The Kartridge game store has entered an open beta test. The store was created specifically for indie developers.
What will it give developers
Igrodel can already upload their PC games to the platform using accessible and understandable tools, as well as design game pages to their liking.
Kartridge will charge 30% from them, but only when the $10,000 sales threshold of the game is reached. With lower sales, publishers take all the revenue for themselves. Kartridge also promises to be completely transparent and provide gaming companies with all sales and traffic data.
For medium and small publishers, the store can be a good alternative to Steam. Of course, in terms of game distribution, Kongregate can hardly compete with Valve, at least because there are no large AAA projects on Kartridge, sharpened for indie. But Steam for the same 30% (which, by the way, it receives at any level of sales), according to market players, provides insufficient quality service and outdated tools, and indie developers on the site are in a particularly vulnerable position. So they may be interested in Kartridge, especially if they have already thought about leaving Steam.
What will he give the players
Kartridge at the start of open testing has a database of 250 indie PC games, including: West of Loathing from Asymmetric, Kingdom: New Lands from Raw Fury, Speed Brawl from Double Stallion and Production Line from Positech Games. Players can see the visual effects of the game in action by hovering over its name.
The store is equipped with a game chat with automatic moderation, feedback systems, ratings, awards and achievements. For completing games and getting badges for completing quests on the platform, players will receive a reward in the form of tokens with which they can buy new games. (Each token costs $5.) That is, the more and more actively they play, the more their library of games can become. Over time, the platform promises to introduce other types of rewards.
What other alternatives are there
The Discord messenger released a beta version of the store in August, which also promises to support indie developers who will release their games on this platform for the first time.
They will be given exclusivity for 90 days and other, as yet unnamed, functions.
The social network Vkontakte recently announced its own store for indie games. The store will give developers access to a multi-million VK audience and the opportunity to receive most of the profit from sales. But it is not yet known which one.