HTC is revamping its Viveport revenue share, giving PC VR and Vive XR Elite developers a 90% cut until the end of the year.
Announced today at the Game Developer Conference (GDC), HTC confirmed the new revenue share will go live on April 1, 2024, for new titles and applies retroactively from March 1st for existing games. "Developers will keep 90% of revenue on games and apps sold as one-time purchases on VIVEPORT for PCVR or VIVE XR Elite," says the company, who confirmed this lasts until the end of 2024.
It's not the first time we've seen HTC offering a more competitive rate for PC VR developers. In 2017 and 2018, HTC temporarily offered developers 100 percent of revenue from October 1 until the end of the year, while February 2019 saw the rate increase from 70/30 to 80/20. A rep informed UploadVR that the current split before today's announcement was 70/30.
It's also a much higher revenue split for developers than we're accustomed to seeing, since most digital storefronts take a standard 30% cut. Quest and Steam are no exceptions, though Valve's popular store drops this to 25% after a Steam game hits $10 million in revenue and 20% at $50 million. As such, Viveport's split is comparable to the Epic Games Store (88/12) and Itch.io's (90/10) default rate.
