BRACE YOURSELVES, THE RMN STOREFRONT IS COMING

RMN and Degica have entered an agreement whereby RMN will be the official storefront for commercial games developed in RPG Maker (primarily. Games made in other engines are allowed, too).


The plan is that RMN will create a new subdomain called http://store.rpgmaker.net (not active yet!), and it will point to an e-commerce portal that Degica is hosting (so, RMN's server will NOT be directly hosting the commercial game portal nor will RMN directly handle the financial transactions - this is a good thing). The commercial portal will be made similar to RMN's aesthetic, but will contain games (and possibly resources or resource packs or game development software) strictly for sale. Degica is going to be shutting down their own portal RPG Games HQ http://www.rpggameshq.com/ (the current official RM commercial game site) and redirecting pertinent traffic to the RMN Storefront (btw, the code name for this has been the RMN Storefront - it's right in the contract I helped draft). Someone at Degica is already in the process of converting the current inventory of games onto the RMN Storefront now (so we will have "launch titles" at the very least).



The agreement I signed with Degica dictates that RMN will get 50% of the Distributor Revenue from each sale on the RMN Storefront. (Distributor Revenue means the net sales less the percentage commission reserved for the game's developers). So, after the developer takes their cut, RMN and Degica will split what remains down the middle.


To summarize:

• RMN will be the offical RM game store
• Degica/RMW will route traffic our way for that
• the split is 50/50 between RMN and Degica
• I am now an internet mogul

Some other salient points:

• I still retain full control of RMN and its marks and materials. I have not "sold" RMN or anything. This is simply a partnership of sorts (though, for whatever reason, the contract explicitly states that we are not partners. There is probably some legalese reason for this)
• Degica donated $650 dollars to our server funds recently, as an act of good faith.

The storefront is a separate list of games - submitting your game onto RMN and marking it as "Commercial" is not enough to submit your game to the storefront. Submitting to the storefront is a separate process. Basically, we will have a new submission queue to manage for the commercial games. This entails (or suggests) that we will also have separate submission rules for games (and resource packs and programs and whathaveyou) to appear on the commercial storefront - I suggested we tighten up and raise our current standards for commercial games on the storefront (vs games on RMN itself).


I plan to add a feature to RMN gameprofiles to post a link to your entry on the Storefront (if you have a commercial game that is both on RMN and on the Storefront), so that your RMN gameprofile can show a Buy Now! link.

Finally lastly, part of my motivation for doing this is to help the RM community out. RM has a "bad rep" out there on most other distribution platforms, and many have a tough time breaking into them, or they are subject to outright predatory rates (for example, I believe that BigFishGames' rates are something like 30/70 between developers/BFG). So while I am looking to make enough to pay for RMN's server bills so that we never need a donation again, I am also looking to help out the greater community. that and mad mank yo

Part of the greater motivation for this is that RMN is searched for by more people looking to play RPGs than other sites (like RMW or RPGHQ) - it is hoped that this will translate into better sales. My hope is that the existence of the Storefront will increase traffic to RMN overall and raise the profile of the site.

Will it be successful? Will it be successful enough for RMN's interest? Will it destroy the very fabric of GAM MAK?

We don't have any firm dates on the launch day, other than a vague "soon", but I will keep you all updated.

So...

I will ask!