Gog.com Welcomes Indie Developers
Not to be outdone by Steam’s (somewhat failing) Greenlight initiative, Gog.com is launching its own system to provide independent games developers with access to the DRM-free digital distribution platform:
GOG.com, in our continued efforts to bring you all the best games in history for PC and Mac, is looking to make it easier for indie game devs to submit their game to GOG.com. To that end, we have launched a new portal on GOG.com today, containing the essential information on the way we work with our indie partners, and an easy entry form providing direct contact with our team.
Rather interestingly, they’ve also decided to publicly disclose their revenue share– like Apple, Gog.com takes a 30% cut of the revenue, and the developer (or publisher) gets the remaining 70%, unless they give you and advance (which I didn’t realise was even an option), in which case Gog.com takes a 40% cut until they recoup their investment. It is believed (well, confirmed on numerous occasions really) that Steam operates a 70/30 split too, although supposedly they mandate that publishers and developers do not publicly disclose this (why the secrecy, Valve?).
The landing page for the new initiative certainly looks a lot more welcoming than the “shout as loudly as possible” crowded furore of Steam Greenlight, though it remains to be seen as to how successful the system is. That said, Gog.com has tended to have a pretty solid run of being first with certain games like Papers, Please, so this could potentially usher in a wave of new games development talent, and honestly, that couldn’t come at a better time.
In other Gog.com-related news, it looks like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines will making a debut on the platform this week (though not necessarily with a Mac version).