6thSigma
Wait, so in order to use the SDK developers are forced to publish through the
company AND the company takes the first $1000 in revenue? Isn't that really
bad for developers?

Mobile games are so hit and miss I bet most people using this SDK will never
top $1000 in revenues and will never see a dime. But if their app does blow up
and get popular, they won't be able to get the brand recognition that comes
with it. I am struggling to find the benefits of using this :/

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jvrossb
We are working on allowing folks to use it without publishing through us. What
kind of pricing model would you like to see?

Here's why you want to use it:

-It's so easy to use a couple high school students build a social game with it that's doing quite well.

-It leads you to build the type of game that has a higher chance of succeeding.

-When you publish with us, we produce all the art and music for your game at no upfront cost to you and promote your game. This is easily a $1000 value. We got Name That Jam! To the top 25 Trivia and Music games in the App Store for 2 weeks :)

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6thSigma
I agree that the art and music is a $1000 value but I don't like that it comes
off the top of the revenue. Why not charge 40% from day one (so you keep 10%)
and give an optional $1000 production charge for producing the art and music?

Is it because you don't want bad art/music in games you publish for other
people? I can see where that gets tricky.

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jvrossb
The people we work with generally don't have $1000 up front and one of their
main draws in publishing with us is that they have no other way of getting
art/music. For those who have art already we shift that fixed cost towards
promotion. Don't forget that we also offer code-level support to a lot of our
devs and do extra stuff for them like optimize their OpenGraph actions. It
ends up being a really good deal.

I should also point out that by using the SDK you can make three games in the
time it would have taken you to make one. The Ghost template game was built
and pushed to the App Store in the span of a few days.

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6thSigma
Gotcha. It is an interesting business plan for sure. I think if you guys can
figure out how to allow devs to use the SDK under their own brand it will be
awesome.

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jvrossb
Definitely the plan at some point. What kind of terms would you like to see
offered?

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RobotCaleb
Free. :P

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jvrossb
But it is... up front ;)

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WalterSear
If I can't figure out even the most fundamental technical information about
your platform from the splash page (or even where to go to find it), I'm going
to assume you are marketing something for people who aren't technically
literate enough to care about it.

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DesaiAshu
Thanks for the feedback. Our focus demographic is currently high school and
college developers. We've noticed that most of our existing users tend to
prefer seeing an example of the code in use (the Ghost template) as opposed to
an API/documentation online. The full instructions on how to use the SDK are
included in both downloads, but perhaps we should also include a link to it
directly on the SDK page.

~~~
WalterSear
You don't even say what OS's you support.

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DesaiAshu
This is the v1 of our SDK, we launched Name That Jam! with a beta version a
few months back. Would love to hear any feedback you have about bugs,
improvements or feature requests. Feel free to contact me directly
(ashu@makegameswith.us)

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jimzvz
This seems like it could speed up development of one of my projects but for
the first $1000 dollars and 30% thereafter of my revenue, I will skip it.

~~~
jvrossb
Good to know! What kind of deal would you like to see offered? Do you need the
extra services we provide - art, music, code help, promotion?

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jimzvz
I guess I am not your target market. I would like to use the software outside
of your ecosystem subject to a license fee.

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jvrossb
I understand - what kind of licensing terms would you find acceptable?

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jimzvz
I am not sure but interested in what you guys come up with.

Very impressed by your responses by the way, taking notes.

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niggler
"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)

~~~
DesaiAshu
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?

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niggler
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.

~~~
DesaiAshu
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.

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michaelmior
Does this mean if a game doesn't succeed, you guys essentially did the artwork
for free? In that case, is there any kind of screening process for games built
on your platform to make sure you don't waste your time building something
that's unlikely to produce revenue?

I'd also be interested in how the agreement works if the game has a Web
component as well. Can the artwork be used anywhere? Is the plan to take a cut
of revenue the game makes on other platforms?

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jvrossb
Yup, we end up taking the hit on art/promotion/other costs. So far the best
screening process has been motivation. We haven't yet encountered someone who
was motivated enough to finish a game with us and whose game was poor enough
we didn't want to publish it. We help with game design and playtesting where
needed as well.

The artwork can be used in versions of the game that live on different
platforms, we will take a cut of any version that uses our
art/music/characters.

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michaelmior
Sounds great :) Have you thought about allowing people to buy out of this
agreement if they want to be able to use your help to bootstrap/test and then
move in the future?

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jvrossb
We don't take any ownership of your IP. If you strip out our characters, art,
music, sdk, you can do whatever you want with what's left. If you stick with
us we want it to be because we're doing a good job as a publisher, not because
we've taken ownership of all your IP.

~~~
michaelmior
Thanks for being so responsive in your questions. I'll keep this in mind as I
have a project that might suit this model well.

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jvrossb
Cool! If you want to chat about it shoot me an email at
jeremy@makegameswith.us. Also happy to hop on the phone or Skype if you want
to bounce ideas off someone or if you have any further questions you want to
ask about what we do.

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jacalata
So, can I release a game I made with this for free?

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jvrossb
Yup :) In fact almost all turn based multiplayer games that succeed are free.

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jacalata
So then there's no payment to you guys ever? Interesting.

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jvrossb
Well most such games go on to add in-app purchases. If you never did, we
certainly wouldn't force you to. In that case there would indeed never be any
payment to us.

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RobotCaleb
Is this Apple products only?

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jvrossb
Yep. iOS only at the moment.

