Ask HN: What is the business model for desktop software in 2019?

dtagames · on May 10, 2019

The lines between desktop/server/mobile are going away. At the end of the day, the user doesn't know or care where the app runs, only that it runs and is supported.

The future of desktop software is the same as the future of enterprise hosted software and open source: It's all about taking care of your customer. If you focus on providing the bug fixes, documentation, upgrades, customization, and support that your customers want, it doesn't matter if it runs on the desktop or elsewhere.

PaulHoule · on May 10, 2019

One business that really impresses me is Riot Games (maker of League of Legends.)

The conventional AAA game involves a long expensive development process and then you hope the game will be a hit and it pays back. Maybe you make a sequel and repeat -- if you are real lucky you end up with something like Assassin's Creed.

LoL, on the other hand, was developed incrementally starting from a mod on World of Warcraft (thus proving the concept before expensive development.) They realized that they didn't have a real business based on somebody else's platform, so they made their own.

Now they are always tweaking the game, adding more champions, getting more players, etc. The game doesn't get tired any more than live sports gets tired.

LoL is free to play, but not pay to win. (With the caveat that dropping $10 or $20 on rune pages will really help) However if you play a lot you will get emotionally attached to the characters and find the skins really appealing.

Someone who wants to collect all champions and skins (I bet they are out there) could spend a staggering amount of money on the game. If you spent $10 a month on skins (attending to discounts) you could build a great collection over time at a rate that wouldn't seem painful but would lead to a whopping $120 month ARPU (like buying 2 AA games.) If you compare the hours of entertainment to a seeing a movie, watching cable, or a Netflix subscription that's favorable, but it is a huge amount of money for the game devs.

wesammikhail · on May 10, 2019

> Everybody hates subscriptions

There is no evidence that suggests that or even hints at that. You´d be ecstatic to pay $5 for something that nets you multiple X of that in value. The issue is, most applications AND sites do not even offer enough value to justify a measly $5 price tag so they have to rely on other business models in order to compensate for their lack of product-market fit.

> SaaS companies use subscriptions and explain it by saying they have servers to run.

SaaS companies don´t need to explain "it" or justify "it". The user isn´t paying you so that you can cover your cost. They are paying you because you are offering them good value in return for that cash. If your costs are covered or not, the user is mostly indifferent to that as long as he gets what is promised. If better options are presented to the user that are cheaper or better (read better product-market fit) then the user will most likely move in that direction.

> Desktop software that tries the same gets lambasted, even though the big cost is continuous development and not servers.

This is mostly a misunderstanding on the part of desktop app developers and I can say that with authority considering that I have built multiple desktop software products/companies that have successfully generated great revenue and exited.

> How do you charge for a desktop application in 2019?

Ask for money in return for your product offering. There is no magic sauce. If your product is of value people will pay, if it is not, no one will.

That said, if you have a good product developed that you need help figuring out how to monetize, feel free to reach out to me and I´ll try my best to help you out (email in profile)

thedevindevops · on May 10, 2019

As to what PaulHoule alluded to, the type of software drastically changes the pricing model.

Business software tends to fall back on a licencing or updates/support pricing model but the scale of the price is proportional to the scale of the business problem your software is designed to solve. Alternatively there are models which depend on mostly-free but with 'Pro' features turned on for subscribers.