Launch HN: Dropleaf (YC S17) – subscription service for indie PC games

We think there's a few key differences: First - we're focusing on personalized curation, in other words, the content you get recommended to you will be based on your preferences.

Second - There's a whole host of technological and model difference that will allow us to be financially better for developers, and to include larger and more technologically demanding games.

And as far as that pay cut goes, I think you'd be surprised as to how much subscription revenue can add up over the year. After all, we won't be 5/month for very long at all. We've definitely seen more replayable games doing better - per user- than they would have on a traditional storefront.

When it comes to integrating those 60 dollar games though, we're going to need to make sure we're not re-creating the problem for the indies that we were trying to solve though.

Oh and, unlike jump, we're currently up and running ;) (sorry, couldn't resist)

One of the most common mistakes in the industry is to think that games are different than other types of software. That people "consume" them and move on to the next game. That's wrong. Only a very few games get all the play-hours. Most people ever really play one game. The "game of their life". For some it's starcraft, for others it's minecraft. Games are software, the same rules kind of apply: there are only 15 (say) unicorns per year.

A subscription service doesn't make sense in this context because it doesn't make sense for the unicorns to collaborate with you.

What I wish would exist however, is YC for games.

Definitely - subscription means recurring revenue, which is a whole lot easier than having to sell individual copies of anything!

Even if you end up doing a little worse per-unit gross, chances are your COGS goes down a fair bit.

What's the process like to get a game on the platform? Are there any requirements for exclusivity? Any expected monthly revenues for a reasonably popular game? This sounds like a good idea and I'm looking to publish a title at some point within a year.

That's definitely an interesting perspective, but I think steam stats say something a little different, there are hundreds, if not thousands of games that move 100K+ units (and see significant played time from their users) each year. That's a whole bunch of games that a significant number of people fall in love with.

But beyond that, I think you just made the case for those games to sign up for a subscription model! If someone's playing a game, say minecraft, month over month, then that developer is getting paid month after month. In other words, if a game takes over someone's life, it'll almost definitely do better per-user on a subscription platform than on a store front.

By the way, check out Flare: http://www.flaregames.com/flare-accelerator/