Thanks again for your reply Austin.
"Is there a reason why you're not looking to the web at all and strictly focusing on mobile app stores?"
There really is no short answer to this question that does it any justice. I'll try to be concise. :)
I'm a home school teacher. My stack of upcoming game titles are aimed mostly at K-5, or adults who like word games / puzzlers. They're the kind of titles that don't really lend themselves well to in-app purchases. Although this is probably the most lucrative business model for app developers right now, I don't want to subject a 6 year old kid to an advertisement about ED or a popup asking him to enter his credit card number.
This means selling the game outright, and my research has shown that parents are more likely to buy apps for their kids for mobile devices than they are web games.
My business model is aimed more at creating fun titles that parents, especially other home school teachers, would not mind spending a nominal fee on for a mobile device. My wife and I spend a decent amount of money each year buying titles for my son to play on our tables. We've never purchased a web title.
The flip side to this whole thing is that I'm just unfamiliar with the web game market in general.
- How often do people purchase web games? I never have. I don't know anyone who has.
- Say I just created a new game and put it on Clay.io. How much exposure is my game getting? How does that compare to Chrome Store? What's the benefit for me as a developer to sell through Clay.io over Chrome Store? when Chrome Store is likely getting 100x the exposure for my games?
- How do I secure my web game? What's to keep people from stealing the code / assets and re-releasing it with a few tweaks?
Scirra have made major efforts to give their Construct 2 developers options when it comes to exporting their games. If you look at the export options you'll see:
- Metro (Windows 8)
- iOS (via CocoonJS)
- Android (via CocoonJS)
- EXE
- Chrome Store
- Scirra Arcade
- Kongregate
- And talks of Mac OS coming soon.
I think it's probably a bit unrealistic to expect my situation to be unique considering the amount of discussion on this site regarding CocoonJS, Awesomium, and other export options.
Let's say I export my game to the Web, iOS, Android, Metro, and Mac OS. I sell 10,000 total, 2K on each platform. If I sold 2K of those apps through Clay.io, that means I have 8K customers using your network that you're not getting paid for. Now imagine 1000 developers doing the same, assuming we all decide to sell through Clay.io instead of Chrome Store. Those amount of gamers playing on your network without you collecting any money becomes quite staggering.
For what it's worth, I know you said you're not interested in doing this, but I'd happily pay a membership fee for an UNBRANDED plugin that I could easily match the rest of my games looks with that provided the networking, data storage and social features you provide. I'd even be happy putting a Clay.io credits on the splash page along with my own logo. It would be more appealing to me from a design perspective to have the UI match the game, and it would be at least financially rewarding for you if you were making some profit from our non-web based customers.
Something to consider either way. Thanks again for your responses and taking the time to read my concerns and questions. I like the idea of your service, I just don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of someone. If you offer a good service, you should get paid for it.