Desura a waste of time?

I got around to investigating Desura for my project.

They are PayPal ONLY. And you do not make a cent until you get over $500.

So basically if you make $499.00 you will receive nothing for your work.

Furthermore They only pay off in $500 increments. If your game makes $999.00, you will only get 70% of $500.

I thought the 30-70% split was fair, but that is simply not the case if there is a clause where they do not have to pay you.

I was wondering how Desura could possibly be competitive with steam, And now I see why. Rather than making money off the consumers, they cheat and con game developers.

Here is what the guy says in an email:

"We offer you 70% of the revenues from your game. We keep 30%. We hold the payments until you reach $500 to keep the administration costs down. Paypal is the most easy way to take care of the money, correct."

Administration costs down? More like so we can rip you off to pay our administrators.

PayPal the easiest way to to take care of money? NO it is not. They take a HUGE cut of your profits too! Dwolla and Bitcoin are much better for the developers.

Not to mention that all a person has to do is file a false paypal claim to get a refund, and possibly get your account locked.

My conclusion:

Desura is a Scam, and should be avoided.

I honestly didn't bother with Desura after reading through all of that too. I think it really sucks to have to wait for such a high number to get any payment. They're literally stealing money from game developers.

No its not a great starting place, but for an established game, as in one that has reached saturation for its market, it can be a way to get a little more.

An extra source of income that you wouldn't have otherwise.

No its not a great starting place, but for an established game, as in one that has reached saturation for its market, it can be a way to get a little more.

An extra source of income that you wouldn't have otherwise.

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Yeah, it would be cool if I was already making a lot of money from steam or something.

I sure hope my game gets so popular that I don't miss %70 of $499 worth of revenue.

I could understand holding off for under $25 per month for administration costs, but just a flat rate of $500 reeks of rip-off.

I quit doing anything with paypal after they locked up almost $5000 of mine.

Can you compare between steam and desura?

Does steam hold the payment until 500?

Can you compare between steam and desura?

Does steam hold the payment until 500?

I have not looked into Greenlight yet. I was hoping to test the waters with an alpha funded project via Desura.

If the game seemed like it was Popular then i would go and try to get a greenlight account from steam.

Now it looks like it would be worth it to just invest the $100 on Steam green light.

I may try kickstarter.

If i find out anything on Steam or Kickstarter I will post a message here, .

Are you an american developer? If not, I'd love to hear how you plan to overcome the amazon restriction on receiving the funding.

I'd also like to hear a comparison between kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms such as indiegogo.

Are you an american developer? If not, I'd love to hear how you plan to overcome the amazon restriction on receiving the funding.

I'd also like to hear a comparison between kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms such as indiegogo.

Being from Europe, and other places, you're able too?

I tried Desura a while back but didn't reach the $500 threshold. So they basically stole all revenue while I was trying to alpha-fund a game. I don't think I would ever go back. I've pocketed more money with an unfinished version of Courier than I ever got trying to release through Desura (which I made $0 from).

Ya, don't sell through them primarily. The only reason I signed up with them is to give people keys from bundles (indiegamestand, groupees, etc.) I'd recommend IndieGameStand store if you want a low limit ($100, I think its one off too?) or Humble ($250). But ya, I've only been paid once from Humble in the last 4 months cause of the limits, I don't expect I'll ever get paid from Desura :P

Greenlight is a decent way to get a bit of exposure, I've had 22000 views and have hardly linked it around anywhere. But maybe only 1% of those views will visit my site from that page.

Most systems have a payout threshold, and so do revenue share publishers. $500 is steep though..

I would wonder if its not at all possible to sue them for the difference.

I mean contractually the law usually tries to at least make both ends of the equation equal.

Do you think they provide $500's worth of service?

I got around to investigating Desura for my project.

They are PayPal ONLY. And you do not make a cent until you get over $500.

So basically if you make $499.00 you will receive nothing for your work.

Furthermore They only pay off in $500 increments. If your game makes $999.00, you will only get 70% of $500.

I thought the 30-70% split was fair, but that is simply not the case if there is a clause where they do not have to pay you.

I was wondering how Desura could possibly be competitive with steam, And now I see why. Rather than making money off the consumers, they cheat and con game developers.

Here is what the guy says in an email:

"We offer you 70% of the revenues from your game. We keep 30%. We hold the payments until you reach $500 to keep the administration costs down. Paypal is the most easy way to take care of the money, correct."

Administration costs down? More like so we can rip you off to pay our administrators.

PayPal the easiest way to to take care of money? NO it is not. They take a HUGE cut of your profits too! Dwolla and Bitcoin are much better for the developers.

Not to mention that all a person has to do is file a false paypal claim to get a refund, and possibly get your account locked.

My conclusion:

Desura is a Scam, and should be avoided.

At first it sounded like a good idea, but now I feel pretty stupid. Honestly I thought they were the only place to sell my game but now I'm pretty stuck.

Didn't want to deal with Steam after reading that it's more or less a popularity contest, and I can't afford a dev kit for the game consoles at the moment.

My question is, where is a good place to start out? I also didn't realize Paypal was bad at taking money too... this is rather depressing.

Hey guys!

I work with publishing at Desura.com and I'd like to clarify some things:

• The $500 limit is a suggestion, and for most developers it's ok. This can be negotiated and most important; you can always contact us and we will make sure you will get your money. Even if it's before the limit! We are not a scam - we want you to be happy so you can continue to make awesome games.
• We do Paypal or bank wire transfer. If you hate Paypal then we'll just wire the money.
• We really want you to be happy. If you have concerns; just pop us an email. We'll do our best to accommodate your needs!

Ok, let's keep on making games and have fun!    =)

Tomas

developersejw@desura.com

I would wonder if its not at all possible to sue them for the difference.

I mean contractually the law usually tries to at least make both ends of the equation equal.

Do you think they provide $500's worth of service?

Please do sue anyone. Talk to us instead. If you want your money before you hit the limit, just email us and we'll pay you the money. Simple as that! developersejw@desura.com