Revenue share between online sales platforms and videogame developers has always been a contentious issue. Most platforms including Steam, Meta Quest Store, Apple’s App Store and more all tend to take a 30% cut of sales. HTC’s Viveport is now taking a different approach, giving devs 90% of the revenue made from their games.
Starting from 1st April 2024, the new revenue share policy where HTC keeps only 10% will apply to all one-time purchases on Viveport. This date is effective for all new titles added to Viveport. Existing titles on the platform will be retroactive from 1st March. While this will undoubtedly help developers, the main goal is to court more studios to Viveport.
“Developers are the heartbeat of the XR ecosystem—when they thrive, the whole industry thrives,” said Joseph Lin, General Manager of Viveport. “That’s why we’re introducing a generous 90% revenue share on purchases of apps and games on the Viveport store for developers to accelerate their growth. By putting more resources directly into the hands of the creators, we’re ensuring Viveport is at the forefront of driving growth for the XR community.”
Porting more to Vive
HTC launched Viveport back in 2016, initially for its HTC Vive headset. The platform eventually became hardware agnostic, supporting most PCVR headsets available. It was also the first in the VR industry to offer a subscription service to gamers called Viveport Infinity. Way before Meta Quest+ was even thought of.
What’s unclear is how long this new revenue share will last. In the past, HTC has boosted its rate to developers several times for a select period. Sometimes it was an 80/20 split, whilst at one point creators got to keep 100% of the revenue their game made.
Viveport has hundreds of VR games, including Blade & Sorcery, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Fracked, and After the Fall. But it struggles to get the newest titles on release day. For example, its ‘coming soon’ page lists The Tale of Onogoro which has been on Steam since 2022.
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