Steam is great and all, but it is oversaturated with games that it is hard for individual developers to gain attention and likewise for the consumers to focus on a specific sale. This is especially true for indie gamers and developers, whose sales and interests tend to be overshadowed by the AAA titles. As a way to combat this, a service called IndieGameStand emerged.
History IndieGameStand (IGS) was founded out of Wilmington, DE, in September 2012 by Mike Gnade and Dan Liebner, and later Matt Cangialosi. The site started as promotional service that featured a new indie game every 96 hours (4 days) to purchase at a discounted price. Games that have been featured include Papo & Yo, Coin Crypt, Operation Smash, and currently, Parallax (about 12 more hours at the time of post). Later on, a storefront was added to the service, which included a larger variety of indie games that have daily/weekly sales similar to Steam. Earlier this year, two more features have been implemented to IGS. The first is a subscription service called IGS Elite, which allows for a recurring payment for the deals. The other is a free games section, where developers can place their freely distributed games on the site to download and possibly receive donations. The IndieGameStand Model What makes the IGS service unique is the model implemented. The model used for the deals is a PWYW (Pay-what-you-want) model similar to what Humble implements, in which you can pay a minimum price to have access to DRM-free builds (in this case 25 cents), or 1 dollar (for the most part) for keys for the various platforms (Steam, Desura, GOG). The difference between the Humble and IGS model is how the BTA (Beat-the-average) pricing scheme works. For Humble, an artificial minimum BTA price is imposed, and thus even if everyone went and both the non-bta, there would be a floor that would has never been under 2 dollars. IGS, allows for a true BTA price. At the start of the sale, the BTA would be 1 cent above the minimum for game keys, which would usually equal to $1.01. Further purchases would push the BTA up to the threshold of $2-$3, but there was always a chance for the BTA to drop right back down to $1.01. Which begs the question, why is this type of BTA sustainable for IGS? The key point that needs to be emphasized is that IndieGameStand features ONE game (or a series for that game). For example when Papo & Yo was the featured deal, THAT was the only game you could get for $1 (if you wanted Steam). On top of that, the BTA would always include other products from that game or by the same developer. In the Papo & Yo deal, the soundtrack was included if you beat the average. In the deal for Loot Hero, four of the developer's other games were included in that upper tier. Finally, for a purchase of $6 or more (used to be $10 before the subscription service was implemented), you could purchase a bundle of 3 sales, the previous one, the current one, and the next one. Hence, the average price ends up staying above $1.50 and usually hits $2 or more due to people wanting the extra goodies and/or have missed the previous deal. Other point is that the ONE developer/dev team receives all of the developer cuts in the sale. The split is 70-10-20, 70% going to the developer, 10% going to a charity of the dev's choice, and 20% going to the site. This means that if the sale ended up making $1,000 worth of purchases, $700 would go to the dev, $100 would go to that chosen charity, and $200 would go back to IGS so that the site can continue to function. For the storefront, the split is 75/25 with the charity portion redistributed evenly between the dev and IGS. This feature has been one that developers have praised the service for, since no matter how badly the deal goes, they don't have to worry about splitting that revenue even further with a few other indie developers. Other Features I may decide to come back to my discussion of IndieGameStand since there is so much to go into. Here I will list some other features that the site has:
My Take IndieGameStand is a great site for indie developers and avid supporters alike. It is free of the clutter of AAA titles and spam of "indie" games. For developers, it is a way to have their own games spotlighted and be rewarded for it on a more personal level. For customers, it is a way to pinpoint a single game/developer and interact and support them as a single entity rather than as an afterthought. The gripes that some people have is that the price point for the deals are too high, starting at $1 for Steam/Desura keys, but keep in mind that IndieGameStand isn't a bundle, where a variety of developers split the revenue, and that regardless it may still a steep discount from the average Steam sale. This service isn't for everyone, and even I may pass on a number of deals due to lack of interest. For me, IndieGameStand is a site where the spotlight deals garner the developers and the games the attention and support they deserve. While I don't think IndieGameStand will ever be as big of a service as Steam, GOG, or even Desura, I feel like it can stand its own among the smaller indie game services such as itch.io and Shinyloot. The service has been around for over 2 years, and I look forward to its future endeavors. Comments are closed.
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About MeHi, I go by letsmaybeLP92 on many sites on the Internet. I enjoy reading and testing out the newest and oldest games out there, as well as sharing my passion with others. Archives
March 2023
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