If the Amiga market was large and there were 10's of commercial software releases each week then something like this might be worthwhile if it guaranteed only the best software was available via Metropolis.

However commercial releases on the Amiga platforms are few and far between and I expect that you'd probably accept any ropey application or games in an attempt to bolster the image of your app store.

It's difficult enough for developers to motivate themselves to make software without someone asking for a 30% cut just for featuring it on a website.

@Bugala

Your statements would be valid if there was an actual Amiga market let to sell to, and if there were developers making Amiga software.

Although I have disagreed with Franko on various other topics in the past, this is one of the times I agree with him. Where are all of these Amiga developers wishing to sell commercial software?

Companies like Apple can ask for high fees because they offer tons of users. And also because developers have no choice. I can give another example -- RIM ... no fee at all for signing up for Blackberry development. Yeah, they take a percentage of sales, but again, they have ton more users and developers than anything in Amiga-land, and are a real company.

If Metropolis was well established, showed how their advertising + views increased sales, then they could demonstrate to developers how signing up would benefit them. Right now it's just like some random guy saying, hey, give me 30% of your sales and I will stick your game on my website.

What could work, yet for some reason has never been done, is if a company like Cloanto offered an .adf store offering old amiga software/games for use with their emulator and real amigas, as well as offered emulators for mobile platforms (not counting apple who wouldn't allow it). Consider it like an Amiga version of GOG.
If Metropolis was something like that, and offered hundreds of old Amiga games at cheapo mobile style prices, then yeah, it could work. But that's not what this sounds like.

Last edited by Nameless on 18-Dec-2012 at 08:47 AM.

@Bugala

???
need coffee
???
www.ares-shop.de is metropolis.

Buy A-live for example and you can instantly download it.
But you should know that at least in germany a lot people dislike paypal and so thay will use bank tranfer anyway.

Secondly G.E.M.Z is personalized. Every binary contains the name of the customer in it. You would see if you finish it in the story telling.


Secondly i publish too and i am used to 25%.

Sorry planned to be silent but Bugala talks nonsense.

So if a game or a app can be downloaded instantly depends on the security/copy prtotection a developer asks for. I would not dictate anything.

Best regards
Pascal

Last edited by phoenixkonsole on 18-Dec-2012 at 10:41 AM.
Last edited by phoenixkonsole on 18-Dec-2012 at 09:40 AM.

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@Nameless
Quote:

Where are all of these Amiga developers wishing to sell commercial software?

Wild speculation: maybe that's the reason for Hollywood not being available for purchase at the moment - it will be the first prominent Metropolis app

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funny that there is no end for initiatives with exactly 0 prospect of any actual outcome and that from the very start.

A one stop shop is nice.

I frequent this forum more or less daily, so I do notice the game releases that are advertised here.
But before I visited this place, I where oblivious to it all.

I still think a "Steam" like app would be the way to go if you want to make a buck.
While I could download cracked version of pretty much any game, I like to have the real thing out of convinience.
Alot of games I buy on impulse or see my friends play via the steam app, which makes me check info regarding that game.
Sometimes I simply just browse the steam store, and find a intresting game I download.

The ease of use from a Steam like app is quite helpful too. Buy and download within 1 minute.

Went thru the list of games I got, and are shocked I got 43, of which I play only a few on a regular basis.
Impulse buyers could be a nice source of income.

Last edited by Overflow on 18-Dec-2012 at 12:43 PM.

A unified store would be really cool, I think. Depends a bit on the execution, though. Good luck!

Where's the payment for payment processing (taken by PayPal etc.) by the way? Before the split, or in "DiscreetFX share"?

Something really funny that was just posted to Moobunny:

Original announcement (July 2011): Bill gets 20% of the revenue, there are no yearly fees to be paid by the developer

Today's announcement: Bill gets 30% of the revenue, and there's a yearly fee for the dev (which of course, is "waved" for the next 72 hours, lol).

I vote for no longer posting this crap as news items.

@cgutjahr

Quote:

I vote for no longer posting this crap as news items.

Wait this was a poll? Where do I vote?

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Publishing via Metropolis is completely up to the developer so why are users complaining?

@Jupp3

Payment processing fees come out of DFX share not the developer. Royalties to the developer of the Project Metropolis App also come out of DiscreetFX's share. DFX won't be counting our gold bars on this venture, it's meant to help the community.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 18-Dec-2012 at 02:05 PM.

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It's a good thing PayPal does take 30%

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Hardly 30%

@Rose


It's even less for micropayments

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@DiscreetFX

Quote:

No fee for developers for the next 72 hours, so why complain about $39.96 when you don't have to pay anything? Customers never get charged a fee unless they buy a commercial application from the Project Metropolis App, then they pay the set price the developer put on it.

Uh, because it won't be December 19, 2012 forever and a lot of people are out of the office for the holidays and won't even seen your thread until after Christmas.

If your idea is so great, why don't you risk some of your own capitol by setting up your site and allowing developers to sign up and participate for free for more than just 72 hours? Maybe it should be several months. Then if your plan is successful, then start taking a cut of the profits. As it stands now, you get to keep all registration fees even if the project fails, which just smacks of greed if you ask me. You're asking the developers to assume all the risk, pay 30% fees on all sales, and assume all the risk for project failure and you can't see why people aren't enthusiastic about your plan? You make money even if it fails. The timing of this plan just makes me think it's a quick way for you to make some Christmas cash at the expense of some gullible developers......not that there are any developers left out there, gullible or not.

Last edited by ferrels on 18-Dec-2012 at 07:17 PM.
Last edited by ferrels on 18-Dec-2012 at 07:14 PM.

@ferrels

It's already being considered extending it way past the 72 hours if everyone is still around after then.

:)

Project Metropolis was created to help developers and the community grow, nothing more. We generate revenue creating FX software on other platforms. So we are not expecting or looking for Project Metropolis to generate anything considerable for at least 2-3 years. This community needs to grow considerably to make commercial development viable again. No arm twisting or public beatings, developers are free to choose joining the project or not. It's really up to them.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 18-Dec-2012 at 07:29 PM.

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@DiscreetFX

The issue I think people have with this project, besides the initial fee + royalty percentage, is the fact that you really haven't spelled out what benefits there are to the developer.

From a non-developer standpoint, people may think: cool, one place to get all of my software... then they realize nobody is making amiga software anymore...

Do you plan to take on the role of an actual publisher? By that I mean, advertize, handle customer support, and stuff like that? Or is this simply a portal, where you take a cut?

If using the same pricing strategy as Apple and the big boys, do you plan to offer any services that they do to developers? Your own sdks, conversion kits between various flavors of Amiga operating systems, marketing, developer support, etc.?

I have developed software before, and even did a little work on the Amiga (years and years ago) ... when a publisher simply says they want a percentage, yet offers little in the way of tangible benefits, alarm bells should go off. I am not even saying your project won't offer any benefits to developers -- I just am not sure what they are, as the info provided is somewhat lacking. Common sense would say the market is way too small for this type of project to really work.

Or am I wrong? I haven't kept track of AOS4/MorphOS software. Are there many commercial developers for that platform really active?

@Nameless

You make some valid points and we are going to expand the FAQ to explain the benefits to developers. We don't want to just be a cut taker. We want Project Metropolis to help this community and market grow and expand. Link to the FAQ below. Look for us to expand it and make it more detailed by this weekend.

http://www.discreetfx.com/ProjectMetropolisFAQ.html

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cgutjahr Wrote:

Quote:

I vote for no longer posting this crap as news items.

Wow a one man secret ballot has been held and no-one bothered to tell anyone else about it...

Thankfully for the rest of us this aint a dictatorship eh...

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