PocketGear/Motricity raising rates

[mm40]

"A rate of 60% payable to developers on Motricity direct sites, and 50% on Motricity partner sites, not including shared transaction costs. Please note: the transaction costs calculation is not changing and will be deducted from the sales price prior to the developer royalty calculation."

"Change in revenue share for products which do not utilize Real-time fulfillment methods"

This comes after a rate hike a few months ago from 20% to 30%. I find it strange that portals are not competing for lower rates, but competing for higher ones it seems? Seems very fishy... Handango raised their rates last year as well.

[HTK]

Those values are totally absurd. I got a find a good way to sell my next game without hadango or pocketgear, or I will not sell my game at all and just quit development of pocket pc and smartphone stuff.

[Kak]

I received it too...

my thought is I can't go on without handango due to the volume of sasles, but I can go on without motricity.

I'll never understand how they can charge me 40% for a work I've done, and I must also pay the transaction costs...

[Kak]

I received it too...

my thought is I can't go on without handango due to the volume of sales, but I can go on without motricity.

"A rate of 60% payable to developers on Motricity direct sites, and 50% on Motricity partner sites, not including shared transaction costs. Please note: the transaction costs calculation is not changing and will be deducted from the sales price prior to the developer royalty calculation."

"Change in revenue share for products which do not utilize Real-time fulfillment methods"

This comes after a rate hike a few months ago from 20% to 30%. I find it strange that portals are not competing for lower rates, but competing for higher ones it seems? Seems very fishy... Handango raised their rates last year as well.

[ppcStudios]

This comes after a rate hike a few months ago from 20% to 30%. I find it strange that portals are not competing for lower rates, but competing for higher ones it seems? Seems very fishy... Handango raised their rates last year as well.

I think PocketGear took a wait and see attitude. I'm sure they knew Handango would be raising their royalty fees, so they took the tact of keeping their rates a bit lower expecting developers to flock to PocketGear and shun Handango. Quite obviously this didn't happen (Handango still outsells PocketGear 4:1 for many offerings in our product line), so now they will increase their rates again and take more away from the developers, placing PocketGear back on the same royalty scale as Handango.

This does nothing but hurt the developers. The Pocket PC/Palm market can't sustain higher prices for the bulk of low-end products that are released, so all that happens is the product developers make less profits, forcing many of them to leave the market entirely.

I wouldn't compain too much if PocketGear would absorb chargebacks and scrubbing fees like Handango does, but no, they want to milk the developer for every cent possible. We are already dropping two of our least performing distributors next quarter, and PocketGear may end up being the third if they don't increase their sales/traffic performance.

[mm40]

What I meant by 'seems very fishy' is it seems like some price fixing is going on. With only 2 major sites in the market we have ologopoly practices going on, man I wish clickgamer and others would advertise some more ;)

I would accept Motricity's increase if it actually provided the service and sales to back it up, but as ppcStudios mentions they are far behind Handango in sales and exposure, and to top if off they don't absorb CC fees or chargebacks.

AND did you catch the statement "Change in revenue share for products which do not utilize Real-time fulfillment methods", what this probably means if you don't use static key, or the script key gen, they will be charging you an extra 10% - 20% ON TOP of the 40% + 5% fees, yeilding 40-50% for the developer.

[fzammetti]

This is starting to feel like the music industry... I remember talking to a label that wanted to sign my band some years back and when I read the details of the contract I said no f'ing way.

Time to say the same to PocketGear as well... wish I could say the same thing to Handango as well.

Either that or buy stock in Crisco because as much as us developers need it with these rates, I'd make a fortune there. Certainly more than I make in software sales!

[David Horn]

Also notice that if an affiliate site leads to a purchase of a product, they expect the developer to lose the 10% commission paid.

[ppcStudios]

Pass the Crisco, Frank. I think we're gonna need it. :(

[Birdiestyle]

I so wish there were enough of us developers working together, to pull a union type "pull out" play on both resellers, but so many developers have been so brownnosed they overlook this stuff..., and/or wouldnt risk a few days sales in order to get us our deserved profit back...

So down the toilet we all go....

Surprisingly, I have seen an increase in sales on Motricity.. They havent caught up but did close the gap. Obviously not enough to warrant even more than what Handango is taking.... But I must be the only one...

[mlepage]

I already bought my Crisco and am applying it liberally.

[Kak]

I already bought my Crisco and am applying it liberally.

sorry for being so ignorant but... what's a Crisco? :)

[refractor]

<a href="http://www.crisco.com/index.asp">Crisco</a> - cooking oil / spray - I'll leave the rest for you to figure out.

(Edited to fix link).

[arcadefx]

Couldn't a developer use a Kagi (http://www.kagi.com/index.html) like service to sell content?

I am looking into this myself for content distribution.

Is it the marketing and support that is the killer in using this type of approach to selling?

[fzammetti]

I was actually about to post a more relevant link about Crisco and how it applies in this situation, but I thought better of it Trying to keep this a family site and all...